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> There has never been either a legal or moral right in any tradition of freedom of speech throughout history, including the US tradition, to insist that other

> There has never been either a legal or moral right in any tradition of freedom of speech throughout history, including the US tradition, to insist that other private parties who disagree with your speech continue to do business with you. I don't care - there bloody well should be.

jkaplowitz 6y ago
How would that work, practically? Let's say I prefer to get my hair cut by a barber that makes public statements in favor of gender equality instead of patronizing one that publicly advocates for the dynamics of Western society's traditional gender roles. For the sake of this scenario, let's say there's no other relevant difference between the two barbers, except where noted. Should my disfavored barber be able to insist that I shift some or all of my hair care business to them since the reason I'm not using them is their speech? How much of my business should they be able to force? Would it be any different if I preferred the traditionalist and the one who wanted to force my business were the equality advocate? What if my preferred barber just stayed quiet and it were the one who vocally advocated either view who insisted on my business? What if the business terms of the barber with distasteful speech were worse, and how much worse would they need to be for that difference to outweigh their free speech rights? None of this seems very plausible to enforce well. More importantly, who would decide among all these possibilities? That's quite the power of imposing one's views (and financial policies) on others. I'm not sure I trust any government or private regulatory authority with that much control over private lives and livelihoods.
- unishark 6y ago
  A "moral right" would be easy to enforce. Everyone just thinks less of people who mix politics and business.
  - jkaplowitz 6y ago
    But that's the thing - not everyone does think less of such people, under the view that only people with privilege can even have the luxury of tuning out the impact of politics on their lives at work, since marginalized colleagues still suffer the impacts of politics daily at the office (or indirectly elsewhere in ways attributable to the actions and inactions of their employer) and they shouldn't be blamed for mixing politics and business when they speak up about it. I realize that's not your view, but it's a plenty common view. Further, not everyone who wants to keep politics and business separate even agrees on what mixing politics and business means. Is it politics for a company to go out of its way to make bathrooms explicitly gender-neutral, put pronouns in staff directories, encourage even people who are not trans to indicate their pronouns so that trans people don't feel singled out by doing so, discipline people for persistent or intentional use of the wrong pronouns in the workplace, and cover common trans needs like hormone replacement therapy in the company health insurance plan? Many people on the right of the US political spectrum would call that politics. Many other people conclude that some good workers happen to be trans and would feel more comfortable working at such employers than at ones with traditional attitudes toward them, meaning that these changes have the apolitical good business consequence of maximizing the ability of the company to attract and retain workers. Does one have to inquire into the motivation of the employer for adopting these policies to decide if they're mixing politics or business, or just engaging in business? Lots of subjectivity even on moral rights questions like this. Though, I will say that my use of the word "enforce" is really only applicable to legal rights, not moral rights, outside of some kind of dystopian enforcement of what people are allowed to think.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  So this is fine, but gay wedding cakes aren't? The problem with modern leftism is consistency in beliefs. It's why I had to just walk away despite still agreeing with most leftist policy ideas.
  - jkaplowitz 6y ago
    If you're referring to the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, it wasn't about free speech rights at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colo... Both sides of that case agreed that the company was choosing to deny its custom wedding cake services to a gay wedding because of the owner's religious beliefs against gay weddings, not because of anyone's speech. In other words, they objected to making a wedding cake because of attributes inherent to who the engaged couple were, not anything that was being said or expressed. I view it as plenty consistent to forbid businesses which serve the public from choosing not to serve customers based on innate aspects of who they are, like being the same sex or gender as each other, while still allowing them to make such choices in reaction to the customer's speech. Sometimes the line is clear (no speech was at issue in this case), and sometimes it's blurry, but that's absolutely a consistent rule whether or not it's the one you support. The reason the Supreme Court ruled for the bakeshop was very narrow. The ruling acknowledged that states can constitutionally have non-discrimination laws that apply neutrally to businesses without making available exemptions due to religious beliefs. The ruling was just about the behavior of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in applying their state law to this case, which the Supreme Court majority viewers as hostile to the owner's religious beliefs and not religiously neutral as the government must be. So it was about religious bias in the government action, only. One member of the 5-4 majority wrote that he might well have ruled the other way had the commission acted neutrally.
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      It's still a free speech issue when the cakeshop did not want to write the message the customer asked for. FWIW I also disagree with the ruling, for the same reasons I oppose online censorship by private companies.

jkaplowitz 6y ago

How would that work, practically? Let's say I prefer to get my hair cut by a barber that makes public statements in favor of gender equality instead of patronizing one that publicly advocates for the dynamics of Western society's traditional gender roles. For the sake of this scenario, let's say there's no other relevant difference between the two barbers, except where noted. Should my disfavored barber be able to insist that I shift some or all of my hair care business to them since the reason I'm not using them is their speech? How much of my business should they be able to force? Would it be any different if I preferred the traditionalist and the one who wanted to force my business were the equality advocate? What if my preferred barber just stayed quiet and it were the one who vocally advocated either view who insisted on my business? What if the business terms of the barber with distasteful speech were worse, and how much worse would they need to be for that difference to outweigh their free speech rights? None of this seems very plausible to enforce well. More importantly, who would decide among all these possibilities? That's quite the power of imposing one's views (and financial policies) on others. I'm not sure I trust any government or private regulatory authority with that much control over private lives and livelihoods.

unishark 6y ago
A "moral right" would be easy to enforce. Everyone just thinks less of people who mix politics and business.
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  But that's the thing - not everyone does think less of such people, under the view that only people with privilege can even have the luxury of tuning out the impact of politics on their lives at work, since marginalized colleagues still suffer the impacts of politics daily at the office (or indirectly elsewhere in ways attributable to the actions and inactions of their employer) and they shouldn't be blamed for mixing politics and business when they speak up about it. I realize that's not your view, but it's a plenty common view. Further, not everyone who wants to keep politics and business separate even agrees on what mixing politics and business means. Is it politics for a company to go out of its way to make bathrooms explicitly gender-neutral, put pronouns in staff directories, encourage even people who are not trans to indicate their pronouns so that trans people don't feel singled out by doing so, discipline people for persistent or intentional use of the wrong pronouns in the workplace, and cover common trans needs like hormone replacement therapy in the company health insurance plan? Many people on the right of the US political spectrum would call that politics. Many other people conclude that some good workers happen to be trans and would feel more comfortable working at such employers than at ones with traditional attitudes toward them, meaning that these changes have the apolitical good business consequence of maximizing the ability of the company to attract and retain workers. Does one have to inquire into the motivation of the employer for adopting these policies to decide if they're mixing politics or business, or just engaging in business? Lots of subjectivity even on moral rights questions like this. Though, I will say that my use of the word "enforce" is really only applicable to legal rights, not moral rights, outside of some kind of dystopian enforcement of what people are allowed to think.
throwaway3699 6y ago
So this is fine, but gay wedding cakes aren't? The problem with modern leftism is consistency in beliefs. It's why I had to just walk away despite still agreeing with most leftist policy ideas.
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  If you're referring to the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, it wasn't about free speech rights at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colo... Both sides of that case agreed that the company was choosing to deny its custom wedding cake services to a gay wedding because of the owner's religious beliefs against gay weddings, not because of anyone's speech. In other words, they objected to making a wedding cake because of attributes inherent to who the engaged couple were, not anything that was being said or expressed. I view it as plenty consistent to forbid businesses which serve the public from choosing not to serve customers based on innate aspects of who they are, like being the same sex or gender as each other, while still allowing them to make such choices in reaction to the customer's speech. Sometimes the line is clear (no speech was at issue in this case), and sometimes it's blurry, but that's absolutely a consistent rule whether or not it's the one you support. The reason the Supreme Court ruled for the bakeshop was very narrow. The ruling acknowledged that states can constitutionally have non-discrimination laws that apply neutrally to businesses without making available exemptions due to religious beliefs. The ruling was just about the behavior of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in applying their state law to this case, which the Supreme Court majority viewers as hostile to the owner's religious beliefs and not religiously neutral as the government must be. So it was about religious bias in the government action, only. One member of the 5-4 majority wrote that he might well have ruled the other way had the commission acted neutrally.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    It's still a free speech issue when the cakeshop did not want to write the message the customer asked for. FWIW I also disagree with the ruling, for the same reasons I oppose online censorship by private companies.