5 ms·

There's a difference between discriminating against people's immutable identities (ie black people) and people's choices. I can't kick you out of my bar for be

by growse 6y ago

There's a difference between discriminating against people's immutable identities (ie black people) and people's choices. I can't kick you out of my bar for being black, but I can kick you out for being loud.

imgabe 6y ago
There is a difference between those things, but that doesn’t mean we should automatically support all discrimination that isn’t based on immutable qualities. If eBay decided to delist all copies of White Fragility we should oppose that too. Ideas need to be freely exchanged and debated not forcibly censored by whoever happens to have power at the moment.
- growse 6y ago
  In a free society with free markets, you are free to oppose antyhing that a business does that you don't agree with. You have many existing mechanisms for expressing that disagreement, including protest, and starting your own business and competing. If people agree with your values, you will succeed. eBay choosing to delist all copies of a book is eBay exercising their own freedom of expression. Having the government coming along and censoring that freedom seems counter to the idea that "Ideas need to be freely exchanged ... not forcibly censored".
  - imgabe 6y ago
    Delisting a book is not an expression. eBay is (should be) a neutral party through which other people are expressing things by buying and selling things. The person offering the book for sale is speaking for themselves, not for eBay. If people decide they don't want to buy the book, that's fine, but it is not eBay's speech.
    - growse 6y ago
      > Delisting a book is not an expression. Do you think a bookshop should be free to choose to sell books written in German or not? If they have that freedom, what's that freedom called? > eBay is (should be) a neutral party There's no such thing as "neutral". People, organisations etc. have values which they try and reflect through their actions and practices. > The person offering the book for sale is speaking for themselves, not for eBay. If people decide they don't want to buy the book, that's fine, but it is not eBay's speech Are advocating that eBay should be forced to pay to do business that the shareholders, board and employees disagree with? Forced by the government?
      - imgabe 6y ago
        > Are advocating that eBay should be forced to pay to do business that the shareholders, board and employees disagree with? Forced by the government? Yes, exactly like if the shareholders, board, and employees didn't want to do business with Black people, the government forces them to do so anyway. It absolutely boggles the mind that the justification comes down to "well, some people don't want to do that". Tough shit! If you don't want to deal with all kinds of people from all walks of life with all kinds of backgrounds and opinions, don't run a public-facing business.
        richiebful1 6y ago
        So if you were in charge of the government, how would you propose regulating these companies? By forcing them to act as a "utility" that has to list every kind of product? Do I disagree with the Dr. Seuss delisting? Yes. Do I think government regulations would be more harmful than helpful in this case? Yes. If eBay was a monopoly, I'd be much more concerned (all the more reason for robust anti-trust legislation). But in practice, if you want to sell a Dr. Seuss book, take your business elsewhere.
        AshWolfy 6y ago
        businesses can deny service to anyone as long as its not because they belong to a protected group
        imgabe 6y ago
        And 60-70 years ago there was no such thing as protected groups. Businesses could and did deny service to anyone for any reason. Collectively, we as a society looked at that situation and said "Hey this isn't great that businesses can deny service to whole groups of people based on their religion or skin color, we shouldn't let them do that", and we stopped letting them do that. Similarly, today we can look at what's happening and say "Hey this isn't great that businesses are allowed to restrict our speech and narrow down the realm of ideas to the least common denominator. It is destructive to the public discourse that a small group of people can claim outrage and shut down whoever they want", so we can decide not to let businesses do that, just like we decided not to let them refuse service to protected groups.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  I doubt the same people would oppose it though. Rights of downtrodden groups are constantly shit on without a peep from the “free speech absolutist” crowd.
LudwigNagasena 6y ago
There is no difference. Whether something is immutable is to a large degree irrelevant.
- growse 6y ago
  So do you think I should be allowed to kick people out for being black, or that I should be forced to serve everyone no matter their actions?
  - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
    Neither. It depends on the specifics. Should you be allowed to not serve someone who has anger issues? Does it matter if this anger issues are caused by genetic hormonal imbalance?
    - growse 6y ago
      So there's an angry person in my bar right now, shouting at everyone and driving away business. Who gets to decide that throwing them out is allowed or not?
      - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
        The laws and you.
uuidgen 6y ago
As I understand you can kick people out for anything that is not a protected class and that's just wrong. Because then people will kick Blacks out and claim it's not because of their skin colour but because of their shoe style being wrong. If you're operating a publicly open business it should be that you can't discriminate unless there is provision for it, not the other way around. So you can throw out a disruptive customer or make a senior-only or man-only club. Those provisions have to be carefully considered though, otherwise the "right to refuse service" is just a thinly veiled right to be racist and bigoted.

by growse 6y ago

imgabe 6y ago

There is a difference between those things, but that doesn’t mean we should automatically support all discrimination that isn’t based on immutable qualities. If eBay decided to delist all copies of White Fragility we should oppose that too. Ideas need to be freely exchanged and debated not forcibly censored by whoever happens to have power at the moment.

growse 6y ago
In a free society with free markets, you are free to oppose antyhing that a business does that you don't agree with. You have many existing mechanisms for expressing that disagreement, including protest, and starting your own business and competing. If people agree with your values, you will succeed. eBay choosing to delist all copies of a book is eBay exercising their own freedom of expression. Having the government coming along and censoring that freedom seems counter to the idea that "Ideas need to be freely exchanged ... not forcibly censored".
- imgabe 6y ago
  Delisting a book is not an expression. eBay is (should be) a neutral party through which other people are expressing things by buying and selling things. The person offering the book for sale is speaking for themselves, not for eBay. If people decide they don't want to buy the book, that's fine, but it is not eBay's speech.
  - growse 6y ago
    > Delisting a book is not an expression. Do you think a bookshop should be free to choose to sell books written in German or not? If they have that freedom, what's that freedom called? > eBay is (should be) a neutral party There's no such thing as "neutral". People, organisations etc. have values which they try and reflect through their actions and practices. > The person offering the book for sale is speaking for themselves, not for eBay. If people decide they don't want to buy the book, that's fine, but it is not eBay's speech Are advocating that eBay should be forced to pay to do business that the shareholders, board and employees disagree with? Forced by the government?
    - imgabe 6y ago
      > Are advocating that eBay should be forced to pay to do business that the shareholders, board and employees disagree with? Forced by the government? Yes, exactly like if the shareholders, board, and employees didn't want to do business with Black people, the government forces them to do so anyway. It absolutely boggles the mind that the justification comes down to "well, some people don't want to do that". Tough shit! If you don't want to deal with all kinds of people from all walks of life with all kinds of backgrounds and opinions, don't run a public-facing business.
      - richiebful1 6y ago
        So if you were in charge of the government, how would you propose regulating these companies? By forcing them to act as a "utility" that has to list every kind of product? Do I disagree with the Dr. Seuss delisting? Yes. Do I think government regulations would be more harmful than helpful in this case? Yes. If eBay was a monopoly, I'd be much more concerned (all the more reason for robust anti-trust legislation). But in practice, if you want to sell a Dr. Seuss book, take your business elsewhere.
      - AshWolfy 6y ago
        businesses can deny service to anyone as long as its not because they belong to a protected group
        imgabe 6y ago
        And 60-70 years ago there was no such thing as protected groups. Businesses could and did deny service to anyone for any reason. Collectively, we as a society looked at that situation and said "Hey this isn't great that businesses can deny service to whole groups of people based on their religion or skin color, we shouldn't let them do that", and we stopped letting them do that. Similarly, today we can look at what's happening and say "Hey this isn't great that businesses are allowed to restrict our speech and narrow down the realm of ideas to the least common denominator. It is destructive to the public discourse that a small group of people can claim outrage and shut down whoever they want", so we can decide not to let businesses do that, just like we decided not to let them refuse service to protected groups.
UncleMeat 6y ago
I doubt the same people would oppose it though. Rights of downtrodden groups are constantly shit on without a peep from the “free speech absolutist” crowd.

LudwigNagasena 6y ago

There is no difference. Whether something is immutable is to a large degree irrelevant.

growse 6y ago
So do you think I should be allowed to kick people out for being black, or that I should be forced to serve everyone no matter their actions?
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  Neither. It depends on the specifics. Should you be allowed to not serve someone who has anger issues? Does it matter if this anger issues are caused by genetic hormonal imbalance?
  - growse 6y ago
    So there's an angry person in my bar right now, shouting at everyone and driving away business. Who gets to decide that throwing them out is allowed or not?
    - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
      The laws and you.

uuidgen 6y ago

As I understand you can kick people out for anything that is not a protected class and that's just wrong. Because then people will kick Blacks out and claim it's not because of their skin colour but because of their shoe style being wrong. If you're operating a publicly open business it should be that you can't discriminate unless there is provision for it, not the other way around. So you can throw out a disruptive customer or make a senior-only or man-only club. Those provisions have to be carefully considered though, otherwise the "right to refuse service" is just a thinly veiled right to be racist and bigoted.