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> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious

> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like. I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance. I do run a business, and I do reserve the right to withhold service from people whose principles I find offensive. Just as as an employee, I would reserve the right to withdraw my service (resign) from an employer whose principles I disagreed with. All this is very healthy for our society - it provides excellent feedback about your views, in both directions. The business owner losing business if they are overly intolerant, and the customer loses a valuable service if they are overly offensive. The system works pretty well - much better than any legal solution could.

lovich 9y ago
I think that your point would be correct if businesses did not wield the enormous amount of power that they currently do. Who competes with Cloudfare right now? Who competes with AWS? There's already jokes about how if one of those services is down then the internet is down. While everyone might agree currently with getting rid of the Daily Stormer because they are assholes, the precedent and power is now set. For the same reason is not ok for a public business to not make cakes for gay couples, we should not allow public businesses to pick and choose who is allowed to be part of the economy. If you want to argue against that, that is fine, but you have to accept it when people with the completely opposite set of morals start discriminating against _you_ edit: In case it wasn't clear, I am not a fan of Nazis, but I don't want to even set up the opportunity for businesses to have the power to just exclude me from normal day to day activity just because the CEO has decided he doesn't like whatever group I am in
- Larrikin 9y ago
  Somebody started these companies. They are free to setup their own Nazi friendly servers and compete head to head.
  - charia 9y ago
    And people said that gay people could make their own cake shops. Would you be fine with that?
    - genon 9y ago
      I'm genuinely shocked at how some people can so blithely, and possibly obliviously, throw out textbook pro-discrimination arguments when the target of the discrimination is something they don't happen to support.
      - mbrock 9y ago
        Let's say you own a café. The local political youth group "Club Hitler" submits a proposal to have their weekly meetups in your venue. You agree, and they host a number of meetups. They then begin to publicize your venue's support for the Nazi cause as part of their promotional materials. At what point in this process do you think it would be been morally appropriate for you to cancel your service to this group?
        genon 9y ago
        After I warn them that I will cancel the service if they don't stop falsely claiming I endorse the Nazi cause, and they ignore my warning.
        mbrock 9y ago
        Would it be an important matter of principle for you that you give them sufficient time to retract their claims, instead of terminating their service immediately?
        genon 9y ago
        Of course. Otherwise why even provide a service in the first place?
        9y ago
- Dove 9y ago
  Lotharbot suggested the following standard, which I think makes good sense: if a business provides a generic product, they should not be able to discriminate in who they sell it to, and in turn, we as society recognize that they are not saying anything about support or disagreement with their customers' views by selling them things. If, on the other hand, a product involves customization and expression, the business can refuse customers for ideological reasons, and we can infer from their work what they support. So a bakery making generic wedding cakes must provide them for everyone, and we as society are crystal clear that this does not imply the baker supports interracial marriage. However, a bakery providing custom cakes based on the couple cannot be compelled to write "Arranged marriage between children is beautiful" on a cake. A web host is required to sell you webspace regardless of your content, unless it is actually illegal or contrary to technical and ideologically neutral terms of service. But a web design firm may decline to design a page for you based on its content. I think this is a really good principle, and a great way to preserve both free speech and freedom of conscience.
fennecfoxen 9y ago
> I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance. Well, welcome to the club! Other noteable groups objecting to their principles being regulated by a government office include Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, CO, and Memories Pizza of Walker, IN. (For the moment, disregard the likes of Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor, as their matters of principle-regulation are less directly relevant.) I figure there are three-ish main options. 1. People are consistently required to suppress their principles, and do business with groups like the Daily Stormer. 2. People are consistently allowed to exercise their principles, and refuse service to gay weddings. 3. A disaster area of conflicting regulations both for and against the right of various groups to be served by various businesses, conforming to no consistent set of principles but rather to whatever is politically popular and expedient today, and hypocritical to the core. My money's on 3. (There's a theoretical possibility they'll actually nail down specific principles and not make it a total mess, but I don't think it's plausible.)
- Xylakant 9y ago
  You're missing out on option 4: People can't discriminate on properties that the person they are doing business with can't pick or change (gender, sexual orientation, color of skin, hair, size of nose ...) but can discriminate on properties that the person in question did choose or could change (voicing the desire to kill or suppress large parts of the population, affiliation with nazis or just being an idiot in general). Your notable groups are not required or regulated in any way that would require them to print a swastika on a cake or a Hitler face on their pizza if the customer ask so. They are, however, required to serve queer and non-queer people of all skin tones. There is indeed a difference between these kinds of discrimination.
  - fjh 9y ago
    > People can't discriminate on properties that the person they are doing business with can't pick or change [...] but can discriminate on properties that the person in question did choose or could change Religious beliefs seem to fall squarely in the latter category (at least to the extent that political views do). Are you really comfortable with people discriminating on that basis?
gscott 9y ago
As long as they are not baking cakes they can turn down any customer that they want.
abalone 9y ago
"Public service" is an important distinction here that you're missing. There's a big difference between opening a shop and running a telecommunications business. While it would be totally appropriate for you to set the tone and messaging of your shop and even discriminate among customers, I submit it would not be good for our society if telecom companies banned customers based on their legal speech. You wouldn't want that, because while it would be great if it only targeted racists and Nazis, what if it didn't? This is basic public communication infrastructure, just like the public streets that link up private shops. The principle that applies is a basic Enlightenment one: everyone has the right to speak. You don't have to agree. You can not visit their shop. You can protest outside their shop. But you don't get to barricade their shop and cut its wires.

lovich 9y ago

I think that your point would be correct if businesses did not wield the enormous amount of power that they currently do. Who competes with Cloudfare right now? Who competes with AWS? There's already jokes about how if one of those services is down then the internet is down. While everyone might agree currently with getting rid of the Daily Stormer because they are assholes, the precedent and power is now set. For the same reason is not ok for a public business to not make cakes for gay couples, we should not allow public businesses to pick and choose who is allowed to be part of the economy. If you want to argue against that, that is fine, but you have to accept it when people with the completely opposite set of morals start discriminating against _you_ edit: In case it wasn't clear, I am not a fan of Nazis, but I don't want to even set up the opportunity for businesses to have the power to just exclude me from normal day to day activity just because the CEO has decided he doesn't like whatever group I am in

Larrikin 9y ago
Somebody started these companies. They are free to setup their own Nazi friendly servers and compete head to head.
- charia 9y ago
  And people said that gay people could make their own cake shops. Would you be fine with that?
  - genon 9y ago
    I'm genuinely shocked at how some people can so blithely, and possibly obliviously, throw out textbook pro-discrimination arguments when the target of the discrimination is something they don't happen to support.
    - mbrock 9y ago
      Let's say you own a café. The local political youth group "Club Hitler" submits a proposal to have their weekly meetups in your venue. You agree, and they host a number of meetups. They then begin to publicize your venue's support for the Nazi cause as part of their promotional materials. At what point in this process do you think it would be been morally appropriate for you to cancel your service to this group?
      - genon 9y ago
        After I warn them that I will cancel the service if they don't stop falsely claiming I endorse the Nazi cause, and they ignore my warning.
        mbrock 9y ago
        Would it be an important matter of principle for you that you give them sufficient time to retract their claims, instead of terminating their service immediately?
        genon 9y ago
        Of course. Otherwise why even provide a service in the first place?
      - 9y ago
Dove 9y ago
Lotharbot suggested the following standard, which I think makes good sense: if a business provides a generic product, they should not be able to discriminate in who they sell it to, and in turn, we as society recognize that they are not saying anything about support or disagreement with their customers' views by selling them things. If, on the other hand, a product involves customization and expression, the business can refuse customers for ideological reasons, and we can infer from their work what they support. So a bakery making generic wedding cakes must provide them for everyone, and we as society are crystal clear that this does not imply the baker supports interracial marriage. However, a bakery providing custom cakes based on the couple cannot be compelled to write "Arranged marriage between children is beautiful" on a cake. A web host is required to sell you webspace regardless of your content, unless it is actually illegal or contrary to technical and ideologically neutral terms of service. But a web design firm may decline to design a page for you based on its content. I think this is a really good principle, and a great way to preserve both free speech and freedom of conscience.

fennecfoxen 9y ago

> I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance. Well, welcome to the club! Other noteable groups objecting to their principles being regulated by a government office include Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, CO, and Memories Pizza of Walker, IN. (For the moment, disregard the likes of Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor, as their matters of principle-regulation are less directly relevant.) I figure there are three-ish main options. 1. People are consistently required to suppress their principles, and do business with groups like the Daily Stormer. 2. People are consistently allowed to exercise their principles, and refuse service to gay weddings. 3. A disaster area of conflicting regulations both for and against the right of various groups to be served by various businesses, conforming to no consistent set of principles but rather to whatever is politically popular and expedient today, and hypocritical to the core. My money's on 3. (There's a theoretical possibility they'll actually nail down specific principles and not make it a total mess, but I don't think it's plausible.)

Xylakant 9y ago
You're missing out on option 4: People can't discriminate on properties that the person they are doing business with can't pick or change (gender, sexual orientation, color of skin, hair, size of nose ...) but can discriminate on properties that the person in question did choose or could change (voicing the desire to kill or suppress large parts of the population, affiliation with nazis or just being an idiot in general). Your notable groups are not required or regulated in any way that would require them to print a swastika on a cake or a Hitler face on their pizza if the customer ask so. They are, however, required to serve queer and non-queer people of all skin tones. There is indeed a difference between these kinds of discrimination.
- fjh 9y ago
  > People can't discriminate on properties that the person they are doing business with can't pick or change [...] but can discriminate on properties that the person in question did choose or could change Religious beliefs seem to fall squarely in the latter category (at least to the extent that political views do). Are you really comfortable with people discriminating on that basis?

gscott 9y ago

As long as they are not baking cakes they can turn down any customer that they want.

abalone 9y ago

"Public service" is an important distinction here that you're missing. There's a big difference between opening a shop and running a telecommunications business. While it would be totally appropriate for you to set the tone and messaging of your shop and even discriminate among customers, I submit it would not be good for our society if telecom companies banned customers based on their legal speech. You wouldn't want that, because while it would be great if it only targeted racists and Nazis, what if it didn't? This is basic public communication infrastructure, just like the public streets that link up private shops. The principle that applies is a basic Enlightenment one: everyone has the right to speak. You don't have to agree. You can not visit their shop. You can protest outside their shop. But you don't get to barricade their shop and cut its wires.