[Zipperfish]

Khar Khar:

Sorry that I misread your intent. Your response had a lot to do with private clubs, and with your responding to a legal argument and talking about legal terms, I just sort of assumed. My apologies!

Nice backhand! ha ha ha.

$1:

As an aside, my arguments don't really change even if we move from a legal standpoint. Some rights are simply more important than others. Rights to security (like getting water) are more important than access to legal systems, and so on. It's why I'm a major supporter of what JJ said; I honestly think the courts serve best to meet both legal and libertarian needs. The use of the legal system allows a way for us to balance those rights and serves as the best mechanism to ensure rights are maximized, since there is a body not just protecting those rights, but also ensuring those rights can be accessed. Further, it provides us a good record of how to handle things, while not setting anything in stone.

I would say it depends on the level of infringement of those rigths (and I guess this is tacit support for the approach you and JJ support). For instance, imagine if the right to be free from sexual orientation discrimination was absolute over the right to free association--then you could be in violation for refusing to marry a gay person, even if you were straight. A rather ridiculous reductio ad absurdum, but I had fun doing it!

$1:

This specific case I don't have much to say on, but I did have issue with how arguments used here expanded it to include the market as a whole. Most of my responses have had to do with how the arguments have expanded from the taxi case to how discrimination should be an allowed practice in the marketplace. Personally, since I support more open markets, I think that's a problem on an economic level, aside from the rights issues that I think we agree on (feel free to correct me here).

yes, I agree.

But I'd also offer the caveat that discrimination is not illegal. Discrimination against certain, listed groups is illegal. With respect to the gay struggle for rights, a lot of it was about getting sexual orientation on that list.

Discrimination is a fundamental human trait--our intuitive minds categorize things and offer up emotions and hunches based on that. The thing is that our intuitive minds are very often wrong. (Read Daniel Kahneman's amazing book "Thinking Fast and Slow" for an evidentiary review).

$1:

I agree the gay movement is a lot more in your face, but I have a feeling it's because the movement is at the cusp of being able to go for the throat of a lot of the remaining issues facing the community. The TWU... I just don't know. I have a feeling the courts will side with the TWU in that situation, because those law students have the same capacity to practice law. And the limitations it places impacts everyone for an institution with "membership" anyways (since it sounds like a no blowjob, no anal, no gay sex, no pre-marital hankypanky kind of thing, which I weep for those students over, haha).

yeah, it could be I'm just getting old. I was a gay rights "early adopter." Now that there's all this street cred in being gay and you can't swing a fish without hitting one of your friends coming out of the closet, I need a new cause. ha ha ha.

Things have sure gotten better. I grew up in a pretty rough neighbourhood. The one gay bar in town was very discreet, but some of the boys used to wait until closing and then beat the living shit out of anyone who walked out of there. Cops wouldn't do anything, and most of them wouldn't complain anyways because they were in the closet.

$1:

I know it entails more, but in this situation the relevant portion seemed largely the capacity to allow less limited non-association. While that right still exists, I think it's possible this is such a minor reduction of that right for such a large one in regards to the right of equality that it should fall on the side of those being discriminated. Plus, I think the Civil Rights Act being enacted kind of demonstrates that line of thinking; allowing wide-spread discrimination on non-optional characteristics for entirely personal reasons on the part of another group seems more an individual and societal harm on the whole.

I view it largely as a sort of de facto institutionalized anti-libertarianism. When its allowed to happen, it provides the capacity for people to broach and expand their own private rights, beliefs and practices over others, which I view as a greater loss of liberty than simply telling people that, while they can practice that, they shouldn't enforce it on others. On the balance, everyone being treated equal and the results of life coming from one's own actions seems to be the greater move towards liberty. A more open and free society is better in my view.

I certainly agree, but with yet another caveat: always remember the difference between "freedom to" and "freedom from" because they are opposites. "Freedom to" guarantees your liberty to act. "Freedom from" on the the other hand, imposes behaviour on others, in effect restricting their liberty. So I like to maximize the freedom-to's and minimizing the freedom-from's (while recognizing that in a just, peaceful and prosperpus society, some "freedom-from's are necessary).

$1:

gay clubs, for example, while catering to the gay community, are open to all.

And they have some great clubs--at least used to in my clubbing days--in Vancouver. No penises allowed in the lesbian bar though, I remember that.

[Khar]

$1:

Nice backhand! ha ha ha.

I've been told on other sites I debate in a very Canadian away; passive aggressively apologetic.

$1:

I would say it depends on the level of infringement of those rigths (and I guess this is tacit support for the approach you and JJ support). For instance, imagine if the right to be free from sexual orientation discrimination was absolute over the right to free association--then you could be in violation for refusing to marry a gay person, even if you were straight. A rather ridiculous reductio ad absurdum, but I had fun doing it!

Most definitely, I agree on your anti-absolutes point. That's why I like the idea of "balancing" rights, since it provides a method of ensuring we're maximizing not just utility, but freedom in a public system by looking at all the competing rights and deciding where they fall.

$1:

yes, I agree.

But I'd also offer the caveat that discrimination is not illegal. Discrimination against certain, listed groups is illegal. With respect to the gay struggle for rights, a lot of it was about getting sexual orientation on that list.

Discrimination is a fundamental human trait--our intuitive minds categorize things and offer up emotions and hunches based on that. The thing is that our intuitive minds are very often wrong. (Read Daniel Kahneman's amazing book "Thinking Fast and Slow" for an evidentiary review).

Totally. Personally, I think we're close to seeing that happen in the USA; a lot of the cases, including the Arizona and Kansas cases (the wedding cake ones, etc), seem to be building towards politicians preemptively allowing discriminatory practices against groups like gays before a more federal hammer comes down; some of those stances have expanded beyond gay people altogether. Mind, I find the arguments work effectively the same; it's hard to argue against gay rights, for example, when from a legal (and often rights) point of view, it's not very different from anti-segregation argumentation, and is a breach of some of the enshrined rights in the Constitution.

In some situations, discrimination makes sense. Things like student or senior pricing are excellent examples of price discrimination set up to maximize consumer and corporate inputs and outputs. My problem is more along less economically relevant issues and more political ones, I suppose.

(I've actually read that book, you have an awesome reading list.)

$1:

yeah, it could be I'm just getting old. I was a gay rights "early adopter." Now that there's all this street cred in being gay and you can't swing a fish without hitting one of your friends coming out of the closet, I need a new cause. ha ha ha.

$1:

Things have sure gotten better. I grew up in a pretty rough neighbourhood. The one gay bar in town was very discreet, but some of the boys used to wait until closing and then beat the living shit out of anyone who walked out of there. Cops wouldn't do anything, and most of them wouldn't complain anyways because they were in the closet.

It's definitely better. I'm definitely a lot younger than the average age on the site these days and I've got literal scars, but luckily I seem to be in a modern minority. In Canada I think people see it as more of a non-issue socially, especially the younger generation; even if they don't approve they generally don't really notice. It's nice. A lot of the activism has spread abroad these days as a result, looks like.

$1:

I certainly agree, but with yet another caveat: always remember the difference between "freedom to" and "freedom from" because they are opposites. "Freedom to" guarantees your liberty to act. "Freedom from" on the the other hand, imposes behaviour on others, in effect restricting their liberty. So I like to maximize the freedom-to's and minimizing the freedom-from's (while recognizing that in a just, peaceful and prosperpus society, some "freedom-from's are necessary).

I guess my maxim is a little different. I appreciate the idea of maximizing freedom to's, but freedom from's I don't view as separate rights. I view them as essentially the extension of where that freedom should go. Here, the freedom to associate is extended to a similar right for freedom from association (your reducto ad absurdum on gay marriage, for example); eventually they are simply limited by other rights, rather than just freedom from's.

Negative rights (freedom from's) have always been, to me, the right to an absence of barriers, while the positive aspect of rights (freedom to's) has been the freedom to act. To me, negative rights are an integral part of expanding freedom to's -- in the case of the Civil Rights Act, it expanded massive levels of positive rights to many minority communities as a result of an increase in negative rights.

Besides, a more purely positive rights society seems to bend a little on the exploitative, unbalanced and majoritarian side. It allows for those with more power in society to have a larger role with each reduction in negative rights. Take, for example, the rise of extremism during the period between World Wars in Europe. A lot of nations had strong conceptions of positive freedom and used it to bring in fairly extreme governments that harmed minorities. The guarantee of equality JJ talks about, and healthy handful of freedom from's, ensure freedom to's can thrive, came in more as a result or set of guarantees. I think it's in part why South Africa or Canada are looked to when nations like, say, Israel were or are considering writing a Constitution; because unlike the American Constitution, there are enshrined freedoms within those documents that are negative rights.

I'm definitely not saying your own conception falls towards the faults of a more purely positive rights viewpoint, because your view definitely isn't puritan; you've described value in freedom from's so I'm not going to Godwin you here or anything. But I've always had a healthy concern for an overly positive-right analysis, because I do think in the end it harms a lot of the freedom that a society is attempting to gain when protections of competing rights are not provided.

I've always preferred the tree axiom because I think it fits better; you can swing your ax all you want as long as it doesn't hit my tree. My right and freedom to own property is a competing positive right, so it kind of doesn't fall into the "freedom to" and "freedom from" accidental dichotomy that accidentally arises in similar discussions. Just my own thoughts though.

$1:

And they have some great clubs--at least used to in my clubbing days--in Vancouver. No penises allowed in the lesbian bar though, I remember that.

I wouldn't know, I don't do gay clubs much haha.

[BartSimpson]

Khar Khar:

I don't do gay clubs much

So noted.