The First Bakery Decision

Interesting. Not really. More like absurd.

And where in that list do Nazis fit in?

And a satanist would have the same religious protections as any other believer but you added that the satanist was talking about sacrifices.

Thank those who came before us that enslaved and discriminated against members of those groups. And who would have continued to do so if the government didn’t step in.

Yes, your stance on that issue is just that.

On what issue? When have I said that the free market should decide what is morally acceptable for a business? HOW could the free market decide that? Discrimination is not a moral issue(in my religion anyway), by the way. I can choose to eat an apple instead of a banana and not feel guilty.

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You said you didn’t support the government telling businesses who they can or can’t do business with. In other words, a business should have the freedom to discriminate. This doesn’t mean you support the discrimination just the business’s rights. In the end, the free market will sort it out which is deferring moral authority to the market.

As far as your apple goes, this thread was about discriminating against gays so I am talking about discrimination in that context.

Sorry, but no. The free market is completely amoral. The market itself is an abstract concept comprising the economic decisions made by its actors.

Exactly, which is why depending on it to sort out a moral issue is wrong.

Dear God.

So we have the consuming public wanting a certain good - that the food servicing establishments are not providing food or environments that are dangerous or going to make someone sick - because of a market failure and/or massive inefficiency: the inability of the consuming public to know, with any certainty, which places have such hazards, either because of lack of technical expertise or the opportunity cost of having to do individual examinations of restaurants, even if you had enough technical expertise.

And the most practical way of getting this good is having someone independent - with both the expertise and the dedicated time - examine said food service establishments and report to the consuming public. Independence, though, is key - restaurant owners may be inclined to cut corners and not tell the truth, so you need someone who has no stake in examination.

The obvious choice? A government agency. You can arm it with the requisite expertise, opportunity cost is not a concern, and it is less likely to be co-opted by the people it’s examining.

No mere hypothetical, this is what has been done forever, and it has worked with fantastic results.

And yet libertarians tell us it’s all wet - we really don’t any such codes or enforcers of said code and health departments are inimical to our liberties because, I dunno, government’s bad and stuff. Forget our vibrant, healthy restaurant scene and the fact that virtually no one worries about their safety when entering a restaurant, making them more likely to show up early and often to spend their dollars. Health departments, being instruments of government, are intrinsically evil and should be replaced. With freedom.

The freedom to get food poisoning and enjoy it.

I say this in all seriousness after reading through this thread - is it small wonder why extreme libertarians never get put in charge of anything?

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Oh, in that case it makes a lot of…actually it makes no difference.

“A satanist walks into an Amish furniture store. Says he needs some new seating for his rituals. While there, he comes across a nice coffee table and comments to the owner that this will work great for his sacrifices.”

Is the store owner refusing service because this is a satanist or because he is going to be sacrificing someone or some animal?

"A florist has worked over time making sure there will be flowers for all memorials after a large shooting by a neo-nazi. A white supremacist walks in and says, “when these dry out, they make great kindling for my cross-burnings. I’ll buy all of them.”

The customer is asking for a product that was created for someone else, possibly even already paid for.

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You aren’t really absolving the government of any wrongdoing here, right?

Your second sentence is 100% conjecture. My conjecture, most change doesn’t occur at the federal level via the government, but at the grassroots level by the people.

I find it amazing that you view refusal to provide homosexuals a wedding cake as a moral issue. I hope you don’t mind my asking, but from where do your morals come?

Would slavery have continued for some period of time had there been no Civil War?

Who then depend upon the government to enact the change. MLK marched in the South but it took the federal government to actually create and enforce laws that ended discrimination.

Then why add in the rest of it?

You said they were created for a memorial.

What? The people who refuse to sell the cake view it as a moral issue.

That’s true(I guess. I’m not in their minds.), and they’re not depending on anyone else to sort it out.

The people who wanted to buy the cake are. And it’s a moral issue for them as well.

Quoting because tnation won’t let me like something twice.

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Probably. That doesn’t somehow absolve the government from discrimination. a significant portion of the government wanted slavery to remain legal and is the reason secession occurred.

Was the 3/5ths compromise not a form of discriminating by the government? The Dred Scott decision? Did Jim Crow laws not exist post-civil war? Who drove the native population nearly to extinction?

Okay, so you agree? It took the people’s grassroots action to force a change via the government.

Okay… So MLK’s movement forced the Federal government to render discriminatory laws unconstitutional and is something that still has to be arbitrated to this day.

Had the Civil Rights movement not garnered as much support as it did would the Civil Rights Act have been passed?

In the way that the government could have chosen to count 1/5 of slaves, 2/5 of slaves, 4/5 of slaves, or all of the slaves?

I meant the concept of needing to count slaves at all…