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Government is not some entity from out of space, it is our very own representatives. 10000 years ago it would have been the chief and the council of elders who made the rules for their tribes, i.e. society.
First, government is the people, I understand that. The problem with government in this country is that it is a democracy. Thus, 51% could potentially oppress the other 49%, this is the nature of most conflict. The constitution was designed so that it could be changed, but it did not want a simple majority 51% vote to be able to change it, because it would allow massive swings. The constitution required not only 66% of Congress, by 3/4ths of all the states. That is actually more difficult than you can imagine, and such a change to the constitution would actually be damn near unanimous. But that is what the founders wanted, they wanted a practically unanimous vote to strip away freedoms from the people, not just a simple majority.
Furthermore, you can see this in our justice system, a jury does not require a simple majority, a jury must rule unanimously before an individual can be convicted.
Government isn't necessarily bad, but 51% ruling the other 49% is damn scary.
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When you look at intentional communities, you will see that most of those that are based on almost unlimited freedom soon fall apart after lots of nasty conflicts. And they often see members join and leave at very high frequencies.
Wrong, most countries that fall apart from nasty conflicts are not caused by freedom. Most countries fall apart from ethnic, religious, racial, or cultural tensions, period. What generally happens is the most populous group seizes control of government and enforces its views on the minority, the minority gets pissed off and either tries to create its own nation, or it tries to take over the entire nation(IE the Baath party in Iraq). The Kurds in northern Iraq have been living in basically an autonomous region of that country(separate from Iraqi federal laws) which was a compromise to prevent them from trying to secede(as well as parts of Turkey and Iran into Kurdistan).
I can't think of any example where freedom has actually caused a country to "fall apart". On the other hand there is plenty of evidence to support how an overreaching government causes a country to fall apart. To can witness then from the Ivory Coast to Libya to the Sudan to Iraq to Lebanon to Yugoslavia to the Soviet Union even to the creation of the United States of America.
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In my opinion people by and large have an intuitive feeling for the limit of interference they can take. And they pretty much agree on what is right and what is wrong. Excluding anyone from anything based on race is no longer OK to the majority of people.
But it once was OK for the majority of people, that is my point. There are countless other things that the majority of the people don't do or don't like, but that are not illegal. If we were to pass any and all regulations and restrictions that the majority of the people agree with, no one would be allowed to do much of anything, and then we would simply not be free at all.
For some reason you hate freedom. I don't particularly like it either, but I understand why it is a necessary evil.
Thomas Jefferson despised newspapers(which was the only form of news back then). Yet he said this...
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
That is illegal, as per the constitution. Ron Paul clearly says so and he would not support such a thing. As he said, he fully supports the overturning of the Jim Crow laws that allowed such things. That is a gross leap of logic to say that he is for signs that say "No (insert your people choice)" .
He did not say that in the interview. What he says is, that such decision would be stupid for the business owner and he does not believe that any business owner would do such thing but he believes that private property owners should have such rights. If not, then all of the people in this thread must have misunderstood it because that is what we were talking about the whole time.
And I never said he is for putting up signs or anything. I support RP but I believe you misunderstood his opinion.
Many bars and clubs have a pretty strict set of rules regarding who they allow into their club. Many other businesses have dress codes which are effectively discriminatory in a more subtle way. There are some businesses that have weight and height restrictions(usually its more for practical reasons than being intentional, IE seats on a plane, amusement park, etc). I remember reading an article about some restaurant in Portland that refuses to service government employees(like cops). And there are plenty of businesses that service only seniors, or kids, or women, or men. There is plenty of discrimination that doesn't involve race that is perfectly legal in this country.
I am not advocating racism or discrimination, I am merely stating that people should be free to decide for themselves. If you take away a persons freedom to do something that doesn't harm anyone just because you don't like it, that opens the door for an almost endless stream of personal regulations in the name of "the public good". And that will transform our free society into tyranny of the majority, or tyranny of the elite/intellectuals, who want to push their views and beliefs onto us.
I am not an advocate for discrimination, I am an advocate for freedom. The problem with giving people freedom is that they won't always do what you want them to do. But I would much rather a society where people are free to be stupid and to be *******s, than a society that has strict controls over all behavior.
What you seem to want is the equivalent of a theocracy, because it is the enforcement of a moral code based on nothing more than opinions or perceptions of the people. We might as well be living in Iran if you had what you want.
People do create problems. The question is how to address those problems. More importantly, there is the argument that Milton Friedman always had, that the best thing to do in the face of a problem, is nothing. Because by doing something you almost always make things worse.
He generally quoted Thoreau in "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life."
That is in essence the nature of government, it is always doing things that are supposed to be in the public good. Of course, the public good generally comes in the form of regulating individual behavior and putting heavy restrictions on private-business. Otherwise known as, the destruction of liberty. Those laws rarely have the outcome that they are intended to have. Look at prohibition.
Personally, I believe that the Civil Rights laws and acts(like affirmative-action, forced-busing) have actually done more harm than good. From the beginning with slavery, to Jim-crow, to affirmative-action, to other kinds of special-privileges. The government has been the problem, and it continues to be the problem by stirring up angst and hostilities between different groups.
If you actually look at black history, the black community was in far better shape before the Civil Rights act. There was by far less black crime and hatred before the Civil Rights movement. And before you start talking about lynchings, there were literally only 3,500 black lynchings in 100 years, that is 35 a year. In comparison there are about 1 million black-on-white violent crimes every year in this country, largely ignored by the political correctness that has gripped America.
If you actually look at income and education gaps between blacks and whites, they were dropping much more quickly before the Civil Rights act than afterwards. So don't pretend for a minute that the government has done absolutely anything to do help black America. It has done nothing but paint them as victims and basically forced them to be reliant on the government(which is why they vote so overwhelmingly for Democrats). The government has done more to justify racism than to tear it down, with their racist laws and special-privileges. The government has done more to perpetuate racism than any member of the KKK could ever dream.
Indeed, so someone must define which businesses may have restrictions and which may not. A pharmacy is not a night club.
I don't want to live in a society where everyone is free to behave like an *******.
Theocracy?! No way. With laws the majority of the representatives of the people have to agree, else there won't be no new laws. What does that have to do with theocracy where a very small, usually not even elected group says what god wants? In western countries laws are based on the morals of the majority of people.
Maybe it would help to simply extend the equal opportunity employment disclaimer to businesses as well, equal opportunity shopping
I can't confirm your numbers regarding lynchings or poverty rates. Nor was I a black person living 60 or 100 years ago, so I just can't tell what life was like for minorities back then. Nor can you. You just pick a couple of numbers and statements and want people to believe that's what life used to be like, vs now.
Whenever someone says "absolutely anything" or anything else this absolute, the whole post loses a lot of credibility as nothing is as simple as that, nothing is this or that, it is always in between.
In other words, the government exists to maintain and protect a society that people choose to live in? To ensure that people are free within the society? How is it defending your freedom if you can be kicked out of an establishment at the whim of someone for being colored (white, black, brown...) and not being colorless?
Because whether you're colored or not, it's not YOUR establishment. Youd don't have that right to do whatever you want or exist on someone's private property if they don't want you there no matter what the reason is. Banning someone the right to purchase that establishment would, however, be illegal as it prevents the colored person the right to pursue real estate or wealth.
You can't MAKE people be non-racist. What you also can't do is give certain people MORE rights just because some people are racist toward them.
Discriminating against riff raff who you suspect will trash your place is only logical, and not to mention perfectly legal when you stick to that theme.
You know the funny thing about being a landlord even if the credit checks out, they have a good and even if the last place that they lived gives good references you can still get someone that tears up your place. There just is'nt any real guarantee that whoever you put in your place will keep it like you want it
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