Leslie

That's rich coming from you.

You're the one who lectures ad nauseam about the "law" when it suits your anti-drug position but whatever. I have little expectation of logical consistency from internet blowhards.

Pulaski

You're the one who lectures ad nauseam about the "law" when it suits your desire to tell other people who they must do business with but whatever.

You shouldn't expect to have it both ways.

Leslie

Really? When?

lansbury

Pulaski

You tell me "it's the law", but don't like it when the same argument is made against illegal drugs.

Meanwhile I don't understand why the state, any state or government, should have the right to tell a private individual or privately owned business how they must deploy their assets, and to who they must provide their services or sell their trading stock. Perhaps you could explain the basis for your opinion?

I knew that was coming. It was just a question of who posted it!

Leslie

That was a sentence, not a lecture. You of all people should know the difference.

My belief is that if you choose to open a business to the public, you cannot then pick and choose which members of the public you choose to serve. If you want to have a private club, more power to you. But public means public.

The basis for my opinion is perfectly represented in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as it specifically deals with public accommodation. Nothing I say could explain it more clearly. Do you need a linky-winky or do you think you can manage Googling that all by yourself?



(There, in case you're still confused, that was a little more lecture-ish.)

Sally Redux

Pulaski

I know where the law came from, but like you and the drug law, I don't agree with it. And I was attempting to get you to explain your personal feelings about WHY you consider it acceptable, not to merely point me to the law.

On the drug law, there is, I believe, plenty of good reasons to strongly discourage the smoking of a toxic hallucinogenic leaf, though personally I don't give a stuff what anyone does to them selves, or with consenting adults, behind the privacy of their front door. I also think that collecting hefty taxes on it is perhaps a good idea!

Leslie

My personal feelings are that, as a standard of decency, all members of a society should be treated equally in the public domain. Individuals are entitled to their own private and personal feelings about this group or that. However, a level playing field for everybody on a societal level should be the very minimum we should accept as a civilization. All people should have the right to full membership in the world in which they live. Class systems, imo, are barbaric. We're not animals.

So, if a business person chooses to be open to the public then they should serve all members of that public or else find a different line of business. That means they accept the legal definition of public (which I happen to believe in, and agree with) and not try to make up their own personal definition of "public" as it suits their personal preferences.

RoadWarriorFromLP

No.

Pulaski

Why?

RoadWarriorFromLP

Public accomodation laws are just that. One can't discriminate against protected classes.

If some firebreathing Christian doesn't like blacks or Jews or whatever, then tough s**t. Don't get into the business of serving the public if you won't serve the public. We got rid of Jim Crow for a reason, before you emigrated here.

sir_eccles

It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. I hear a lot of stupid politicians state that because they have state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage then clearly a majority are in favor of the policy therefore it must be ok. Clearly they failed civics and exactly why protected classes still need to exist (and also why it is intolerable that the Supreme court overturned the VRA).

Incidentally, the hashtag #itsadryhate seems to be popular now.

RoadWarriorFromLP

It's ironic that a bunch of people who refer to themselves as Republicans and who claim to appreciate the concept of a Bill of Rights fail to understand that majority rule is not the sole guiding principle of a constitutional republic.

Lion in Winter

Excellently put.