This doesn't work unless you can show that she systematically refused service to ALL republicans.

It's not against the law to be a racist or to be an anti-Semite or to hate homosexuals. All those things are stupid, but then there's no law against stupidity, either. I would say that as long as one individual isn't, by his or her actions, depriving another person of a right, or something that they're entitled to, then the government shouldn't do anything about it.

I'm not qualified to comment on Roe v Wade from a legal standpoint. I believe that abortion is virtually always morally wrong, but I can't speak to it from a constitutional point of view.

To stay on topic, I'll just say again that unless/until there's a law or a court decision that says that homosexuals have a right to a wedding cake baked by somebody else, then that's the end of story from a legal point of view.

To elaborate:

The reason that you need to show a history is because that's how you establish the link between the person and the group. You can't assert that the discrimination was based on Republican-ness unless you can show that other Republicans have been treated similarly in a consistent manner.

How could you assert Republican-ness instead of gender, age, skin color, etc when your sample size is 1? Even if you took the conversation as it was reported, you could only assert that it was based on a vote by the staff or some collection of behaviors that the owner thought were not upheld by the individual. You still can't get to Republican-ness.

Maybe you can get to some level of working with the President. But then that's something that really isn't systemic in the way that the word is normally used. You would at least need a second person working for the President to be treated similarly. Again, this is the importance of establishing the history of behaviors.

He refused because of sexual orientation and therefore contributed to systemic discrimination.


You can replace the word systemic with widespread if that makes it clearer. I am not concerned by single acts of discrimination. At least not enough to think legislative intervention is needed.

This changes once there is evidence of widespread discrimination. I am sympathetic to the view that the individual business operator has a right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. Even hateful or stupid reasons. If acts of discrimination are few and far between this right of the individual should take precedence.

Therefore we need to see if there is a history of discrimination.

I guess I would suggest researching the law and the system you apparently live under, because from what I can tell your knowledge of it is pretty limited. I'm not stating my own philosophy here; this is how it is.

https://thelawdictionary.org/article...rst-amendment/

The first amendment itself is the law of the land; the supreme law that even the government must obey. It is a natural right that all citizens hold that cannot be infringed by either other citizens or the government.

Uhhhhh...

What are you trying to argue? I'm trying to argue that characterizing slander as "taking away someone elses right to free speech" is weird and so slander isn't free speech issue in that sense.

The first amendment can be eliminated through the same process that other amendments can be eliminated. Thus, it is not an inalienable right. And in this same sense, it's not a "natural" right. It's a right conferred by the government to the citizens.

This is a misunderstanding of natural rights. Natural rights are rights we have inherently as humans, before government and not affected by government. Thus, a government can't make something a natural right. They can try to draw up laws that are consistent with our natural rights, but that is a legal framework placed over a prior moral claim about our natural rights as humans. The rights granted in these legal frameworks, which are called legal rights, are alienable. The legal right to vote has been given and taken away from various groups in American history and is still denied to young adults and many other Americans. Now, there are legal theories on which you can fairly closely identify legal rights with natural rights (this is called natural law jurisprudence), but even so there is still a conceptual difference.

I'm fully away that companies are abstract concepts and not living breathing people. That's kind of why I don't generally value their rights above those of actual humans when there's a clash of interests.

But the rights of my company absolutely are not my own or the same as my own. It's actually really important to me to maintain that distinction. I set it up as a limited liability company precisely so there would always be a separation of the business' liabilities and my own personal liabilities. If the company were to go into debt then those debts would belong to the company. If I were to go into debt then nobody can touch my company's assets.The assets belong to the company and not me personally. Now this is a legal fiction in the sense that an abstract concept can't actually do anything itself but this separation matters. A lot.

No, this is wrong. A business, except sole proprietorships, will be granted certain rights, obligations and legal protections that individuals do not possess.

Many types of business forms will also shield employees, owners and management from individual civil liability and often also from specific cases of criminal liability. For the "libertarian ideal" of the business as an extension of the individual to be true, the business must be the individuals and all legal protections and extra rights removed.

And this isn't something that only applies to "multi-national corporations".

I didn't do a good job of explaining it. Defamation is not protected under the 1st amendment.



They could repeal the 1st amendment which sets out restrictions on free speech, but they can't take away your natural right to free speech. That is yours, and inalienable despite government.

If you carefully read my posts you'll find we are in perfect agreement. I didn't mean to insinuate that government gives you rights. Rather, the nature of, and relationship between a government and it's free citizens is set out in the constitution.

It depends how your business is classified. If it is a sole proprietorship (which a healthy % of businesses are) literally everything you said here is wrong. If you have an LLC or LLP the rules differ slightly

The phrase "free speech" is deeply embedded in the US Constitutional language and concepts. What do you mean by that term when you take it as a "natural right"?

Also, you still haven't explained "the right to vote" in terms of your philosophy of rights. What does a "right to vote" mean in the absence of a system of governance?

I don't think you'd find many people not willing to oppose the dreadful travesty that is legal person corporations

I dunno dude read up on how your country works

You literally just claimed that defamation was not a free speech issue

If you're talking about "natural rights" then you should be able to describe it in terms that do not refer to the system of governance. So the fact that you can't describe these things devoid of that information is a strong indicator that they aren't "natural rights."

To be more precise, I was responding to this:

and

Here are my claims:

1) Slander is not taking away someone else's right to free speech. In this sense, it's not a free speech issue.
2) Slander is not slander because a person is unable to be present to defend themselves.
3) Slander is not about being unable to defend oneself in a "public forum" or in "the court of public opinion."

In addition, I've also argued that voting cannot be a natural right as the process of voting is subject to the system of government in which it is found. The government defines voting, which includes who can vote, how they are to vote, where they can vote, and when. In the absence of a governing body, the "right to vote" doesn't mean anything.

Do you have a natural right to govern yourself? You then also have a right to appoint someone to represent you in governance. It follows then that you have the right to collectively appoint representatives to govern you and/with your fellow free men. You can accomplish this by voting for a representative = you have a natural right to vote.

What does it mean to "govern yourself"? The word itself already implies the existence of a governing body. In my understanding of the words, I don't believe it's a natural right.

This does not logically follow. You're assuming that the governance is a representative form of government. There are dictatorships in which you do not actually have the right to be represented.

This also does not logically follow.

You can only accomplish this if voting is applicable to the system of government.

Good luck with your political philosophy. This is even stranger than the sovereign citizen stuff.

Its spreading lies about someone publicly, with speech. Its speaking for them in a blatantly false way.

Sure it is, because it takes place in the public sphere, and you can't directly confront it. It wouldn't have the ability to damage your reputation as badly if you could confront it.

It damages your reputation with the improper and dishonest use of free speech.

Reputation: the general (public) opinion held about someone or something

To rule your own life? It doesn't imply anything. It could be as simple as appointing someone to shop for you at the marketplace.



Ya and those dictatorships are imposing on your natural rights lol





It's the factual basis of the country you live in. You should have paid more attention in civics class.

Sure you are. You said unless it is force or fraud, the government should stay out of the way. So you should be squarely in favor of the Roe v Wade decision since neither force nor fraud are involved.

If it implies nothing, then you can draw no further logical conclusions from the statement.

I have a right to tell people to do my shopping for me? I don't think I have that right because there's no authority structure that gives me this right.

That's also not really governing my own life. That's telling other people what to do with theirs.

Again, if these are natural rights, then they should exist and be communicable in a manner independent of the country I live in. I do not deny that I have a right to vote as an American. I deny that this is a "natural right."

Nothing you've presented appears to be consistent with what "natural rights" actually means. And despite your claim to be consistent with the links OrP has provided, you're completely off the reservation.

Again, you're going to need to define what you think "freedom of speech" actually refers to. Is it the ability to say anything I want at anytime and in any place? That would be conceptually very distinct from how that phrase is most often used.

The first amendment is not primarily a restriction of free speech, but a granting of it. And in the granting of it, there are things that are not included. So there's no sense in which there's a "natural right" to it. It's granted through the government. And since it's granted through the government, the government is the authority that declares what is and is not free speech. Among other things, slander is NOT classified as free speech.

Thus, slander is not taking away someone else's right to free speech. They have done something that they do not have the legal right to do, and the government supplies the pathway in which remedies may be pursued (the court system).

By this logic, if I owned a media outlet, it would be impossible for me to be slandered because I have access to a means of challenging the statements.

Also, this sounds nothing like the legal standard of what slander is.

I don't deny that there exists a public opinion. My claim is that slander is not about the inability to defend oneself in that sphere. I also don't think that slander is a use of "free speech." Instead, it is a speech that is in violation of what the government allows, hence it's a form of restricted speech and not actually free speech.

I'll quote my claims here just so that they're not lost:

Do you into logic? You can state a fact and reason from that fact without it implying anything.


You either have severe difficulties with obviousities or you're a hypertroll.




I suggest reading some Locke or Aristotle or other philosophy of law. If you don't believe in natural rights then you disagree with the values your country is based upon as articulated in the Declaration of Independence .