From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Date: 20 Jan 93 21:44:15 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1993Jan15.063008.26363@Princeton.EDU>, roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
> In article <13925@optilink.COM> cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes:
> >In article <1993Jan13.051033.26923@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
> >> In article <13892@optilink.COM> cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes:
> >> >In article <1993Jan9.174508.29597@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
# ## ## Should they be allowed to fire an employee if they discover he's Jewish?
# ## ## What if they feel that Jews undermine their "flaming fundie image"?
# 
# ## #Sure.  And if they do so, they will probably have a hard time staying
# ## #in business, won't they?  Catering to neo-Nazis sounds like a fine
# ## #way to discover the ins and outs of bankruptcy law.
# 
# ## If only history had shown this to be the case.
# 
# #Tell me, why did laws have to be written to REQUIRE common carriers
# #to discriminate against blacks?  (Plessy v. Ferguson, for example,
# #is such a case.)
# 
# As if the common carriers were resisting, kicking and screaming?
# In fact, they considered it an enhancement to service to be able
# to offer whites-only cars.  The law enabled them to get law officers
# to keep the passengers sorted out.

You mean that railroads lacked the authority as private businesses
to enforce tresspassing rules before?  Of course not.

# #Tell me, why did the federal government REQUIRE developers to add
# #racially restrictive covenants to deeds in the 1930s?
# 
# Source for this one?  What were the circumstances?  Was this global?

Thomas Sowell's _Markets and Minorities_.  It was widespread, and
the reason was that the government was attempting to protect property
values by keeping blacks out of "nice" neighborhoods.  According to
Sowell, this was done throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s,
until the Supreme Court struck down racially restrictive covenants.

# #If free markets are such an effective strategy for promoting racism,
# #why bother to have the government do the liberal thing and FORCE
# #people to discriminate?
# 
# Because the racists run the government.  That's not liberalism, 
# except by your own coo-coo dictionary; that's simply tyranny.  

Both seek to use the government to impose their views on minority
viewpoints.  They seem quite similar to me.

# When racists and businesspeople have a common interest, and when 
# businesspeople who have racist interests also have a strong hand in
# government, this will happen.  

But when businesspeople have a VARIETY of attitudes about race,
the government steps in to protect the racists from the "unfair
competition" of business that don't discriminate.  That tells
me that free markets can't be trusted to enforce segregation and
racism.

# Unless you've just decided to say that all racists are ipso facto
# liberals, which, given your expansion of the word to include everyone 
# except yourself and a small circle of friends, wouldn't really surprise me.
# 
# Roger

A person can be racist and yet not support Big Government interventions
to bolster his position.


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"When freedom destroys order, order will destroy freedom." -- Eric Hoffer
Not a goal, just a statement of reality.