[quote]pushharder wrote:
Doc nor Bolt answered the lawn mowing question. You said Dustin was not free to sell his products/services based on discrimination but is he free to buy products/services based on race? After all you mentioned “commercial transactions” as a fulcrum (or “line”).
Why would selling be a commercial transaction worthy of state intervention to insure non-discrimination but not buying?[/quote]
I think this is answered by practicality. It’s just not practical to follow someone around watching for who they’re buying from. As intrusive as the desegration by law might be, the methods needed to monitor buying would have to be much more so.
I will see if I can find something that Rothbard said about morals when it comes to economics, but later. [/quote]
I can save you the trouble - don’t waste your time. If you quote Rothbard, the only effect it will have is that I will have even less respect for you. The man was a fraud and a buffoon. He isn’t taken seriously by anyone on matters moral or economic, so don’t waste the effort.[/quote]
Character has not affect on correctness. Amiright? Or is correctness determined on character?
Oh, P.S. I have never heard these assertions about Rothbard.
I think this is answered by practicality. It’s just not practical to follow someone around, watching for who they’re buying from. As intrusive as the desegration by law might be, the methods needed to monitor buying would have to be much more so. You don’t have to seize every aspect of the market/society to give it a bit of a kick in the pants.[/quote]
Libertarians always resign themselves in these arguments to the fallacy of “because we can’t do all, we therefore can do none”. The existence of degrees is a foreign concept to the neo-Jacobins.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
And, while I’m not sure anyone here does this, I second the request made of libertarians to stop using the label Conservatives. Please? We’re not anti-statists.[/quote]
Actually Conservatives have historically been known as statists, and big government at that.[/quote]
Character has not affect on correctness. Amiright? Or is correctness determined on character?[/quote]
Character does, because seekers of the truth have to be humble enough to maintain intellectual integrity no matter whose ox is gored. Rothbard wasn’t an intellectual or an economist or a scientist - he was an ideologue. And a fool. It’s far too late in the day to give his views yet another hearing in the marketplace of ideas.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
And, while I’m not sure anyone here does this, I second the request made of libertarians to stop using the label Conservatives. Please? We’re not anti-statists.[/quote]
Actually Conservatives have historically been known as statists, and big government at that.[/quote]
See my avatar ;p[/quote]
Haha, yes I laughed at that one. However, people would demand a solution and a private agency would make protocol for such cases as testing for food tainting.
Character has not affect on correctness. Amiright? Or is correctness determined on character?[/quote]
Character does, because seekers of the truth have to be humble enough to maintain intellectual integrity no matter whose ox is gored. Rothbard wasn’t an intellectual or an economist or a scientist - he was an ideologue. And a fool. It’s far too late in the day to give his views yet another hearing in the marketplace of ideas.
Most importantly, he was incorrect.
[/quote]
Okay, we have your conclusion, and you said you won’t go into your premises so I won’t even ask. Thanks.
P.S. And all I said was I was going to post a quote from Rothbard on the morals when dealing with objectivity in economics in response to how some libertarians argue so others would understand where they come from. I however explained it, so no need in doing that now. Let bygones be bygones.
That’s as far as I had to read to call bullshit. Slave owners as libertarians? You do your whole argument a disservice to try and make this point.[/quote]
Is that a fact? The above isn’t my assertion - it is the assertion of pure-strain libertarians who defend the Confederacy till the bitter end of every (losing) debate. Way they call it, the slaveowning Confederacy was a liberty-lovin’ haven.
Note my “heh” - I’ve always noted the grand irony of libertarians standing in defense of slaveowners and the far-from-libertarian antebellum South, but if you don’t like the assertion, take it up with them, not me.
But this discussion is not necessarily about practicality. Then again we have the rationalization that says…“Not anymore than any other litigation where someone can be held liable for misconduct.”[/quote]
It isn’t a “rationalization” - it’s an assertion that we have a mature justice system that are perfectly adequate to handle and properly adjudicate anti-discrimination claims in commercial transactions without the rise of a “bureaucracy”.
Sure we can. Just expand the Mother Hen government that you’ve already created to chase around the discriminatory sellers.[/quote]
Setting aside the obvious absurdity of this - (1) we wouldn’t want to do it in the interest of balancing liberty and order, and (2) we couldn’t afford such surveillance even if we wanted it - no, it isn’t enforceable because even if we assigned a Mother Hen bureaucrat to a buyer, we don’t can’t reliably know why the reason he bought from the person (racism? reverse racism? repeat customer who liked the service? cheaper?). Unenforceable. Use common sense.
And those who see big government as a tool to “fix” everything under the sun always resign themselves to the fallacy of “But we gotta do SOMEthing…and we CAN!”[/quote]
I haven’t seen anyone here advocate “big gummit” as a tool to fix this problem, nor have I seen anyone arguing we should “fix everything under the sun”, so that is two straw men, by my count.
A law establishing civil liability for discrimination in commercial transactions isn’t “big gummit” - that’s a no brainer. Moreover, I have been arguing that only certain priorities deserve intervention, and that because race is unique, it deserves this attention - so, no, there isn’t some clarion call for “gummit” to “fix everything!”.
It is absurd. Absurd to the extent of making my point. You contend it’s not absurd to chase sellers around beating them with a stick. I claim it’s absurd to chase sellers AND buyers.[/quote]
You don’t have to chase sellers, by and large. Think lunch counters in the Jim Crow South. Sellers who solicit and make themselves available to the public are generally places that don’t move.
Thus, there is a practical problem for one side of the transaction than doesn’t exist on the other.
There are limits as to how far we want to go in enforcing certain rules - we balance that enforcement with our freedoms. Happens all the time. Example? You can’t use drugs in a national park, and as such if they catch you, you get into trouble, but a ranger isn’t assigned to you the moment you enter the park to follow you and watch to see if you use drugs in the park.
