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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 14:40:02 EST
From:         Doctor Pizz <jdt10@CUNIXB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Some replies...
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

T.

I don't think businesses should discriminate.  The difference of
opinion we have is about the role of government in regulating their
activities.  From my point of view, the single most important thing
about America that makes it great is its emphasis on freedom and
liberty.  Along with this flows naturally the concept of personal
responsibility, which involves the freedom to advance in society or
regress according to ability, effort, and of course luck (calculated
risks may be high, and if you get the short end of the stick when
taking a risk, that is your freedom to fail, too.).  The main
difference from the European countries is this combination of ideas,
individual freedom and responsibility for one's own future.

Granted, there has been a historically unlevel playing field in our
country, but we have been among the world's leaders in levelling it
out, to try and make everything equitable.  As far as what I believe, I
feel that it follows that people of different races should have the
same fundamental rights and privileges as anyone else.  However, there
is a huge difference between wanting to have no legal barriers to their
advancement, and having legal barriers to the freedoms of others.

To reiterate, the single most important elements, I believe, should be
individual freedom and responsibility.  The questions we are dealing
with in this thread seem to be centered on what does freedom really
mean.  Does it mean that anyone has the right to do whatever they want
to with their own property/business, or does it mean the freedom for
everyone to have equal access to the private property/businesses of
others.  There can be cases made for either side, but the bottom line
that separates the two ideas is really the nature of freedom in a
capitalistic republic.  Do we really value private responsibility, and
private control of private property above all else, or do we value some
artificial freedom of access to such private property of others.  It
would seem that anti-discrimination laws interfere with the freedom of
private business owners to have control over who exactly has access to
working for them, or patronizing them, so in this sense the private
rights are sacrificed to the "public good".  However, if private
discrimination were allowed, then the ultimate rights of private
property are maintained, but one can argue that while private freedoms
are maintained, they prevent the freedom of others to advance in the
society because they do not have access to jobs.  The question then is
whether the right to have a job at a private company is a privilege or
a right.  This is a debatable point.  Clearly, everyone needs to work
in our society to survive, and businesses need to hire people.  Clearly
it is in the business's best interests to hire the most qualified
people, regardless of race, creed, sex, etc, as it will help them
increase productivity.  However, since there are inherently a large
number of racist people in our society, a given boss may feel that
hiring a bunch of people of different races may create tension in the
workplace, and thus reduce productivity.  This shouldn't be the case,
but unfortunately, there is of course some prejudice remaining in our
society.  Further, in this country, it is never mandatory to patronize
any given business.  If you do not like their discriminatory practices,
you needn't patronize them.  This in turn will reduce their profit
margin, and potentially change their practices.  In this way, no legal
authority is bound to regulate the way they work, and the same end
results will obtain.  Eventually, hopefully this whole point will be
moot, as discriminatory practices are in general unprofitable, as are
AA programs...  If a business wants to make money, it is in its best
interests to hire people on a strict meritocratic basis.  Again, I
stand be my argument against unnecessary regulation of businesses other
than the government, which obviously must be held to a higher standard
as a representative of ALL the people.  As for the point about
businesses affecting the public good, the public needn't patronize
offensive businesses, and so are unaffected, unless they choose to be,
for which I say tough.  If you patronize them, you are contributing to
sponsoring their policies.

Pizz
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