Sage said:
In this discussion, as in many others on THR, the idea is often put forward that a person does not have a "right" to work or earn a living -- yet the idea that a person suddenly has the "right" to have a business and employees remains unquestioned. I would submit the idea that if one would want a business and/or the opportunity to hire employees, then one must give up some of their rights in regards to their property and their own "unlimited" right to contract.
I’m not sure who you are talking about, but I don’t believe that a person has a right to work or earn a living. In fact, “earning” and “right” are conflicting viewpoints in itself. If you have a right to something, then you need not earn it. Neither do I believe that a person has the right to have a business and employees.
People should certainly have the right to start a business and hire employees, however. And they certainly should be allowed to work. But they certainly don’t have the right to.
Face it. Government exists to provide protections to the most rights for the most people. It has been recognized in our history that there rarely, if ever, was a time when employees had a level playing field with employers. Employees enacted laws through government to help that relationship. It's imperfect, but that's what we have.
I’ll get to this “level-playing field” below.
RH said:
Yup, you missed something. The rest of us are talking about how things are as the result of a federal judge's decision in a specific case. It doesn't seem hard to read the titles on message threads.
I couldn't figure out what in the world you have been talking about so I'm glad you've just explained that you are talking about the way things are and the implications of that but about "how things should be" according to you. I don't know whose turn it is to set the rules for the rest of the world to follow but I'm sure that you're pretty far down on the list. It's not polite to cut ahead in the line of those waiting to become Ruler of the Universe.
Your explanation does help me understand why you seem to know so much, though, and why so much of that is distorted as if you were seeing the world reflected in a fun house mirror.
Ah. You haven’t been reading my posts. No wonder you’re confused. It’s hard to figure out what I’m talking about when you don’t read my posts. Try that first, and THEN debate with me. And just so we’re clear, I already said that I’m talking about the principles at stake here, which IMO, is far more important than any single case (which is, oddly enough, based on these principles). Obviously if you guys want to talk about the case in particular, go ahead and do so. I’m going a bit deeper.
For example, your argument that all employers should be free to discriminate solely on the basis of race, religion, national origin, age, and gender if that's what they want to do describes what you want this country to be like. A lot of the rest of us worked hard for a lot of years to fight against such discrimination and the people who advocate it. Your position, that employees who don't like it can and should go elsewhere, ignores the tragic consequences of such attitudes in the history of this country and others.
Find where I said that. Had you actually read my post, you would have realized, for example, that I said, “The U.S. Postal Service is not a private organization. As such, it has no power to make discriminatory policies (it shouldn’t, anyway) or other policies that are unfair to any given group of people. At the same time, it should give no advantages to certain groups of people.” How can you expect to have any sort of argument or valid criticism against my position when it’s clear you have no idea what my position is?
I never said, as above, all employers should be free to discriminate solely on the basis of race, religion, national origin, age, and gender. I argued, rather, that private employers should have the right to “discriminate” for any reason they want (or for no reason at all).
If they don’t want to hire a convicted serial rapist and murderer because of that fact, they shouldn’t have to.
Is that discriminatory toward convicted serial rapists and murderer’s?
You’re damn right it is. But you, and others, wouldn’t complain about that discrimination. Because the only discrimination that matters to you guys is the discrimination YOU don’t like (not necessarily just you). As I keep saying, and as everyone keeps ignoring, does everyone have the right to enter your home whenever they feel like it? Your
private property? If not, why is it you essentially advocate that the private property of others is less valuable? You have the right to decide who enters your private property, but the guy who owns a business has no right to decide who enters his private property? And you guys try to pass that off as “right” and “Constitutional”? Give me a break.
Private property is private property, and despite what anyone else thinks, your private property is no more important than someone else’s (and I don’t mean monetarily). You guys, myself included, are no less discriminatory than racists. The racist won’t let someone in his home because he doesn’t like the color of his skin. You won’t let a stranger in your home because you don’t know the person. The only difference is the arbitrary criteria we use.
Both are again, arbitrary reasons for not letting someone on your private property. And yet, some of you feel like you’re so important, or that your arbitrary decision is so good, that you believe people should only be able to discriminate against people you would discriminate against. “Oh, it’s okay if you want to discriminate against strangers, because I wouldn’t let a stranger in my home.” “Oh, it’s okay if you want to discriminate against murderers, because I wouldn’t let one in my home.”
”But you have no right to discriminate against people with guns and stop them from entering your home. You have no right to discriminate against people who have a different skin color and stop them from entering your home.” And then, you’d actually go so far as to impose laws against such “discrimination,” despite the fact that you’re just as guilty of discrimination. Your reason for discriminating may be different, but it’s just as arbitrary.
What you think works? It didn't and doesn't and won't and can't. The only kind of history that supports what you advocate as "how things should be" is the history you distort to support your bizarre vision of an ideal social order. It's a society in which the strong exploit the weak because they can do it and have some right to do it. You make the Constitution and Bill of Rights irrelevant because you are The Law. Although that might be "how things should be" in your view, it's not how things are or how they will be.
Okay, show me where anyone (Founding Fathers, anyone back in that day) intended the Constitution and Bill of Rights to be a limit on individual power. I dare you. The truth is that you have no idea what you’re talking about, and you trying to pretend you do won’t help, because I actually do know what I’m talking about. The Constitution is a limit on government. Not individuals. But like I said- if you believe that’s incorrect, and that I’m actually distorting the Constitution, go ahead and bring forth the evidence to support your claim. Otherwise, drop it.
As soon as the people who have been agreeing with your twisted sophistry recognize where it leads and how it must affect them, at least some of them will see that you've distorted things to support your argument and get some insight into how you do it. You're not good at it.
I’m distorting nothing- you haven’t been reading much of what I’ve been saying, so it’s understandable (though I’m not sympathetic) that you are completely baffled and confused about my position (and history, apparently). It is you in fact, who have thought little of your position. You don’t even realize you discriminate against people, or you refuse to accept it. Yet, you’re so eager to stop others from doing the same.
How someone could possibly interpret the Constitution to apply to individuals is beyond me. Where did you get that idea, by the way?
In your distorted view of what I said about racial discrimination based on employers' views that some races commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes, for example, you say: "And if that employee is actually good at what they do, those who make policies that scare away such employees will pay for it." But in fact those employers did not "pay for it" from whatever time racial discrimination was introduced into the world. Employees and those who needed employment in order to survive paid for it.
First of all, I’d like to remind you that it was government that enslaved African American’s in the first place, and it was government that allowed it to continue to happen. This naturally put them at a disadvantage, artificially. In my world, the government would have no right to enslave people, nor would it have the right to protect those who tried to enslave other people. If anything, they would have an obligation to ensure that it didn’t happen, because of course, it’s against all notions of liberty and a free society. Employers did pay for discrimination, if it so happens that such people were better than the people the employers hired. It is an economic reality. If you hire someone because they are white, but they suck at their job, and the employer next to you hires someone because they are good at their job (even if they’re black), they will have an economic advantage over you. Those who make economic decisions on non-economic factors pay for it, one way or another.
Your assertions are based on some whacky notion that there is a level playing field between those who pay people and those who need that pay for survival. That kind of level playing field does exist from time to time in some specific situations but it's uncommon and temporary, and usually it's a phenomenon in specialized occupations. The real marketplace--not the one in your head--is one in which a shortage of skilled employees in some occupation becomes known and quickly turns into a surplus. Employers publicize such situations.
My assertions are nothing of the sort. In fact, if you knew anything about the free market, libertarianism, or my position in the first place, you would know that
my belief is that the playing field is never level. You are actually confused- you are the one trying to “level” the playing field by imposing restrictions on employers. But let me get back to that level playing field.
Even if all of the wealth in the world were equally distributed amongst everyone, very shortly after, those who make good decisions with that wealth will have more wealth, those who make bad decisions will have less wealth. There is never a level playing field, and even if government were to impose one, it wouldn’t stay that way for very long (unless the government had complete control over everyone’s actions). And quite frankly, no one, let alone government, should have the right to impose a level playing field. It is against all notions and precepts of liberty and freedom.
If I’m trying to apply to law school, and I’m a highly qualified candidate, according to you guys, the bum on the street should get in just as much as I should. It should be a “level playing field.” But in truth, and in reality, none of you really believe what you’re spouting at me. You believe that if you’re a better candidate for a job than the guy next to you, you should get the job. The employer shouldn’t flip a coin and see who called it.
It’s rather absurd that I would be accused of assuming a “level playing field” when my belief system is that there isn’t one, and no one should have the right to impose one. Those who want government to interfere in such affairs are the ones who want level playing fields. They’re the ones who go, “employers aren’t paying their workers enough, so we should increase the minimum wage.” Sound familiar?
The reason the “playing field” is never level is because there are people who make good decisions, and people who make bad decisions. Some people are naturally better at things, some are not. Some people work hard, some people slack off.
What government assistance programs and economic restrictions do is try to remedy that (they do a bad job most of the time, but let’s ignore that for a moment). They try to take from those who earn it and give it to those who didn’t. Maybe such people are crippled, or they are just downright lazy. It doesn’t matter- if you want to help such people, that should be your choice. Donate money, spend some time at shelter volunteering. But don’t take MY money, or try to force me to do the same.
What surprises and saddens me is that many people today forget their roots and the lessons of history.
Considering your lack of understanding of history (or least ours and the Constitution in the first place), I don’t believe you’re quite qualified to make that statement.
Although Ayn Rand's notions of laissez faire capitalism make for a few minutes of interesting conversation when there is nothing better to do with the time, a society conceived as nothing more than a pit in which only the fit can survive is never more than a pit. In a previous message I mentioned the high school sophomore, and it was for the reason that such notions are essentially sophomoric with little regard for either the lessons of history or the obligations of humanity.
That is exactly how it should be. Those who are not fit should not be forcibly propped up at the expense of those who can sustain themselves.
In your world, everyone should be forced to pay for such people (I’ll talk about that in a bit). In my world, if you feel the desire to help such people, you may do so. But you wouldn’t be able to force everyone else to follow your ideals.
You keep talking about “my world.” “My world” is one where YOU get to choose what YOUR world is like. Sounds horrible, I know, because it’d be real nice if the world could be the way that one person wanted it to be.
Now let me talk about people who are not “fit.”
Suppose I don’t want to work. I don’t want to go to school, I don’t want to do anything except eat and drink. It seems like in your world, the government should help such people. In my world, such people would certainly not survive without the gratuitous assistance of private citizens like yourself.
Now I understand you don’t recognize the real difference between those situations, as it pertains to liberty and freedom, so let me try to make that very clear. In the first situation, everyone is forced to give to the needy. In the second situation, only those who want to give give to the needy. Suppose I work 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. You take one day’s worth of money in taxes and give it to the needy.
What right do you have to take away my day of work, essentially my life? Do you think I couldn’t have been having fun for those eight hours? Why should I be forced to give up, essentially, a part of my life, to satisfy
your ideal? What you essentially propose is nothing short of an authoritarianistic government (couldn’t find a better word). Do not try to tell us you are a proponent of freedom, because you’re not. You are only a proponent of freedom if you like the freedom. Everyone should, in your world, be free to do as they wish unless you don’t like it. Then it’s time to impose government restrictions on them and take their freedom away, because you believe that everyone should give to the poor and help the needy. Let me tell you something- that is not freedom.
And again, you’ve failed to address any real argument of mine, while asserting you understand my position (when it’s clear you haven’t even read what I’ve been saying, for the most part).
And just so we’re clear, that is exactly what you advocate. You may not directly say it, and you may not admit it, but it is the direct consequence of your logic, whether you realize it or not.