Ron Paul 2012 Support.

How do the mechanisms of the actual right enforcement work? How can you force (all the government has the power to do) someone to give someone else a job?

__________________

This in no way defends your statement. If you want to make the argument that you think Rick Perry is racist, or tolerant of racism, then you can make that argument. If you want to make the argument that some people will think this, fair or not, you can make that argument as well. But that's not what you did. You went after his accent, specifically, and called him "trash" who comes from the "gutter" based on the accent. That's completely indefensible, and I'm amazed that you're actually defending it anyway, particularly by defending different ideas than you actually put forward.

Judging someone based on their accent is bigotry. True or false?

Were you planning on explaining what part of what I said was wrong?

Except that I actually haven't taken a position, I've simply presented the standard libertarian argument, if only because you sound as if you've never even heard of or considered it. You made a statement about it and I'm asking you to defend it. So far, despite posting several times, you haven't. At this point you're just repeating the statement back to people in disbelief.

Yeah, that's the practical argument, which is also worth considering. Laws about discriminatory hiring practices, even if justified in a hypothetical sense, would seem to just force most discrimination beneath the surface.

Did you even read my reason as to why it was unnecessary? And I quote myself again:

I don't feel it was necessary either knowing what I know about not only American, but world history. Does that make me a ignorant, racist, "white-trash-country-bumpkin" as well. (According to you?) I'd really like to know.

__________________
Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

What was different about the rest of the world and the United States is in other countries slavery happened in colonial countries, not on native soil. By the time of the Civil War the rest of the Western countries had ended slavery decades earlier, not for economic reasons, but on moral grounds, but having a mixed economy not totally dependant on slavery made that decision easier. The South developed an agrarian economy totally dependent on slavery. All Lincoln wanted to do, and he was a moderate, not an abolitionist, was to do exactly what Ron Paul claims he wanted, to let it die out. The Civil War became necessary and unavoidable because the South insisted future territories becoming states being at least balanced between slave and free soil states to maintain their political power to perpetuate slavery and left the Union because the days of slavery would eventually wither with the ascendancy of the Republican Party, not because the institute was in immediate danger. What makes Ron Paul's comments suspect is he is implying the South should have been allowed to separate from the Union, that eventually (how long?) slavery would have died out. Yes. of course, slavery was doomed, but how long would that have taken?. As a separate nation which at the time was entirely dependant on slavery without an industrial base, it could have been a few decades into the twentieth century as the society eventually developed manufacturing. Lincoln and the Republican Party had what was essentially a libertarian position on slavery, let it die, and it was the South who insisted otherwise making conflict and war inevitable unless you accept the notion individual states should have the right to leave the Union.

__________________
It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

No, not when you are running for political office.

Television has reduced regional accents and candidates running for national office who sound too regional may have difficulty connecting in areas outside of their region. Accents are fair game. Kerry was criticized by some because he had lost his Boston accent, very clear in clips when he was much younger, and was used as evidence he was a phony or something, but I doubt Kerry with his original accent would have gotten the nomination. It made him harder to listen to.

And regional accents outside of your region may be a hiring impediment for certain jobs outside of your region. Many broadcasters born in places like Texas (Dan Rather) or New York (Howard Stern) made deliberate effort to adjust their sound.

No, if you can't prove there is discrimination you can't enforce it.

But under a truly libertarian system, you could do what was common in many states in the forties and earlier, not just in the South, and put up in front of an apartment building "For Rent" and under it "No Mexicans." California passed a referendum in the sixties making it legal to not sell your home to minorities until the court threw it out as unconstitutional. Is that what libertarians think is acceptable, to create segregated neighborhoods that keep minorities in ghettos as long as the segregation comes from realtors and homeowners instead of the government?

And you could blatantly discriminate in hiring practices, put it in the personnel guide, and it would be legal and permissible. The argument ecconomic factors would change the policy may or may not be true, but it is assuming modern attitudes which were shaped by making segregation and discrimination illegal would have developed on their own and at the same time frame which is doubtful.

This assumes that colonies aren't representative of their own respective country, which is wholly flawed. Many of these colonies gave up slavery because it was in their best incentives to do so. That's how market's work, it's based on incentives, it is not in ones best incentive to keep slavery if they cause one to lose market value. This is how slavery should, (could and was to the degree outside this nation), defeated. The lasting result is people in those nations got over their hatred of one another and lived peacefully. Now I've been all over the South and had mixed feelings, one is that the people where intelligent, however, they still have lingering negative sentiment towards blacks, (or if one was black, whites). Hell I even saw Confederate Flag boogie boards all over North Carolina beach shops. It's still all there. Why? Because we didn't give people the incentive to let old, horrible, ways go.

The colonies didn't voluntarily give up slavery in Great Britain, the country I am most familiar with. There was a political struggle in the British House of Commons and the anti slavery people won and ended it, period. Slavery just was not a major thing there like it was in the United States. It took place in areas with little white populations on islands with plantations much larger than in the South and far fewer of them. It was morality first, and secondly the economic reality it wasn't going to affect Britain very much by ending it. Ron Paul's comments assume if they are to make any kind of sense the North as represented by the policies of Lincoln were trying to force the South to end slavery and it is false. The only way to have avoided the Civil War was to let the South go. The South wasn't allowed to do that, thus establishing for all time the limitations of states' rights.The reason for lingering Southern resentment in the South is racism created to justify slavery. It would still linger if they voluntarily ended slavery. And even when slavery ended they imposed Jim Crow laws to keep blacks in their place.

... good stuff, you know this history well.

Although I must say that I appreciate Paul's willingness to think outside the box, especially on matters of war, and his idea of buying the slaves and then releasing them is intriguing.

Of course, I imagine that the South would have never gone for it.

Everyone has equal voice in a democracy; this is its definition. On the other hand, capital flows require inequality, since all transactions are made for the sake of personal gain. The trickle-down theory -- which I'm sure you espouse -- writes this inequality into the very structure of capitalism itself; it declares inequality has the very engine of the market.

In short, what you say is nonsense, though I can see your confusion.

It is true that the consumer always plays a certain mediating role in the markets and the behavior of businesses, but it is not true that this role can be construed as anything even slightly analogous to a democracy. If one wants to make an argument for capitalism, it cannot be on the grounds of some family resemblance to democracy. To claim so would be to claim an oxymoron.

Finally, is it not an old cliche for the boss to remind his workers that his business is, indeed, precisely not a democracy?

__________________
"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Hey, stop saying new things. There are old things you still need to say new things to. Some on the same topic, even.

Say what? You're saying there's no such thing as a mutually beneficial transaction?

Also, inequality (in terms of ability, remember; people like to drop the extra words when they rail against capitalism because "inequality" sounds far more insidious without qualifiers) is the very structure of reality. Capitalism reveals a situation where some people are better at some things, but it doesn't create it.

The analogy is off: the business is not a democracy, but the mass of all businesses together is like one. The correct analogy would be one in which each business is like a candidate for public office: the inside of a candidate's mind is also not a democracy, but the ability to vote for one candidate over another is what makes the selection democratic. Similarly, while each business is not a democracy, the ability to "vote" for one or another with your time or money is very democratic.

This is not to say they're identical. It's just an analogy, after all. But if it breaks down it breaks down further along, at higher levels of specificity, and not for the reasons you're saying.

This doesn't follow. Something is bigoted in general, but not when you say it about someone running for office? What?

1) The fact that people did this is irrelevant. I'm talking about what's fair to use to judge someone for. The fact that some people will do it whether it's fair or not, and that some public figures account for this, means absolutely nothing of import here.

2) Saying "accents are fair game" to discuss in some level is not a justification to use them to call someone "trash."

Also, I hate to harp on this, but here's my last post about the Civil Rights act. I'm drawing attention to it because I'm pretty sure it's going to be ignored otherwise, and as I pointed out in it, so far you don't seem to have really attempted to engage the libertarian position on discrimination at all.

What you posted there is not an argument, it is a reference to an earlier post. Until you clarify what you are talking about I will assume I uderstood what you said and adequately replied. (I certainly understood Ron Paul). If you are trying to narrow his position on civil rights to a very narrow position about employer rights it negates the broader ramification of his opposition to the law. Do private citizens and businesses have the right to openly discriminate based on religion and skin color? Libertarians like to select arguments for narrow positions they can defend, ignoring the fact that their over all approach to government would mean a society most people would find odious if they understood it. Try to read about something Libertarians don't emphasize, their opposition to all public roads and see if they make any sense at all.

It is not bigotry if you don't like the way a person talks. Al Smith with his thick New York City working class act couldn't connect with voters in 1928. The accent is still a problem. Can you imagine a President that sounded like the Nanny? Or a mobster?

...which contained an argument.

You didn't. Here is my post. Your response was to say you were "speechless," and then to just restate the position back to me. How is that adequate? You didn't address anything.

One of the reasons I'm not a libertarian. But 1) we're talking about a specific argument against a specific piece of legislation. There's no reason to extrapolate from that argument unless you want to do so because you think you'll have an easier time arguing against something broader, and 2) libertarianism is not binary. One can be libertarian and not believe absolutely everything little thing should be done without government, so it's a bit of a straw man, anyway.

You chose the example of the Civil Rights Act. You dismissed Paul based on that alone. So I'm asking questions about it and advancing arguments, and your response so far has just been to repeat them in disbelief.

Replace "talks" with "looks." Is it bigoted now?

Also, you keep defending a position that does not reflect the severity of what you said. You called him "trash" from the "gutter," yet when I ask you to account for such bigotry (and I'm sorry, dude, but that's what it is), you end up defending some innocuous version of it, by saying it's not bigotry to "not like" how someone talks. As if not liking the way someone talks and calling them trash for it are the same thing.

As I said before, this is irrelevant. The fact that people are like this is in no way a defense of it, let alone a defense of what you said, specifically.

When you offer up explanations like this, though, you're really just reinforcing what I mentioned awhile back: that you have, at best, a passing interest in what is actually fair or defensible, and are willing to dismiss positions not because you have any objection based on policy or sound reasoning, but only because they're outside the mainstream. Many of your responses suddenly make sense when viewed in this light.

Conflating what's right or true with what's politically salable will inevitably lead to confused thinking and an inconsistent, ad-hoc ideology.

I pretty much answered it here:


Originally Posted by Sedai
How do the mechanisms of the actual right enforcement work? How can you force (all the government has the power to do) someone to give someone else a job?

No, if you can't prove there is discrimination you can't enforce it.

But under a truly libertarian system, you could do what was common in many states in the forties and earlier, not just in the South, and put up in front of an apartment building "For Rent" and under it "No Mexicans." California passed a referendum in the sixties making it legal to not sell your home to minorities until the court threw it out as unconstitutional. Is that what libertarians think is acceptable, to create segregated neighborhoods that keep minorities in ghettos as long as the segregation comes from realtors and homeowners instead of the government?





And you could blatantly discriminate in hiring practices, put it in the personnel guide, and it would be legal and permissible. The argument ecconomic factors would change the policy may or may not be true, but it is assuming modern attitudes which were shaped by making segregation and discrimination illegal would have developed on their own and at the same time frame which is doubtful.

This doesn't answer it. This is just you talking about people discriminating, and then asking if that's what libertarians believe. It's the exact same way I described your response before: repeating the position in disbelief.

This reply doesn't explain why this form of immorality needs a law more than the many, many things are that blatantly wrong, yet clearly ought to be legal (which you implied, by making the "argument" that it was wrong, as if that were in dispute or somehow settled the matter).

And it definitely doesn't defend your claim that it somehow violates anyone's freedom to have people decide to not hire them. It especially doesn't explain how this is somehow the same sort of violation of freedom as specifically telling someone (yeah, even bigots; they get rights, too) what criteria they're allowed to use to hire someone. Equating these two is a false parallel. In terms of freedom, it's not even close.

No, it does not assume that at all, for two reasons:

1) The market-based punishment is only contingent on some people not being bigoted. Those people will have a distinct advantage because they'll be hiring on merit whereas others are dismissing based on superficial things. All that is required from that point forward are the perfectly reasonable assumptions that this naturally-occuring integration will have a positive effect over time (which is common to both sides of the argument, by the way), and that businesses desire to compete and be profitable will, over time, override their bigotry. No leap of faith or unreasonable assumption necessary on either count.

2) Even if this assumption were crucial to the argument you mention, it still wouldn't have anything to do with the justification for the law itself. There are two arguments: the one that suggests this sort of thing will happen naturally (which doesn't have to involve saying it will happen on the same time frame at all; where on earth are you getting that?), and the idea that we just don't have a right to do it, regardless of whether or not it will slow things down. That's the technical argument: people have a right to be bigots, the same way they have a right to be jerks, or rude to people around them. That's freedom, man. It allows things we don't like, the same way freedom of speech lets people say stupid, hateful things.

Uh, what? No, that's not what we want...

Also - What about my question? How do you enforce a right for one citizen if it involves forcing another citizen (in this case a business owner) to give you a job?