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Without dwelling on Rand Paul or what he said or didn't say, the fundamental question is whether a private business, open to the public, should be bound by law to serve any person, regardless of race, color, or religion?
No. Private business is just that - private business. Private business owners can do what they want, hire who they want, and serve who they want. Their regulation comes from citizens.
For instance, I have no real problem with a restaurant that refuses to serve homosexuals, or Christians, or blacks, or Hindus. That is their right, and that is their choice. However, my right and my choice is that I would NEVER patronize that restaurant. And I would strongly encourage all my friends to never set foot in it. I would honestly hope that said restaurant goes out of business due to lack of customers. But I wouldn't want the government to shut them down.
On the other hand, any entity that receives government funding should be required to serve and patronize absolutely anybody. If they don't, they have their funding pulled.
I agree w/Omaha. The law doesn't require private businesses to serve everyone. I don't think it should, but I also think that most businesses that discriminate do not stay in business for long.
Last edited by coastalgirl; 05-20-2010 at 10:26 PM..
Reason: clarification
The "land of the free" means just that. So yes, businesses must have the right to select its' customers. It's not smart business, but it's what seperates the US from other socialist progressive countries.
The law doesn't require private businesses to serve everyone. .
Yes it does.
42 U.S.C. §2000a, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title II
(a)All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
(Broadly, they are defined as hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues/)
I think some people who are smarter than Rand Paul and John Stossel already argued this. If you have a private business and decide you don't admit people in Wheel chairs and a 12 year old girl comes to your business. By you not allowing her to go inside, will likely cause her psychological damage. This was how plessy v Ferguson was over turned IMO by Brown V Topeka. Discrimination and segregation causes Psychological damage. Oddly enough, today Plessy would be considered a white person by all practical observations he was only 1/8 Black. That is how insidious this ideology can be.
I believe that a private business owner should be able to do whatever they want with their business, as long as it physically doesn't hurt someone.
So, I can't open a Whiskey distillery, without proper safety measures because it could blow up. If it blew up, it could hurt someone. However, If I own a bar, and I want to allow smoking in it, that should be my decision.
The government has no right legislating morality, if that moral doesn't physically hurt anyone else. If a black owner of a market only wants to serve blacks, I have no political problem with that. If a White hotel owner doesn't want to rent out to Hispanics, I have no political problem with that.
I think discrimination is disgusting, and its a terrible practice. On top of that, its probably a bad business decision, because you are cutting out large parts of your customer base.
But, I don't think there should be a federal law dictating what a private business owner must do, morally.
Now, do I think the civil rights bill should have been passed, yes. At the time, black people were against a white owned monopoly in the south. Very few black men and women owned and operated businesses. City councils would deny them a business license, and hiring black workers for places that were segregated was a uncommon practice.
Today, things are quite a bit different. The black community is well established in the business community. It would be next to impossible to slide back to the way things were in the 50's and early 60's.
I think the civil rights act should be updated. Allowing private business owners to do what they want, but keeping the civil right protections in place for public jobs, land, and facilities.
That way, you take away the crutch that under performing whites use. You know the, "I can't find a job, because they have to hire the black guy" excuse. Take away that excuse, and then what do they have to blame their situation on, themselves. Let every man, woman, and ethnic race stand an equal chance of employment, to open a business, and do with it what they want. That, to me, is the American way.
We all operate under the same LAW in this country. That LAW forbids discrimination for several reasons. See quote in post #6. Therefore, if you run a business open to all the public you have to let all the public do business with you. The only allowable reason for refusing to sell your goods or services is if the customer cannot pay.
If you do not like these rules, call your Congress critter and, if enough people agree with you, get them changed.
I've read some of these replies and they scare me to death. Its true businesses are privately owned, but what they do have profound public implications. Imagine being unable to find lodging at night on a trip, being unable to shop for food or beverages, being unable to find a medical provider who will treat you, or being unable to find a bank who will lend to you despite having perfect credit.
Talk to an African American who is in his seventies or eighties and he or she will tell you why laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were necessary. Minorities didn't have real citizenship or rights in America until these laws were both passed and enforced. The services I mention above were frequently denied by business owners to African Americans and in some cases other minorities as well.
How quickly we forget our own history. Slavery may have been legally abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment. However, its vestiges and relics lingered much longer. Racial segregation and discrimination were too slow to disappear afterwards.
You worry about the "freedom" of the business owner? What freedom does he/she lose by being required to serve everyone regardless of their race? The only "freedom" they lose is the ability to make more money. I am shocked so many would defend the "right" of a business owner to pick and choose his customers based on their race.
We'll see about Rand Paul. He's from a conservative state and maybe the people there will give him a "pass" for his outrageous statements. The other possibility is that when this lunatic's opinions all come out that the silent majority of people in this country will flee from him as people flee from disease or pestilence. I pray for the latter.
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