From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 04:16:23 GMT

                                    Friday, the 8th of January, 1993

I said:
  Steve, I would suggest that you do not understand my usage of
  ``liberal''. I would also suggest that the reason for this is
  that you have bought into the pop usage, meaning ``left'',
  that is, socialist or social agendist, or more pejoratively
  like Republicans (Rush Limbaugh, say, on the radio) use it
  to mean ``tax-and-spend-our-money-on-social-programs-Democrats''.

Roger Lustig responds:
  I don't think he has -- and I think you're insisting on an excessive 
  distinction between your brand and all others.

I think you're wrong on both counts.

I identified my usage of ``liberal'' with Enlightenment liberalism.
Roger responds:
  Yet many of the "pop" liberal -- not that there's anything especially
  "pop" about the term; it's just not the one you like, and "pop" is a
  convenient pejorative -- causes are *also* derived from these things
  by their advocates.

Of course these advocates claim such a derivation. The question is whether
they are correct in their derivation or not.

And ``pop'' wasn't intended so much as a pejorative as to concede to
Steve that he would win any *descriptive* lexicographical argument. It's
pretty clear that the pop conception is a linear spectrum, with liberal/left
at one end and conservative/right at the other.

MM:
                   My problem is that I don't know of any
  other word to call the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson
  but ``liberal''. 

RL:
  How about "Jeffersonian"?  

How about it indeed.

RL:
  (It might have saved you that enormous sentence above, not to mention
  a good deal of what follows.)

(It might have abandoned the word ``liberal'' to its common conflation
with a kind of socialist democratism.)

MM:
  Central to liberalism, you see, is the formulation of the Rights of Man. 

RL:
  I don't see.  I see that *a* formulation is central; I'm not sure 
  that we all agree on the specifics.

I'm certain that you and I do not agree on the specifics. I'm also
certain that (in part) to the extent that we don't, your politics
are illiberal by the standard of Enlightenment liberalism.

RL:
  Yet that absolute moral judgment has limits.  Limits, in some cases,
  on what *can* be judged; limits, in some other cases, as to the 
  appropriateness of *applying* such judgments.

Of course. Did you expect me to disagree about this?

I said:
                                                OK, so I hope I have made
  it clear that liberalism is distinct and opposed to socialism or social
  agendising. 

RL:
  You haven't.  Do you suppose that Jefferson had no social agenda?  Do you
  suppose that *any* writer on rights had none?  And that these agendas
  weren't reflected in their writing?

No, I suppose that Jefferson's liberalism (and Locke's, and Voltaire's,
and Mill's) was a political philosophy directed to the *limitation
of the power of government in order to keep government from causing
certain clearly perceived harms*. This is fundamentally different in kind
from political philosophies that are directed towards *increasing the
power of government to cause positive good to happen in the private
sector*. Get it?

RL:
  Great.  Now, what is it, and how does it work?  *Does* it work?  And what 
  do the various "rights" -- e.g., to life or liberty -- mean in practice?

What it does is disallow government the power to violate the Rights of
individuals. This includes a disallowance for the power of government to 
accomplish many seeming goods, exactly insofar as the exercise of this
power might infringe upon the Rights of individuals. In other words,
it is better to leave individuals unprotected against the encroachments
against rapacious other individuals than to sanction one single law
for which the government is even a little bit rapacious.

I had said:
  Now, Steve, I think you should understand by now from what I have
  written in response to Evelyn about CO2 that if something like your
  scenario *is* the case with CO2, then I would change my mind and
  would oppose it. What I don't now believe is that what you have said
  is true is what the law really means. (I am willing to be shown otherwise,
  however.---I am not a lawyer.) 

RL:
  Read the statute.  Now consider a real case -- the firing of all gay
  Cracker Barrel employees -- and show how a suit brought in Colorado
  would NOT run up against CO2, and show how that firing is consistent
  with liberalism.  (I.e., show what your brand of liberalism means
  in that one practical case.)

I think that the owners of Cracker Barrel have a Right to insist on
a homespun, conservative, even flaming fundie image if they want to.
Precisely insofar as hiring gays conflicts with this desire of the
owners of Cracker Barrel to associate in their business only with
people other than gays, or even only with people who disapprove of gayness,
I think that Cracker Barrel ought to be allowed legally to fire the people
it fired for this reason. In Colorado, because of CO2, it would
be legal by state law for Cracker Barrel to do this. That is as
I think it should be. In other states it would not be legal. That
is wrong. (Point being there ought not to be legislated anything
approaching a Right to Employment, that being an intrusion by
government on the private sector's business---even if that
pursuit is morally misguided, as I think it is in Cracker
Barrel's case.)

I said:
  You see, if your point is that one may
  use typically any grounds for ``wrongful termination'' suits *except
  now* homosexual or bisexual orientation, then I doubt it.

Roger says:
  Well, that's *exactly* what the statute says: homosexuality is *not*
  grounds for a discrimination suit, and "Wrongful termination" in this
  case means termination on grounds of discrimination.  Yet it's bloody
  obvious that termination on grounds of heterosexuality *would* be (and
  is and ought to be) actionable.

Well, that's exactly what I don't understand yet. Is it really
true that the background of law makes it that *anything* can
be grounds for a wrongful termination suit (so that the effect
of CO2 is to except one lone reason among zillions)? Or is it only
that a small list of social-agendist reasons can be used
as grounds for wrongful termination suits (so that the effect
of CO2 is to refuse to add or to delete the fifth or sixth
entry, say, on a small privileged list)?

I trust you've followed the origin of this thread? In brief:
Francis implied it would be foolish to think all OR9 supporters
were homophobes. Laurie Mann said she thought all OR9 and all
CO2 supporters were homophobes. I said I hadn't yet seen the text
of the measures up here, but that my support or opposition to either
measure was crucially dependent on the wording of the texts, and
could anybody please supply them and then maybe I could learn
whether I am to be judged homophobic? Basically I said that if the
measures denied to gays human Rights (Rights which come by
virtue of humanity) then I would oppose them, but that if the
measures denied gays coming by any sort of specially privileged 
minority status *by virtue of their sexual preference*, then I would support
them. Also I said that I have heard both these characterizations made of
the measures by people who then either knew or supplied no details. Evelyn
Leeper then posted the texts of both. And I determined upon reading them
that I would oppose OR9 and support CO2, but I also said that my
support of CO2 would be *contingent upon the answer to the questions
I have just asked in the preceding paragraph*. For, if the background
of law to which it would apply---claims of discrimination, that is---is
such (as I said at first) to admit of *any* reason, then I would be willing
to change my mind and oppose CO2. If, on the other hand, claims
of unfair discrimination can only be made on a few specifically
legislated grounds---race and gender, for instance---then I would
favor CO2. I've had both answers given to me, so far without support.

RL:
  Depends on the situation.  If these things have nothing to do with 
  one's ability to perform (food servers might have to deal with the 
  body odor problem, submarine crews with tallness, pilots with poor
  vision), then, yes, one can sue.  Why should one's wearing of glasses--
  certainly an accepted social behavior--keep one from entering data
  or whatever?  

I didn't say that wearing glasses should keep one from being hired.
Neither did I say that being gay should keep one from being hired.
I think it oughtn't (at least in most cases). The question is whether
I'm willing to agree to legal sanction against those who transgress
the moral law that employers shouldn't fire anyone for irrelevent reasons.
I'm not.

I said:
  My understanding is that such wrongful termination
  suits can only be based on claims of discrimination on the basis
  of sex, or race, or a finite discrete set of other special categories.

RL:
  Nope, not the case.  Workers are protected from capricious firing.  And
  with good rights-of-man reasons, too.

Well, you're assertive about it. Could you please back it up? I mean,
with regard to claiming discrimination under Colorado law.

No, not with good Rights-of-Man reasons, however.

RL:
  b) the intent of the statute was nothing like that, either.  CO2 was
  *not* the product of rights-of-man liberals like yourself, but of
  homophobic religious bigots who would exclude atheists like yourself
  if they could get away with it.  

I understand the nefarious support of some for CO2. Do you understand
the nefarious opposition of some to CO2?

RL:
  Yet you don't examine its crucial legal aspects--intent and likely
  effect.  It was intended to take equality away from homosexuals and
  may do just that if it is not found to be unconstitutional.

Well, we all have intents. Similarly, there is equality and then
equality. I do not think the kind of equality it was intended
to take away is a Rightful equality.

RL:
  Fine.  But you're not a Colorado court, and it's what the law says to
  THEM that matters.  And it says to them: don't consider complaints 
  based on discrimination against gays.

No. Based on discrimination against gays by reason of gayness.

What *other* reasons *are* admissible ``claims of discrimination''
under Colorado law?

RL:
  THAT law is unfair, at top,  bottom, and in between.

Nonsense. Some (even most) discriminations against gays by reason
of gayness I might agree are morally wrong. But ought to be legally
punishable, I don't think so.

RL:
  Which laws are those?  I'm not sure I can think of a law that CO2 addresses
  that would be contradictory to your liberal (tm) philosophy.

The wrong laws are the laws that set out to establish a Right to
Employment, or perhaps a legal Right to Fair Opportunity of Employment.

My authorities for my usage of ``liberal'' are Dumas Malone
in the 1948 preface to his six-volume Jefferson bio, F.A. Hayek
in the 1950s Forward to _The Road to Serfdom_ (where he specifically
discusses the left's appropriation of the word away from Jeffersonian
liberalism), and (you're gonna love this, Roger) Allan Bloom
in the opening essay of _Giants and Dwarfs_ (where he calls
Locke ``*the* philosopher of liberalism''---you might also check
out his essay titled something like ``Raymond Aron: Last of the
Liberals'', which I have not yet read).

Perhaps you would be so kind as to provide me with some authority
(I mean other than Clayton and Rush) for the usage of liberal
to mean not the limitation of governmental power (i.e. leaving individuals
free to choose wrong even), but the aggrandizement of governmental power
for the purposes of *forcing* societal good? It's not so much that
this might say anything to my point that there is an opposition
between the two meanings, but I'd dearly love to learn how it is
the word shifted from meaning one thing to the other
(Hayek blames New Dealers in the States in the 30s and 40s for this),
except in seemingly some literate circles.

                            Mike Morris
                    (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)