From: slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com (Mark Slagle)
Newsgroups: ba.politics
Subject: Re: Oh, I love it, I love it, I love it!
Date: 13 Aug 92 07:26:45 GMT
	<SLAGLE.92Aug10182956@sgi300.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com>
	<ofvog6c@fido.asd.sgi.com>
Reply-To: slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com
Distribution: ba
Organization: You wouldn't ask this if you'd seen my desk.
In-reply-to: dauber@sgi.com's message of 12 Aug 92 16:09:04 GMT

In article <ofvog6c@fido.asd.sgi.com>, dauber@sgi.com (Jeff Dauber) writes:

>>Businesses do not decide or discriminate, people do.  The 
>>burden is on you to demonstrate some meaningful and fundamental
>>way in which a persons rights suddenly evaporate when they
>>step behind the counter of their store.

> I can explain it fairly simply.  Once you are in a heirarchical 
> organization, personal feelings go out the door.  I will give an
> example.

Maybe yours do, but mine don't.  Besides, you'll need to provide
some rational criteria for distinguishing a hierarchy from other
businesses.  How about a Mary Kay or an Amway or Fuller Brush
salesperson?  How about a sole proprietorship?  How about a mom
and pop grocery?  A partnership of two or three?  How about a law
firm?  What about if they hire a secretary, or an associate or
two?  How about a small accounting or insurance agency, with one
or two owners and several employees?  How about a good-sized
urban architectural firm with fifty employees?  How about SGI?
How about GM?

Who gets to decide?  There is no way to make your distinction,
and if you choose some cross-over, it's arbitrary.  It's also
wrong.

> The company:
> billy-bob computing,  50 employees.  President Billy-bob Bigot.
> Billy tells his manager, "don't hire no niggers".
> Manager, in order to keep his job, does not hire any african americans.

Would you work for Billy-Bob?  Neither would I.  If Billy-Bob
holds this attitude, and enforces it, then anyone who works for
BB gives tacit endorsement.  If there aren't enough people in
the company hierarchy to buck BB, then a lot of the best people,
regardless of color, won't work there.  BB and his company are
going down the tubes.  And whether or not the company is publicly
held, the owners are not going to remain ignorant of this policy
for long, and they are going to find better places to invest.

> However, when a qualified african american is turned down for
> the job, and demands to know why, the manager can say
> "executive orders".  Billy-bob can then deny bias by saying
> "oh, he misunderstood what I meant".

Do you do everything your boss tells you to do?  Don't you
ever argue that his "orders" don't make sense?  I do this
all the time.

> In this way, the ownership of bias can be denied.  One's own personal
> convictions can be hidden amongst the red tape.

No, they're right on the line.  The guy who won't hire the black
guy is guilty, in my eyes and regardless of the law, as is BB.
Just as the guy who herded the victims into the "ovens" was
guilty in Germany, even though he was "just following orders."

> Another case:
> Jimbo convenience store, 3 employees.  Owner Jimbo Redneck.
> Jimbo tells his employees that "I don't want none of the
> faggots in here but don't tell anyone that I said that, or I'll
> fire you!" 

In both of these cases, you have made a point of having the
perpetrator deny his bias.  Why is that?  Is that because
most people in society would be outraged by the behavior
in question?  I think that that is so.  And I think that
that is the real reason that such bigotry is on the decline.
But if this policy continues, and if there is even one person
in the organization that thinks it is wrong, how is the dirty
little secret going to stay secret?  The answer is, it can't
happen.  If you're in the chain and you go along, then you are
guilty, too.  But not of something that should be the subject
of criminal action.  But you will have to live with yourself.

> into the back room and lives his hateful little life.  In the meantime,
> the people working the store start turning away homosexuals.  When 
> accuse of being biased, they have to say "we refuse the right to refuse 
> service to anyone."  

They have that right.  And we have the right to make this
policy known and to convince people that doing business 
with such a Neandertal is a bad idea.  Bigotry and prejudice
only thrive where they are accepted.  And if they are accepted,
then passing laws is not going to change anything.

> Now, the libertarians would say that these people are hurting themselves
> by exhibiting this bias.  However, with a surplus of people in the world,
> bias only hurts the person on the receiving end of the deal, since one
> convenience store shopper is much like any other.

They are certainly hurting themselves.  But they are not
damaging the prospective customer, because that customer
has no intrinsic right to engage in commerce with the
bigoted owner.  But they are definitely hurting their 
own business.  That's why a lot of businesses in the
south got caught in the squeeze when the civil rights
movement started heating up.  They lost a lot of business,
but the difference was that they couldn't modify their
practices without bucking the Jim Crow LAWS that legally
enforced segregation and discrimination, so a lot of them
went under.

> I think that people, in one on one encounters, will behave in a rational
> fashion.  However, as soon as you can distance yourself from the person,
> you can be as hateful and biased as you want, without ownership for the
> hatred.  And, despite libertarian philosophy, the only people who suffer
> from this hatred are the people who are on the receiving end.

So just because we are at a distance, I can spout hateful things
at you and not be taken to task for it?  Or maybe you just mean I
can force somebody else to spout them at you on my behalf?
Regardless of philosophy, that just isn't true.  If there is the
distance supplied by an intermediary, then it takes at least the
acquiescence of that intermediary or there is no force to the
order.  That means the guy in the middle has a choice, but he
doesn't have any distance, so your argument shreds.

A business owner has no contract, express or implied, that
requires him to do business with you or me or anyone else.  
But if you can come up with a contract, then you don't need
antidiscrimination laws, so either way, you have no case.
--
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Mark E. Slagle                                 PO Box 61059
slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com                       Sunnyvale, CA   94088
408-756-0895                                   USA