Discrimination, Freedom, and Rights
There is nothing inherently wrong with "discrimination." Indeed, it is necessary for our very existence.
Anti-discrimination laws applied to private individuals and/or organizations violate freedom of contract and association. People have the right peaceably to discriminate against anyone for any reason, rational or not, absent prior contract.
• Anti-discrimination laws continue the trend of using force rather than persuasion to get others to act as one wants. But people have the right freely to associate (or not associate) with whom they desire. They also have the corollary right of freedom of contract, to decide with whom they will or will not engage in economic activity. In other words, people have the right to discriminate based on their own rational (or irrational) judgment in regard to other autonomous individuals.
• While there should be no discrimination on the part of the government in how it applies its laws (“equality under the law”), private individuals are hypocrites when they want freedom of association for themselves—for example, gay marriage—but seek to use the power of government to deny that right to other private citizens—including business owners—who object to their behavior and do not want to associate with them.
• Using government force rather than persuasion against peaceful people to get what you want rather than respecting their autonomy and decisions makes you a bully. You don’t own other people. You don’t get to rule them like some pissant tyrant.
• People have the right (peaceably) to do the wrong thing. Even if discrimination in some circumstances is not the proper thing to do, people have the right to act according to their own decisions. An employer is not your slave where you get to force him to keep you employed but he cannot choose not to deal with you. Any proper morality must be compossible, i.e., be able to be applied to everyone at the same time.
• Freedom doesn’t mean “whatever I agree with.”
• What part of “my life and my property belong to me” don’t statists and collectivists understand?
• Property defines the limits of people’s rights and range of actions. Ownership tells people what they have control of, i.e., how they may use that property. If someone else is able to force them to act in ways contrary to their desires, then they do not own that property, the property they worked to create or of which they assumed ownership via purchase or gift.
• If you deny them those rights, you are a thief. If you hide behind the guns of the government or the mob to get what you want rather than directly confront someone whose behavior you dislike, you are a coward. If you use force rather than persuasion, you are a bully.
• Freedom isn’t about being “nice.” It’s about people peaceably making decisions for themselves. You don’t have to like those decisions. Decisions that everyone already agrees with don’t need the protections of rights and liberty. But you have to respect individual rights, personal autonomy, and let people face the positive or negative consequences of their decisions and actions…or someday the mob will come for you.
• Don’t like what someone does? Fine. Use persuasion, ostracism, boycotts, whatever. But if you want to use the force of government to make other peaceable people do what you want rather than what they want, you are a bully, no better than any would-be or actual tyrant who smugly and condescendingly “feels” it proper to put his boot on other people’s necks because he doesn’t like what they have chosen to say or do.
• And all those who oppose these facts, this truth completely ignore and evade any points regarding freedom of association and contract, personal autonomy, compossibility, property rights, masters versus slaves, and the requirements for a proper morality. These people show no intellectual integrity and adherence to the proper requirements of critical thinking, argumentation, logic, and reason…
• The best chance to achieve a fair, just, peaceful, and amicable society is through freedom. Using force against peaceable others simply breeds anger, resentment, injustice, and, ultimately, a war of all against all.
Great goal to which to aspire…
Again:
Freedom doesn’t mean “whatever I agree with.”
Either rights apply equally to everyone or they apply to no one. FREEDOM IS ALL OR NOTHING. ONLY SLAVERY COMES IN DEGREES.
When the State decided that it had the “right” to ban private discrimination, it set forces in motion that eventually led to the current morass of Wokeness, political correctness, quotas, affirmative action, DEI, trans/gay nonsense, and a host of other violations of freedom.
You reap what you sow…
“The Right to Discriminate” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010QCY8VS
Whenever I read one of your articles, it is like getting a shot of fresh air when you're choking on noxious fumes. Consistent, principled, no compromise! Keep up the great work, Russell!