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Something being publicly accessible doesn't make it public in the sense of being a government function. It is still a private function. If someone wants to adv

Something being publicly accessible doesn't make it public in the sense of being a government function. It is still a private function. If someone wants to advertise to the public that they only rent to [race of people], in their private capacity - as the private owner of their property - they should be able to. >>There is no irrevocable "right to profit". Profiting simply means benefiting from an exchange. It is a completely private endeavor and the government should not be depriving people of the right to do it in order to force them to act out a particular set of ideological values. The governance principles you're promoting are those of a secular theocracy, i.e. an ideocracy.

otterley 5y ago
Here we go again. Groups of people who form a society through a government have shared values, and our laws reflect those values (though often imperfectly).
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Yes, and the common value should be non-violence, and the liberty to live one's life within the limits set by that. It should not be exerting totalitarian control over people, via the legal system, to force them to act out a particular set of values in their private capacity. What you advocate is in principle no different than communism, fascism or theocracy. The innovation was in making the individual sovereign.
  - otterley 5y ago
    Most of the laws we've made since the founding of the U.S. have been written in the blood spilled by previous generations. They are reactions to failures caused by abuses of freedom. And, yes, there is such a thing as an abuse of freedom. History reveals that people have a nature to oppress each other unfairly in the absence of laws to ensure that does not happen.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      This is a Whig reading of history, that assumes change is always positive, and regression is not. The laws you are defending are blatant oppression. A person who is acting peacefully, even if they are acting out values we subjectively perceive as not morally virtuous, should not be punished by the state, and its apparatus of violence (police, courts and prisons, used to compel compliance).

otterley 5y ago

Here we go again. Groups of people who form a society through a government have shared values, and our laws reflect those values (though often imperfectly).

CryptoPunk 5y ago
Yes, and the common value should be non-violence, and the liberty to live one's life within the limits set by that. It should not be exerting totalitarian control over people, via the legal system, to force them to act out a particular set of values in their private capacity. What you advocate is in principle no different than communism, fascism or theocracy. The innovation was in making the individual sovereign.
- otterley 5y ago
  Most of the laws we've made since the founding of the U.S. have been written in the blood spilled by previous generations. They are reactions to failures caused by abuses of freedom. And, yes, there is such a thing as an abuse of freedom. History reveals that people have a nature to oppress each other unfairly in the absence of laws to ensure that does not happen.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    This is a Whig reading of history, that assumes change is always positive, and regression is not. The laws you are defending are blatant oppression. A person who is acting peacefully, even if they are acting out values we subjectively perceive as not morally virtuous, should not be punished by the state, and its apparatus of violence (police, courts and prisons, used to compel compliance).