341–350 of 403 posts
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Your inalienable rights are a construct, enforced solely by "governments". Your rates in the state of nature are nothing like the rights your countrymen have agreed to provide you.
My inalienable rights were actually endowed by my Creator.
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I'll put a sharper point on it: People must be governed.[1] People have an enormous capacity to be violent, racist, sexist, small minded, paranoid, greedy, and dishonest, and the whole point of government is to collectively overcome these failings. Obviously government cannot stop discrimination just as it cannot stop murder, theft, etc. But it can dramatically reduce it by imposing the proper social norms. [1] https…
No, the point of government is to protect your rights from violation by others. Those unalienable rights you are born with as outlined in the bill of rights. It's not to overcome the failings of humanity (an impossible task if ever there was one).
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The person I was responding to was not the experiencer of the racism, as you meant it. Yes this is a good guideline in general, but there are also times when probing further is necessary for an actual meaningful discussion.
I agree with your general observations with respect to misunderstanding and assumptions. I just don't see how the questions you asked could lead to edifying answers. It is a mistake to concentrate on particulars like this, and would have been even if OP agreed with you rather than responding with a dispositive contradictory detail.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll put a sharper point on it: People must be governed.[1] People have an enormous capacity to be violent, racist, sexist, small minded, paranoid, greedy, and dishonest, and the whole point of government is to collectively overcome these failings. Obviously government cannot stop discrimination just as it cannot stop murder, theft, etc. But it can dramatically reduce it by imposing the proper social norms. [1] https…
No, the point of government is to protect your rights from violation by others. Those unalienable rights you are born with as outlined in the bill of rights. It's not to overcome the failings of humanity (an impossible task if ever there was one).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming a lot here. You're assuming there are multiple bakers. You're assuming the bakers aren't colluding. You're assuming that the homophobic baker isn't being rewarded through additional patronage or via other methods, i.e., the GoFundMes etc. for their nonexistent plights. And you're assuming that a normal-person baker who doesn't hate gay people would not be shunned for their support. The market will and…
I see your point. I guess for something like this to work, bigotry/racism/whatever would have to decrease in popularity to the point where you would be shunned harder if you were a bigot than if you were a person who openly objected to bigotry. We may not be there yet, but I do feel optimistic that we will eventually get there. Things were much worse only a short time ago. One thing that makes this ("this" being the…
You can be optimistic all you like that we'll "eventually get there" (I'm not) but optimism doesn't do much for people whose rights are being infringed today.
So the article has this bit: 'The biases of hosts can be cloaked — for example, one Airbnb listing in Washington states “we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach,” without mentioning race, class or ethnicity — and may be difficult to eradicate.' If you google it, there is only one AirBnb account with it (few listings for the rooms), with 882 total reviews. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/56977?sug=…
> we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach How would the host even know that? Are they going to ask for a picture of your plane ticket?
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AirBNB has already established that they consider themselves very "special". Most other activities happening in your home, including renting out a room to a housemate, are not subject to discrimination laws. If you don't want a particular type of person in your home, you should have that right, whether that's because you have a safety or other concern, or because you are a racist asshole. If AirBNB wants to pretend i…
"Considering yourself special" like Airbnb or Uber - doesn't actually make you special. Renting out a room to another housemate is a very different thing to listing a room for a nightly rate as a commercial transaction. Whether that automatically means you should be governed by the same laws as a hotel is unclear, but asking whether it might be appropriate is a really important thing to do. The rules society created…
I agree. Hosts should do things like not operate in areas where zoning or other ordinances prohibit or require regulatory compliance for this type of activity. If hosts were operating as an actual lodging establishment, the existing legal framework would provide a solution to discrimination issues.
If Marriott tried to put a hotel in the middle of my neighborhood, which is an 2-4 family residential zone, that effort would fail. If you tried to open a conventional B&B, (there was one that operated about 6 blocks away for many years) you would need to meet certain safety standards like having appropriate fire egress (ie. fire escapes, alarms, possibly sprinklers), have appropriate parking, allow neighbors to react and provide perspective, etc.
In the case of that B&B that was in my neighborhood, they had to install fire escapes, and the neighbors requested that a fence be installed to prevent guests from using their lawn as a pathway.
As an host, I'll never discriminate on the basis of religion, sex orientation, color of skin, national origin or gender identity. When it comes to disability, I might refuse someone whose disability would cause risk in using the apartment and might have an accident because the apartment is not safe for someone who's disabled (the building is 300 years old, there's no elevator, the stair in the duplex apartment doesn'…
I'm blind. Would you not rent this property to me because you fear for my safety therein? Would it make a difference if I've said I've skied, biked solo, rock-climbed? If so, why should I have to do so when others don't, and are trusted to make up their own minds as to whether your property works for them? Do you feel more confident than I am in determining my own limits? Disclosure: I've been denied many opportuniti…
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So slavery is okay as long as the government determines it is. Great moral framework you have there. It's morally wrong to use threats of government violence to dictate how an individual uses their private property.
You know those "threats of government violence" are the only thing stopping the practice of slavery?
Violence is only an acceptable response in cases when a person initiates a violation of another's person or property.