A question for you: is it an individual's right to be racist? Do people have a right to hold odious opinions? I would say that, yes, they do. I will shun them and be disgusted by them, but I believe that individuals have a right to hold opinions with which I stridently disagree.
Now, Rand Paul seems to believe that a corporation (a non-person) has a right to not only hold a racist opinion, to the extent that a non-corporeal entity can hold an opinion, but also to act upon it in the form of refusing to do business with a person of a given race. I believe that corporations do not have the same rights as individuals and I believe that refusing to serve individuals goes beyond opinions to actions as well. Hence I disagree with Rand Paul stridently but I don't think it is necessarily because he, himself, is a racist (though he may be, I don't know) but rather because I disagree with the tenants of his philosophy. Judah On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Eric Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: > > Can one really be ambivalent about rascism? I think that either you are ok > with racism or you are against racism. By remaining neutral on it, you are > really saying that you are ok with it. Issues like this are really some of > the few instances where it is pretty black and white (pun intended). > > -----Original Message----- > From: Judah McAuley [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 10:57 AM > To: cf-community > Subject: Re: Tea Party thinks Businesses should be allowed to deny service > to blacks. > > > On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 8:12 AM, Kris Sisk <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> It's not like he campaigned on a white supremisist platform. In fact I'd > put good odds on a majority of the people who voted for him not having heard > that opinion till after the fact. Americans >are kinda stupid about > elections that way. > > I don't think he is a white supremacist, honestly. I take his view as > being more about the relationship between private business and > government. He feels that there is no reason for the government to be > able to intrude in the relationship between a business and its > customers. Taken to the logical (or illogical) extreme that view point > means letting businesses discriminate on the basis of skin color. That > makes him an ideologue but not necessarily a racist. > >> Also it seems a very odd view for a Libertarian. I know they believe in > the absolute minimum laws, but the civil rights laws are ones that they > generally agree are neccessary. At least the >ones I've looked into seem to > think that way. > > Rand seems to be on the more corporatist side of the Libertarian > philosophy. He appears to believe that corporations are an absolute > good and, more precisely, that they are basically individuals. And if > you take this view, America holds that individuals can have seemingly > wrongheaded notions (like racism) but we still ensure them freedom of > speech, association, etc. If you take this view to the extreme, once > again, that means that it would be wrong to compel an individual (in > this case a business) to associate with those that they would prefer > not to, like black people. There is logic there even if I think it is > wrong and rather twisted. > > Judah > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:319359 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
