Christian hotel owners penalised for turning away a gay couple

[Enoch the Red]

Because I can't murder myself under coercion.

Are you not denying help to those that need it in your own country? Aren't there treatments for cancer, AIDS, organ failure, etc... that aren't being provided to the poor?

How can you sleep at night?

[Aimless]

Are you not denying help to those that need it in your own country? Aren't there treatments for cancer, AIDS, organ failures, etc... that aren't being provided to the poor?

How can you sleep at night?

By recognising that it's better to do a little good than to do no good at all, and the more good--or the better good--you do the better.

As for your questions, the answer is "maybe", but nowhere near as bad as you might see in eg. the US. For starters, we don't have very many people living in poverty, and we also have a very well-developed primary healthcare system. But there are a lot of people who could be far better off, and we're working on those problems. The old, the mentally ill, two groups that come to mind and whose plight goes largely unnoticed by the well-off (but they don't need to notice, they pay the government for noticing).

[Aimless]

Are you not denying help to those that need it in your own country? Aren't there treatments for cancer, AIDS, organ failures, etc... that aren't being provided to the poor?

Btw, when they're being denied it's usually because they aren't being discovered, or at least not being discovered soon enough. That's a problem with people who're in many ways and for many reasons outside society. It's a bigger problem on your side of the pond and you know it

[Enoch the Red]

Btw, when they're being denied it's usually because they aren't being discovered, or at least not being discovered soon enough. That's a problem with people who're in many ways and for many reasons outside society. It's a bigger problem on your side of the pond and you know it

Do you really think that the poor in your country are getting service that is even remotely comparable to the wealthy?

And there you are, eating your cake, posting pictures of it on the internet, enjoying your comparable wealth, while the poor and under-served die horrible, painful deaths.

By recognising that it's better to do a little good than to do no good at all, and the more good--or the better good--you do the better.

So because you are only beating them and leaving them to die with your selfish inaction, you can somehow manage to sleep at night on your fluffy, hypoallergenic pillows?

[Aimless]

Do you really think that the poor in your country are getting service that is even remotely comparable to the wealthy?

I think the poor and relatively poor in my country are getting far better service than the poor in your country. The poor in my country aren't doing very well, but when they use healthcare services they use the same healthcare services as I do, or my dad, or my teachers, or my teachers' bosses.

Do they get the exact same service? No, of course not, but it's not because we try to put up barriers for the poor. In fact we work hard to tear down those barriers, trying to make sure eg. that homeless people, alcoholics, drug-users, the unemployed, refugees etc get as much follow-up as they can/will accept.

What's your point? As I said earlier, it's better to do a little good than to do no good, and better to do more good than to do less good. You lose under both conditions but at least you can sleep well at night, that's what's important

[LittleFuzzy]

Your paycheck isn't just your private life, it's a small piece of your entire civilization. Everything you do outside of your own head touches on the rest of your civilisation.

Private life

There are limits to the reasonable demands "civilization" can place on the individual. You're starting down the slope to the collective extremism that explains and justifies Ayn Rand's extremist take on individualism.

If I will die without help, and that help is available, and you deny me that help, then you have denied me the right to life.

Just how far does your right to life allow you to demand help from others? Just how much of a "taking" *or redistribution if you prefer, but that's just political-correctness at this level of discussion* does it justify? Income? How much income? How about blood? Does your right to life allow you to force someone to donate blood? Bone marrow for the leukemia patient? People on here have talked approvingly of fitness requirements *since people who don't take care of their bodies cost society directly or indirectly in health-care costs* which is itself a pretty big imposition on the right to control one's own body, so even that plainly doesn't impose a qualitative limit on the right of your vast civilization Other to make demands on the Self.

[Aimless]

There are limits to the reasonable demands "civilization" can place on the individual. You're starting down the slope to the collective extremism that explains and justifies Ayn Rand's extremist take on individualism.

Yes, but I don't have to take it to the unreasonable extremes if I don't want to

Just how far does your right to life allow you to demand help from others? Just how much of a "taking" *or redistribution if you prefer, but that's just political-correctness at this level of discussion* does it justify? Income? How much income? How about blood? Does your right to life allow you to force someone to donate blood?

Well, I was thinking we could use money to build up a very good system that collects blood from volunteers and stores it until it's needed Some of the money could go towards giving the donors sandwiches and cupcakes. You in?

[Aimless]

On another note, what exactly is 30% of your income worth to you? Someone else's death? Someone else's lifelong suffering?

[GGT]

Exactly, and just as those primitive social groups survived in their own way, people should be left to their own will today, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of another person (and by rights, I don't mean having the right to force yourself onto another persons property).

That's the grey area---where individual rights meet and compete. People ought to be able to walk into a 7-11 to buy a candy bar, and not be denied service for being Muslim. Just as a Muslim operator of a 7-11 can't deny service to non-Muslims.

No one forces themselves onto privately owned public places; the public is invited to enter and conduct business. Why shouldn't ALL individuals have that same freedom, regardless of how they've been born (skin color, gender, age), or what they do in their private lives (religion, sexual orientation)?

Of course, just that the government has extended its say in the personal matters of its citizens.[....]

What further reasoning do you want than the fact that it's my private life? I can't make it any clearer than that. It makes absolute sense to me, it's as simple as knowing 1+1=2. The fact that it is my own life, the life of the person across the street, yours, and anyone else: what right should the government have in interfering in my private life unless I am denying another persons right to their own life (as in threatening to kill them for example, or forcing them against their will)?

Private life that intersects with an open/public society to conduct business isn't the same as private life in our homes. Or even a home-operated business. If you're denying a person or group, based on race/gender/age/religion etc, that's an infringement on their equal access to commerce and services.

[Draco]

@GGT, I agree with your reasoning, that people ought to have the freedom and such, just that I don't agree with the anti-discrimination laws. If someone who owns a store wishes to deny service to a customer based on their religion/orientation/etc then they should have every right to do so for the simple fact that it's still their property. It's like the quote I posted "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." There shouldn't be a fine line between your home and the business that you own, it's still private property.

We can argue where the real root of such discrimiation has come from, whether it was the general public, or the government, but there's no denying the governments involvement over the past century. And now they want to fix their mistakes by force?

[GGT]

@GGT, I agree with your reasoning, that people ought to have the freedom and such, just that I don't agree with the anti-discrimination laws. If someone who owns a store wishes to deny service to a customer based on their religion/orientation/etc then they should have every right to do so for the simple fact that it's still their property. It's like the quote I posted "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." There shouldn't be a fine line between your home and the business that you own, it's still private property.

That's why I've kept bringing up the distinctions in private-private and private-public. We can use home-based Child Care or Day Care, even Elder Care or Group Homes for examples. People can care for their relatives and turn anyone else away, with no health certificate or license needed. But if granny wants to provide care for 12 neighborhood kids in her home, she may have to get a license and inspections, meet certain guidelines for safety, nutrition, hygiene. Especially if she's taking any tax-payer subsidy for payment of her services, should she be allowed to refuse a kid JUST for being black or Jewish, of mixed-race parents, or unmarried parents?

We can argue where the real root of such discrimiation has come from, whether it was the general public, or the government, but there's no denying the governments involvement over the past century. And now they want to fix their mistakes by force?

What do you mean by "force"?

[Veldan Rath]

On another note, what exactly is 30% of your income worth to you? Someone else's death? Someone else's lifelong suffering?

Why stop at 30%? Is that the number now?

[Nessus]

Why shouldn't you be tried as an accessory to murder then?

Firemen, doctors, other health care professionals and policemen (and ostensibly soldiers, but they rarely interact with their own citizens in need) will be tried for gross failures, other shows of incompetence not excusable by things beyond their control, and so forth. Of course it's usually called something more minor than accessory to murder unless they actually intended murder, but there you go. It's probably better to have nuance in the justice system to allow for more leeway in individual cases; malicious granny-killing nurses should, IMO, be removed from their job more efficiently and more permanently than a doctor who makes a bad judgement call when he hasn't had his morning coffee. Both the level of their moral culpability and intent are clearly widely different.

The discussion can then branch on to which kinds of mistakes deserve federal pound you in the ass prison and which warrant only fines, but the point is that it's not wildly unusual that we hold people to some responsibility if they are able to offer care but deny it for whatever reason, or abusing the skewed power dynamic usually present in these interactions. (Of course nailing bad cops or soldiers is going to be harder because they're inside the system whose function is nailing "the bad guys" compared to granny-killing nurses, but that's a flaw of the system, not the moral/pragmatic idea.)

That said, the original question was on the level of responsibility we can demand from society at large in the form of taxes and so on, and I suspect most reasonable lefties would agree that prosecuting every failed public servant with first degree murder would be going a bit over-board with how moral we demand our fellow people to be, but we do expect something from the professionals and we also expect some level of basic understanding of your fellow men at large. If you have money, which in some way must translate to the transfer of energy, safety, goods and well being, in far greater amounts than you can reasonable ever need or even be capable of using, then my side of the fence you're committing some level of moral and pragmatic failure if you don't feel like sharing your excess to those who need it. We can bicker about the definition of excess if you'd like, but I think you get the idea. (Even if you think it's a bad idea)

Of course, just that the government has extended its say in the personal matters of its citizens.

Now we might be getting somewhere. Which are the most natural limits to governmental power, and why? The why in particular is what I was trying to coax out of you with my previous post.

Yes and the type of political system that you seem to be ok with really worked out in the end for them, along with the rest of Eastern Europe.

I think we have some level of humour misunderstanding here. I'm not a an advocate of out-right communism (shut up Loki), I simply wanted to illustrate that both free market economy based political systems as well as hard-core, authoritarian we will commit genocide communist political systems reserve themselves the right to use your body, your mind and deny you physical freedom under certain conditions. I won't do the usual joking "Somalia as libertarian paradise" fallacy because I fear that one'd get taken too seriously too.

The continued increase in more communal projects and inter-vowing of human effort into concentrated units is pretty directly correlated with increased technological levels, economical ability and so forth. Now, correlation isn't causation, but I'm of the mind it has been shown pretty convincingly to be both.

What further reasoning do you want than the fact that it's my private life? I can't make it any clearer than that. It makes absolute sense to me, it's as simple as knowing 1+1=2. The fact that it is my own life, the life of the person across the street, yours, and anyone else: what right should the government have in interfering in my private life unless I am denying another persons right to their own life (as in threatening to kill them for example, or forcing them against their will)?

And property rights was the topic of this thread, so naturally I'd be advocating them. And what I find acceptable for the government to tax its citizens on: to protect and guarantee the liberties of it's citizens through the use of the police force, army and the courts. I'm undecided about infrastructure since I'm assuming it would be a messy business to privatise roads, and how you'd go about to pay to use them, but having the Electronic tolls with the RFID tags would simplify things.

As I said, you hold an axiomatic approach to the universality and omnipotence to your demand to keep your stuff. That's kind of dumb, IMO, and I was trying to see whether we could advance beyond "it's my stuff stupid, hands off".

I would ask why you consider police and the military as a more acceptable use of forced payment than health care or, say, the fire service. (I'm assuming its absence indicates your disapproval, I'm sorry if that's a mistaken assumption). Or why infrastructure is more important than basic education for the entire work force, for instance. Surely you can see how both are important factors for both the economy and society's ability to function?

Also, is one's ability to use their freedom equally guaranteed to all people? That is, if you're born disabled or become one due to illness or injury, are you shit out of luck and hope you enjoyed what life you got, or does society have an interest/imperative to make sure the amount of freedom offered to people is the same for everyone? This has a glaring parallel to racism and other forms of bigotry, too, which is what kicked off this thread.

Ok, but trying to appeal to my emotions won't convince me.

They are not appeals to emotion but to pragmatic concerns about the functioning of society. How you could confuse the two I can't riddle based on this terse response.

And your entire argument is based on you caring for the well being of others. Why do you? Your signature makes it clear that you're an atheist, yet you endorse a political system that, at it's very core, is identical to that of any mainstream religion: caring about the welfare of others. Doing what's 'best' for the group, rather than focusing on the individual. So you can't talk when you say to me "You have not deigned to hold up one single argument against this except for your apparently axiomatic approach to property rights." just that your approach is to think about the masses, rather than the individual. I don't care about the well being of xyz person living 20km north of me, unless I'm somehow related to them by friendship, family or through some sort of business. So why should I endorse a system that advocates what has controlled (ie, religion) the Western world for how long now?

This is not that unlike the usual right-wing "champagne socialist" fallacy. As Minx tried to persistently argue, utter consistency on an ideological level is not a goodness in and of itself, and as I so desperately tried to argue, these are not arguments about people feeling good, this is about ensuring a safe and working society and economy. If people are poverty-stricken, ignorant and prey to life-ruining consequences from a case of diarrhoea, they probably won't be improving themselves much as economic agents, and are a wasted resource. This leads to less productivity when taken to extremes, and especially lost productivity in some specialized fields like science and in particular theoretic research. Naturally taxation has negative impacts on productivity as well, and these are of course more obvious to see as society responds to these negative impacts much faster; rich guys moving to Monaco is easier to see and plaster all over Fox News than all those sad kids who ended up whoring themselves instead of curing cancer.

[Nessus]

Why stop at 30%? Is that the number now?

I think Minx would be fine if you responded to the figures of, say, 5, 15, 24, 30 and 50 percent.

[Veldan Rath]

I think Minx would be fine if you responded to the figures of, say, 5, 15, 24, 30 and 50 percent.

I would counter that even if the government took 100% there would still be plenty of suffering in the world. So his 'question' is somwhat...aimless.

[Nessus]

I would counter that even if the government took 100% there would still be plenty of suffering in the world. So his 'question' is somwhat...aimless.

Whether I take 2 drinks or 8, I'm still going to be somewhat functional, but even without knowing me you would probably agree that there's a quantifiable difference in my abilities between the two cases. If we cannot end suffering (which isn't necessarily our actual motive here) completely and at once, there's no difference between more or less suffering?

[GGT]

So, if a racist isn't acting out of fear, or acting on the law at all, how is the law having any positive impact? Are you talking about the the exceedingly rare cases where if the offended party has the desire and means to file a lawsuit, they can?

A law suit is an option, sure, but that's not the positive impact of the law IMO. It's not even to "punish" or change racists or bigots.

It's part of our open society for individuals to move around the country at will, engage in commerce and business, without the burden of having to find establishments that will accept/won't deny them that, based on whatever "group" they're part of---or not part of.

[LittleFuzzy]

Yes, but I don't have to take it to the unreasonable extremes if I don't want to

As near as I can tell, you have no reason for it to not be at an unreasonable extreme. You said you don't have to be consistent, which I accept, but as near I can tell, all you have is a not particularly thought out and arbitrary conviction that A is acceptable and B, whatever it might be, is not. And no one should even think of B because no one is or would ever go there, but, for all of us looking from the outside, there is no reason no one is or would ever go there. It's abitrary. The truth is you would go there, you just don't see a justification for it right now. If something should ever provide a rationalization for it, you would go there just as people were willing to for mandating fitness.

On another note, what exactly is 30% of your income worth to you? Someone else's death? Someone else's lifelong suffering?

Why don't we all just live in poverty and give everything we get as compensation, that isn't necessary for bare subsistence, too all the people who are living at bare subsistence? Exact same issue. I presume you find out general willingness not to do that to be condemnatory *acknowledging that you don't do it yourself and consider it as worthy of self-condemnation if not actual change* Easily understandable, even rational, but nonethless not something to be happy about.

I don't find it condemnatory. We had another thread, recently, about equality, minimums, averages, which we all understood to primarily be about income and lifestyle inequality and how society should be focusing on that. I did not participate, but I've had some thoughts on that for a while. Between the two positions raised in that thread, I was more interested in raising the average than the minimum, but really that binary selection was too simplistic which is why I never participated in the thread. I prefer raising the average over raising the minimum, within certain bands of inequality. When inequality goes too high, then letting just one or two get richer while everyone else stays where they are is not a good approach. But even more importantly, whatever the inequality is, I want to maximize people who are comfortable. No matter what the inequality is, my first interest is how many people are at a decent place.

Nine units, three people. 7, 1, 1 is not a very good distribution. But if living at 3 is a struggle and living a 4 is not, than I will prefer 4, 4, 1 to 3, 3, 3. Even though living at 1 is pretty bad, substantially harder than living at 3, even though the two 4s would only have to give up one unit each for the 1 to become a 3. Because then the 4s are worse off and the former 1 is still struggling, ALL of them are now struggling.

Your civilization argument can be turned around on you. That right to life you were talking about? You're sick. You're dying. You're not doing civilization much good. Why should civilization place your individual life above all the good that can be achieved for others? We spend a monumental amount on end-of-life care, raging health care debates must, just by the nature of how our bodies work, be mostly about helping people who aren't going to be getting very much out of it. The opportunity cost for saving your life is very high. I think all you've got for that is a tautology that civilization means that right to life, but it's not just inconsistent with how you want society to help people, raising minimums, or a bunch of other things you've said, it's flat-out mutually exclusive.

[Aimless]

@GGT, I agree with your reasoning, that people ought to have the freedom and such, just that I don't agree with the anti-discrimination laws. If someone who owns a store wishes to deny service to a customer based on their religion/orientation/etc then they should have every right to do so for the simple fact that it's still their property. It's like the quote I posted "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." There shouldn't be a fine line between your home and the business that you own, it's still private property.

We can argue where the real root of such discrimiation has come from, whether it was the general public, or the government, but there's no denying the governments involvement over the past century. And now they want to fix their mistakes by force?

1. Did "the government" create and establish racism all on its own?

2. Is "the government" the same one that did those things? Please direct me towards your two-hundred-year-old life-term politicians pls

EDIT: Oh, wait, I get... all them gummints look alike don't they

3. Would you rather the problems remain unfixed?


I get it, you like that quote, it's very dramatic.

[Draco]

That's why I've kept bringing up the distinctions in private-private and private-public. We can use home-based Child Care or Day Care, even Elder Care or Group Homes for examples. People can care for their relatives and turn anyone else away, with no health certificate or license needed. But if granny wants to provide care for 12 neighborhood kids in her home, she may have to get a license and inspections, meet certain guidelines for safety, nutrition, hygiene. Especially if she's taking any tax-payer subsidy for payment of her services, should she be allowed to refuse a kid JUST for being black or Jewish, of mixed-race parents, or unmarried parents?

If she is taking tax-payers money to support her business, then she's obliged to provide her service to any child/family. Otherwise she should have the freedom to choose.

What do you mean by "force"?

The anti-discrimination laws forbid a business owner from discriminating, otherwise they'll be penalised, hence they're forced to accept the customer(s).

Now we might be getting somewhere. Which are the most natural limits to governmental power, and why? The why in particular is what I was trying to coax out of you with my previous post.

Ok, the limits of governmental power should stop at peoples private lives. Now I understand that it isn't as 'simple' as saying that since we don't live in a simple society, but generally I'd go by that. I won't get into which aspects of peoples private lives I'm unsure about as to whether the government should involve itself. And I have already given you a why, because it is their private life. What one wishes to do with their property is their right owing to the fact that they own the building, the land, the store, whatever. Nobody should have the right to interfere with a persons will, so long as they are not threatening the life of another. I'm not sure what other 'why' you're after. I admit I've done little reading into such matters, usually online, and Mills book 'On Liberty' in a bookstore once, but private ownership should not be dissected for the simple fact that it's private.

I think we have some level of humour misunderstanding here. I'm not a an advocate of out-right communism (shut up Loki), I simply wanted to illustrate that both free market economy based political systems as well as hard-core, authoritarian we will commit genocide communist political systems reserve themselves the right to use your body, your mind and deny you physical freedom under certain conditions. I won't do the usual joking "Somalia as libertarian paradise" fallacy because I fear that one'd get taken too seriously too.

Wasn't it the free market economy based political system that propelled the likes of Hong Kong and Singapore to unprecedented growth? I'm not entirely familiar with their development (and the only reading I've done is wikipedia), but the results are obvious.

As I said, you hold an axiomatic approach to the universality and omnipotence to your demand to keep your stuff. That's kind of dumb, IMO, and I was trying to see whether we could advance beyond "it's my stuff stupid, hands off".

I don't study political science nor anything remotely related, nor have I done any in-depth reading (and I plan to one of these days when my desk isn't covered in engineering textbooks) so I'm basically going from what I see to be a rational 'why'.

I would ask why you consider police and the military as a more acceptable use of forced payment than health care or, say, the fire service. (I'm assuming its absence indicates your disapproval, I'm sorry if that's a mistaken assumption).

Because there are situations where an individual, or group of people may have their life threatened, or the entire nation is being threatened with force by another state, the government is there to protect its citizens through the use of the police (and hence the courts) or the army. Health care and the fire service should remain privatised, although I do remain unsure on certain aspects of health care (and education), which I'll explain further below.

Or why infrastructure is more important than basic education for the entire work force, for instance. Surely you can see how both are important factors for both the economy and society's ability to function?

I'm unsure about infrastructure. And I can see how both are important factors for the economy as well the functionality of the society, but I'll explain further below.

Also, is one's ability to use their freedom equally guaranteed to all people? That is, if you're born disabled or become one due to illness or injury, are you shit out of luck and hope you enjoyed what life you got, or does society have an interest/imperative to make sure the amount of freedom offered to people is the same for everyone? This has a glaring parallel to racism and other forms of bigotry, too, which is what kicked off this thread.

Ok I'm inclined to say "yes, the government should provide a service to extreme cases", but if you agree to that, where does it end? Next thing you know you have a nanny state telling you that it's illegal to ride a bicycle without a helmet, or it's illegal to not wear a seatbelt (as in Australia). These are other laws that infringe on the rights of the individual, telling them what they can do with their life/body.

But I don't like how you say "to make sure the amount of freedom offered to people is the same for everyone", it's as if the government must make exceptions to bring everyone to the 'same level', and there's no such thing as an 'amount' of freedom, you're still denying it by using that word alone. Plus there's still the undertone of 'force'. So in that case, should the rest of us be brought down to the level of a mentally retarted person? Should children who exhibit great potential in their schooling, and as a result find the class content to be slow and boring, be kept at the same pace (or level) as other students who are not as 'gifted'? By that comment alone, you're advocating for the 'classless' society that socialism typically advocates, and such a thing is impossible since there will always be 'classes', people will always distinguish, discriminate (and by that I don't mean by religion/skin colour/orientation etc), whatever, and it's immoral to force them to do otherwise. Why? Because nobody has the right to your mind.

This is not that unlike the usual right-wing "champagne socialist" fallacy. As Minx tried to persistently argue, utter consistency on an ideological level is not a goodness in and of itself, and as I so desperately tried to argue, these are not arguments about people feeling good, this is about ensuring a safe and working society and economy.

Ensuring a safe and working society doesn't mean that peoples liberties should be stretched. We live in a different time, where, at least in the Western world, the likes of discrimination isn't as rampant as it use to be (which we have the interfering government to thank for). It's like the quote by Benjamin Franklin "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It's either one or the other. We shouldn't have to negotiate our liberty.

If people are poverty-stricken, ignorant and prey to life-ruining consequences from a case of diarrhoea, they probably won't be improving themselves much as economic agents, and are a wasted resource. This leads to less productivity when taken to extremes, and especially lost productivity in some specialized fields like science and in particular theoretic research. Naturally taxation has negative impacts on productivity as well, and these are of course more obvious to see as society responds to these negative impacts much faster; rich guys moving to Monaco is easier to see and plaster all over Fox News than all those sad kids who ended up whoring themselves instead of curing cancer.

Like I said earlier, I'm willing to accept 'extreme cases' where a person really cannot help their situation. Perhaps the government could provide assistance to such extreme cases. But I'm inclined to post the video I posted a few pages back, the one with Thomas Sowell discussing welfare, and whilst I haven't done the research to back my claims, he has and makes a very convincing case:

Particularly the part from 2.39.

It's part of our open society for individuals to move around the country at will, engage in commerce and business, without the burden of having to find establishments that will accept/won't deny them that, based on whatever "group" they're part of---or not part of.

Precisely. Which is why anyone, at least today, who indicates that they won't offer their services to say black people, will be working against themselves (and white people too, whom for the most part, do not agree with such racism, although I'm going by my own observations).

[Aimless]

Why stop at 30%? Is that the number now?

Just an approximation based on the Swedish system, although it certainly doesn't stop there.

Firemen, doctors, other health care professionals and policemen (and ostensibly soldiers, but they rarely interact with their own citizens in need) will be tried for gross failures, other shows of incompetence not excusable by things beyond their control, and so forth.

In Sweden a doctor may even be tried for not intervening in an emergency, provided someone finds out about it that is

I would counter that even if the government took 100% there would still be plenty of suffering in the world.

This "counter" is the same as GE's earlier remarks, see responses to those. A little good is better than no good at all, and the more good the better. If you kill your good-generator completely there will be no more good

So what's the sweet spot when it comes to balancing taxation and the good it can be used for? What's the point at which you get diminishing or non-existant returns on government spending? You guys generally argue that it's lower than Loki, but it's not like low taxes are doing amazing things for the sufferers in your country.

[Draco]

1. Did "the government" create and establish racism all on its own?

I don't know, like I've already said, I don't study this material. But one thing is clear is that it has advocated it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

2. Is "the government" the same one that did those things? Please direct me towards your two-hundred-year-old life-term politicians pls

Here it is again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
Oh and the Holocaust, that's right, where millions of innocent Jews (and others) were murdered.

3. Would you rather the problems remain unfixed?

They shouldn't be 'fixed' at the expense of peoples liberties.

I get it, you like that quote, it's very dramatic.

Yeah actually, I love it.

[Aimless]

As near as I can tell, you have no reason for it to not be at an unreasonable extreme. You said you don't have to be consistent, which I accept, but as near I can tell, all you have is a not particularly thought out and arbitrary conviction that A is acceptable and B, whatever it might be, is not. And no one should even think of B because no one is or would ever go there, but, for all of us looking from the outside, there is no reason no one is or would ever go there. It's abitrary. The truth is you would go there, you just don't see a justification for it right now.

The truth is that I'm more reluctant to violate a person's right to not have his body be owned by the government than I am to "violate" a person's "right" to keep every single cent of the boatloads of money he's managed to make off of his society.

Are you saying there are no relevant ethical or even practical considerations or are you just saying that I don't know what they are? If it's the latter, then why is my axiomatic position worse than Draco's?

Why don't we all just live in poverty and give everything we get as compensation, that isn't necessary for bare subsistence, too all the people who are living at bare subsistence? Exact same issue.

Yes, the old issue of killing the golden goose. And of course I have repeatedly explained my views on work, namely that I believe it's good to work people to death even when the gains are expected to be small, just out of principle. No, wait, that's not me I'm pretty sure that's RB.

I don't find it condemnatory. We had another thread, recently, about equality, minimums, averages, which we all understood to primarily be about income and lifestyle inequality and how society should be focusing on that. I did not participate, but I've had some thoughts on that for a while. Between the two positions raised in that thread, I was more interested in raising the average than the minimum, but really that binary selection was too simplistic which is why I never participated in the thread. I prefer raising the average over raising the minimum, within certain bands of inequality. When inequality goes too high, then letting just one or two get richer while everyone else stays where they are is not a good approach. But even more importantly, whatever the inequality is, I want to maximize people who are comfortable. No matter what the inequality is, my first interest is how many people are at a decent place.

No real argument from me there, I am just convinced (like RB ) that most people are in a decent place, financially speaking. Right smack in the middle of decency, if not higher. So by raising the lowest to the minimum levels of comfort we can accomplish precisely what you wish to accomplish.

Nine units, three people. 7, 1, 1 is not a very good distribution. But if living at 3 is a struggle and living a 4 is not, than I will prefer 4, 4, 1 to 3, 3, 3. Even though living at 1 is pretty bad, substantially harder than living at 3, even though the two 4s would only have to give up one unit each for the 1 to become a 3. Because then the 4s are worse off and the former 1 is still struggling, ALL of them are now struggling.

This is a contrived example. Are you arguing that most of society is right on the brink? Or, looking at it another way, are you arguing that we can reasonably expect an existence free from struggles, in a world ruled by RB?

Your civilization argument can be turned around on you. That right to life you were talking about? You're sick. You're dying. You're not doing civilization much good. Why should civilization place your individual life above all the good that can be achieved for others? We spend a monumental amount on end-of-life care, raging health care debates must, just by the nature of how our bodies work, be mostly about helping people who aren't going to be getting very much out of it. The opportunity cost for saving your life is very high. I think all you've got for that is a tautology that civilization means that right to life, but it's not just inconsistent with how you want society to help people, raising minimums, or a bunch of other things you've said, it's flat-out mutually exclusive.

That's a bullet I'm [more or less] willing to bite, although I reckon most of them have "bought" or otherwise earned the right to a decent existence after retirement, and continue to earn their keep by telling stories to our youngsters. I don't think we (as governments OR as grandchildren) should be spending unreasonable amounts on prolonging suffering, however. Improving the ways in which we deal with healthcare in old age and/or near the end of life is another discussion, I reckon. Death panels? Or work to change our attitudes towards death? Make death-counselling better and more accessible?

PS. It's not like 35-y-o professionals benefit more from a few dollars than 95-y-o starving grannies. We're back at the problem of finding the sweet spot. All this wealth we're generating, all the wealth we could save by killing grannies... what the hell good will that wealth do and for whom, if the grannies are gone?

[Aimless]

I don't know, like I've already said, I don't study this material. But one thing is clear is that it has advocated it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
Here it is again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
Oh and the Holocaust, that's right, where millions of innocent Jews (and others) were murdered.

So let me get this straight. Jim Crow Laws and the Holocaust were both caused by the same governments that exist today? Are you serious? This is as retarded as me saying you, Draco, killed aboriginal babies, while VR, OG and GE enslaved Fuzzy and killed OM with smallpox. Shame on you all

They shouldn't be 'fixed' at the expense of peoples liberties.

So basically you're saying they shouldn't be fixed--unless you distinguish between liberties. If you do, how and why? If you don't, then why do you accept the need for a police force and a military?

Yeah actually, I love it.

There are so many ways to get the feelgoods, in time you will learn them all

[LittleFuzzy]

The truth is that I'm more reluctant to violate a person's right to not have his body be owned by the government than I am to "violate" a person's "right" to keep every single cent of the boatloads of money he's managed to make off of his society.

Are you saying there are no relevant ethical or even practical considerations or are you just saying that I don't know what they are? If it's the latter, then why is my axiomatic position worse than Draco's?

I'm saying you're not being inconsistent, you're being arbitrary. There is no place for a discussion to go because all you've really offered is "because I said so." I assume that hasn't been your intention, but it has been all I've been able to get out of what you've actually written and posted here.

No real argument from me there, I am just convinced (like RB ) that most people are in a decent place, financially speaking. Right smack in the middle of decency, if not higher. So by raising the lowest to the minimum levels of comfort we can accomplish precisely what you wish to accomplish.

Again going by the posts here, what I've gotten is "everyone else is more deserving of whatever than the individual, like Draco. Sheer numbers thing. Society/civilization must matter more" And the problem with that is it is always true and always will be true, no matter what the levels are. I don't like the limitless nature of that position. I think it's wrongheaded, I think it leads us to irrational and undesirable places, and the way it treats the individual as fundamentally meaningless just plain pisses me off.

This is a contrived example. Are you arguing that most of society is right on the brink? Or, looking at it another way, are you arguing that we can reasonably expect an existence free from struggles, in a world ruled by RB?

I'm certain it is a contrived example. I didn't get much sleep last night and I'm afraid I'm Posting While Sleepy. That's why I put in the example, it is meant to be an illustration for the paragraph preceding it, which I was afraid might not be sufficiently clear. The example doesn't make any arguments. I will point out, for instance, that a classic way for 3, 3, 3, to become 4, 4, 1 is for two of the 3s to gang up on the last one and enslave him/her. Of course at that point, since they've accepted the conceptual premise of enslavement the two 4s are now in an inherently unstable state since the 1 can only be in one place at a time so the natural impetus of the distribution will be for one of the new 4s to make use of the slave to help overpower the other 4 *before the same can be done to the first 4* and enslave him/her as well, becoming that 7, 1, 1 distribution which I've already expressed disapproval of. My example may be contrived and it's also quite simplistic but as you can see it does have some flexibility as an illustration.

PS. It's not like 35-y-o professionals benefit more from a few dollars than 95-y-o starving grannies. We're back at the problem of finding the sweet spot. All this wealth we're generating, all the wealth we could save by killing grannies... what the hell good will that wealth do and for whom, if the grannies are gone?

No, the 35-y-o professionals don't. The starving kids in SE Africo-Asiatic Wherever [i]do[i]. From the Civilization perspective you've used to respond to Draco.

[Draco]

So let me get this straight. Jim Crow Laws and the Holocaust were both caused by the same governments that exist today? Are you serious?

What the hell, I never even said that. I wasn't even trying to liken the governments that established Jim Crow Laws and brought about the Holocaust. What I'm saying is that the government, anywhere, has contributed to these events, no matter which country. You're misinterpreting what I'm saying, or doing it on purpose.

So basically you're saying they shouldn't be fixed--unless you distinguish between liberties. If you do, how and why? If you don't, then why do you accept the need for a police force and a military?

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be fixed. I'm saying they shouldn't be fixed by a government.
And I already described why I accept the need for a police force and a military.

[GGT]

If she is taking tax-payers money to support her business, then she's obliged to provide her service to any child/family. Otherwise she should have the freedom to choose.
The anti-discrimination laws forbid a business owner from discriminating, otherwise they'll be penalised, hence they're forced to accept the customer(s).

Not really forbidden from discriminating, or 'penalized'. I've tried to explain how the US leaves room for groups and businesses to define themselves. Usually with a religious clause of some sort, or by being a private-membership entity. You could say there are still options for bigots and racists to continue that, as part of their freeedom to "exclude" certain others.

ex: Boy Scouts---not required to accept atheists or gays, rather like a DADT policy. But they can lose state tax-exempt status and pay full property tax, like in Philly. Adults-Only or Over-55 residential communities, Girls-Only or Boys-Only or religious private schools. A strict halal Muslim butcher may require women workers to wear a head scarf. Military or Veteran only taverns, Men-Only social clubs, grocery co-ops by membership only. Sam's Clubs, BJs and others are merchants for paid members-only.

If Catholic Charities wants to operate a closed and private adoption service, limited to Catholics only, they can do that. But they have to be consistent and can't try to mix it up by accepting any pregnant woman, regardless of her religion or sexual orientation, and then refuse certain adoptees based on their religion or sexual orientation. Amish communities aren't required to do business outside their religious sects. The KKK isn't required to accept blacks or Jews in their private club. Private community gardens don't have to sell food to the public. On and on.

One difference being how they advertise themselves to the public. Can't put up a bill board on the state highway advertising your diner, only for travelers to find out it's open to big-rig truckers only. Or white male big-rig truckers only.

[....]you're advocating for the 'classless' society that socialism typically advocates, and such a thing is impossible since there will always be 'classes', people will always distinguish, discriminate (and by that I don't mean by religion/skin colour/orientation etc), whatever, and it's immoral to force them to do otherwise. Why? Because nobody has the right to your mind.

What? No one is talking about mind control. People can hold abhorrent views all they want, but certain actions can be limited by the gov't. When it comes to business, saying it's on private property doesn't cut the mustard. If you want to operate a Christian-Hetero-Married-Couples-Only-B & B, there's a way to set that up as a religious entity. The National B & B business group doesn't have to accept their application, neither does the travel AAA group, or list them on a roster advertised to the general public.

Precisely. Which is why anyone, at least today, who indicates that they won't offer their services to say black people, will be working against themselves (and white people too, whom for the most part, do not agree with such racism, although I'm going by my own observations).

They're free to lose business, or limit their business to a small niche group, that's their choice. But they're not free to pose as an Open-to-the-Public enterprise, and then turn away certain people.

[Enoch the Red]

One difference being how they advertise themselves to the public. Can't put up a bill board on the state highway advertising your diner, only for travelers to find out it's open to big-rig truckers only. Or white male big-rig truckers only.

I'm confused, you first complained about businesses posting signs that said, "Whites only," and how unfair that is, and now you are saying it's okay, as long as there isn't a bait and switch.

Are you okay with a billboard advertising, "White, male, big-rig truckers only diner ahead?"

They're free to lose business, or limit their business to a small niche group, that's their choice. But they're not free to pose as an Open-to-the-Public enterprise, and then turn away certain people.

What is considered an Open-to-the-Public enterprise in your mind? Are Ladies Only fitness centers Open-to-the-Public? Would a shop that advertised as Whites Only, or Men Only, or Christians Only, be considered open to the public?

[GGT]

I'm confused, you first complained about businesses posting signs that said, "Whites only," and how unfair that is, and now you are saying it's okay, as long as there isn't a bait and switch.

You're not confused at all, and know exactly what I've been saying.

Are you okay with a billboard advertising, "White, male, big-rig truckers only diner ahead?"

Try reading my post again.

What is considered an Open-to-the-Public enterprise in your mind? Are Ladies Only fitness centers Open-to-the-Public? Would a shop that advertised as Whites Only, or Men Only, or Christians Only, be considered open to the public?

No, those are limited private membership enterprises. I'd count wholesalers in that group, who only sell to chosen vendors or merchants. Also private dining clubs and social clubs, where any individual walking in off the street can not enter. They don't post signs saying Whites Only but general signs like Private Club, Members Only, or Private Property.

Open-to-the-public businesses would Mobil gas stations, Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, Walgreen's pharmacies, Walmart, McDonald's.....etc.

[Draco]

Not really forbidden from discriminating, or 'penalized'. I've tried to explain how the US leaves room for groups and businesses to define themselves. Usually with a religious clause of some sort, or by being a private-membership entity. You could say there are still options for bigots and racists to continue that, as part of their freeedom to "exclude" certain others.

I haven't been properly following your posts to other users. But it's good to see that the US still allows a degree of freedom. I'd hate to see it end up like the UK.
Even if it's allowing maniacs to establish a 'Church of Jesus Christ Aryan Nations' compound: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/bus (the first part of the blog talks about them). Couldn't believe such people still exist, but out of a population of 300 million, there's bound to be a few awry types.

In regards to the examples you listed, what if the exact same scenario happened in the US with the Christian hotel owners in the UK? Would the owners be penalised? Or would they be protected by the many religious politicians?

What? No one is talking about mind control. People can hold abhorrent views all they want, but certain actions can be limited by the gov't. When it comes to business, saying it's on private property doesn't cut the mustard. If you want to operate a Christian-Hetero-Married-Couples-Only-B & B, there's a way to set that up as a religious entity. The National B & B business group doesn't have to accept their application, neither does the travel AAA group, or list them on a roster advertised to the general public.

I didn't mean mind control, rather peoples will. What they think, or say about a person or group.