I didn't say that it doesn't. But you saying that I said things I didn't say isn't new.

There can be explicit acts of discrimination involved. But for it to be systemic racism, it needs to be tied to a larger system that perpetuates it in an implicit manner. This could mean by not enforcing existing policies, or selective enforcement, or the complete absence of such policies. However, if it didn't involve those things, it's just discrimination.

So I'll make statement again:

And make my accusation again:

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Right. So you quoted three paragraphs of what I wrote because you wanted to respond to half a sentence in order to create a divergent discussion about universalism to argue against white male internet libertarians to show them the limitations of their libertarianism. That's a believable story.

Edit: The fact that you're singling out white males... what does that say about your own prejudices?

We do agree that the statement that libertarianism does reduce state violence cannot be sustained.

No. The claim that state violence will continue exist is true (it exists necessarily if the state is to take any action at all). But to argue whether there is "more" or "less" state violence depends upon the measure of violence being used.

To try to argue otherwise (that it must universally maintain the same level of state violence) is yet another strawman.

Okay so I am trying to square these two They are not talking about quite the same thing, so perhaps that is all there is to it, but they seem to have very different flavours. As in, the former is saying that under one particular way of looking at it, it appears that the scope of government is increasing and so it is bad in and of itself with no need to discuss the social consequences and the like. Sounds a bit like the deontological approach. The latter is very much a discussion of the social ramifications of these bills, making a judgement on the level of harm being done and whether that harm justifies or doesn't justify an intervention. Sounds a bit like the utilitarian approach.

Looking at the first of these, from a social perspective the consequence is that businesses increase their freedom to discriminate against homosexuals and can protect themselves using a specifically protected set of arguments afford by the bill. It seems there might be some confusion between complexity and freedom here. I agree the bill makes the legal system more complex, but it seems like it increases the freedoms of businesses. For instance, one can pass a bill that increases freedoms under certain conditions. That would increase the complexity, and the conditions might be very complex, but freedom would have increased. Taken to an extreme, the government could say "nobody can do anything" and that is very simple but very unfree.

Looking at the latter of these, I would say you have not really identified the form of harm most people refer to. As in, I would not say that harm afforded to LGBT people is that there is nowhere they can purchase wedding goods. That might actually be the case in some small southern towns, but generally won't be. In a similar way that having it be reliable that there is some bar in town that accepts black people doesn't come close to eliminating the significant harm from some - even a small minority - of bars denying blacks. I can expand on the types of harm that I think is being given if need be.

That's fine, I'll count both as a defeater of the idea discrimination against people on the basis of race should be allowed currently.


Some of the same prejudice I have against those who want the Muslim Caliphate because they happen to be Muslim and would gain power from it I suppose. I'm sure they came to their conclusion rationally, but it just so happens....

I agree. But those who say it will reduce state coercion aren't talking about the methods of coercion used but try and quantify some kind of level.For instance, you said when you were talking about libertarianism respects people's choices, with the implicit idea that they were free from government interference. That's simply not true. Libertarianism supports certain people's choices over others. That's trivially true, but it also defeats the idea of some kind of that "universialism" I was talking about.

Trying to frame things as being strictly deontological or strictly utiltarian is an error. There is an certainly ideal that is being pursued (that government stays out of the way as much as possible), but that ideal is not asserted as a truth. It's a guiding principle. That is, it does not provide an overriding rule that must be adhered to at all costs, but does point in a particular direction as an aspirational outcome.

You had made a similar sort of declaration when you discussed your shifting political/moral viewpoints, and how you couldn't deal with two conflicting values leading to two conflicting viewpoints.

The problem is that it defends something that's not worth defending. That is, there's no conflict, so the increase in complexity does not have a corresponding increase in freedoms (as they are actually applied). So even if in some technical sense, the bill increases freedoms, it's not consistent with the guiding principle of government staying out of the way.

We could write laws that allows left-handed people to write with their left hands. That would certainly codify more freedoms. But that doesn't mean that such codification is a good thing.

Presumably, you're talking about the social harm caused by rejection. Given the current sociological outlook, I don't really see this as being a problem.

Let's say for a moment that it's perfectly legal for a bar to reject black patrons. What are the consequences of that decision? I've already been through this:

Under (a), I'm also including the fact that the decision to exclude people may induce a larger boycott of the bar. And this is (broadly speaking) what I would expect to happen if a bar makes itself a no-blacks bar.

And if it falls under (b), then it's pretty much like a gay bar in the sense that practically speaking, it falls off the radar of blacks looking for a bar. (Most) straight men don't go through lists of gay bars when they're looking for a place to hang out. So in the same way, blacks would not look to the black-free establishment as a place to hang out, and it's not a big deal because there are lots of other places for them to go. And even if those few straight men are legally kept out of the gay bars (even though they may desperately want in and feel rejected otherwise), I see that as an allowable consequence of the freedom to exclude under the provisions provided.

Right... you clearly win at reading comprehension. Congratulations.

Not a problem.

Okay so you don't want it to be a hard fast rule, just a general principle. Fair enough. But I am still slightly unclear on your position and I guess I should have questioned you earlier when you said this: "Government is not generally evil, but it should generally try to stay out of the way." Do you hold to this idea (that government should generally stay out of the way) more because you feel that in and of itself a highly minimalist government is a value we should ascribe to, or more because you have consistently found it is the case that government actions make things worse according to some other set of values (like a measure for quality of life)? If you don't want to force yourself entirely into one camp or the other that is fine, but what can be an issue is when you argue from the perspective of the one camp in one instance, and then other from the perspective of the other camp in another. In this case, two relatively similar issues seemed to have very different classes of arguments being used.

Personally, I don't take the "size of government" - something quite a bit harder to quantify than is sometimes implied - as a factor to optimize (amongst other factors) in and of itself. It may be that in a particular situation a government action is preferable or not. Another example might be the oft stated liberal ideal of "equality". I don't hold that equality is in and itself a value to hold to, but it may well be that societies more equal in some regard end up being superior according to various values that I do hold to.

I"m not sure I follow. As it turns out, cake bakers have been successfully sued in a few jurisdiction so laws like this would have a corresponding increase in cake baker freedoms. Or did I miss what you are saying here?

Somewhat ironically, my granny grew up as a left handed person in a time when she was forced to write right handed during school. She would probably have quite benefited from some school district policy codifying the right to write right handed (lol phrasing) She's quite the funny mixture now of things she does with her left and right hands, there is no rhyme or reason to it but about half of what she does she uses the one hand and half the other...but isn't ambidextrous she can't use the other hand for the things she hasn't become accustomed to.



Among other things. To me, it appears that there are enormous social repercussions of being gay and a society wide lack of acceptance, ostratization, a whole party campaigning on denying their equal rights and freedoms and believing that aspiring to marrying is a grevious sin, where coming out is an often painful experience beset with reprecussions, where depression and suicide, particularly amongst teens, is very high, and so on. The homophobic baker who refuses to bake a cake for a gay wedding is a small slap on the cheek, admittedly. But it contributes to the collective actions of a society who together add up to a harm that is very real and very legitimate.

I will admit that said cake bakers are not exactly my priority, especially so as something of a utilitarian. I care more about pushing and financing acceptance and aid programs targeted at youth (since high school LGBT stats are just so appalling), workplace nondiscrimination laws (since jobs are so vastly important to social integration and well being) and marriage equality.

Let's say for a moment that it's perfectly legal for a bar to reject black patrons. What are the consequences of that decision? I've already been through this:



a) is relatively unlikely...gays represent a sufficiently small part of the population that going out of business because you don't serve gays is quite unlikely. There might be a marginal difference in your profit, and every once in a while that difference may be enough to switch from profitable to unprofitable, but it would be likely rare. b) seems to rather miss the kinds of harm that manifests. Suppose as you suggest there are a bunch of white only bars and the one niche black only bar in an area. This doesn't solve the larger social problem being implied. As in, the harm to blacks from a segregated society wasn't that they couldn't find anywhere to get a beer, just as the harm to gays isn't that there isn't anywhere they can buy a cake.

...

Indeed. No problem at all. Ignoring clauses and such certainly makes you look bad, wouldn't you agree?

It's a combination of a number of things. There's certainly an undercurrent of the American "freedom" ethos and there's a hint of the theological respect of free choices (God values our freedom enough to give us the ability to make bad choices). There's also a sense in which I find large bureaucracies to be slow, inefficient, and not terribly adaptable creatures.

The actual act of government interference is a mixed bag. Some things are good, some things are not so good. So it's not like less government is automatically a good or a bad thing. The problems are tied more to the bureaucratic nature of government than the role of government itself. (Recall that I suggested that a benevolent dictator was also an acceptable option to me, and that greatly increases the role and scope of government.)

It's a cost-benefit analysis. The cost of increasing the laws on the books compared to the benefit of the few people is not worth the investment and increase in government. (I know that cake bakers have been sued, and the reason they have been sued is because there's an underlying lack of freedom to choose who to bake cakes for. That's why I would be more inclined to repeal various applications of anti-discrimination laws instead of creating laws to counter the laws that are in place.)

Right. The aggregate collections of many can become a problem. The question, however, is what the appropriate solution to the problem is. Is this something that is solved primarily by an increase in the scope and role of government? Or are there alternative solutions?

Clearly, making laws to address the baker are misplaced. That is, if we get the bakers to take a small slap on the cheek, it's not as if the underlying issues have been addressed.

The primary issues here are social issues as they pertain to perceptions and social organization. I do not think that things are so far out of alignment at this point in history that it would not be a self-correcting issue. For example:

http://www.autostraddle.com/gay-lesb...rywhere-47977/

This is the same idea as applied to the interracial marriage question I presented earlier:

Does that mean that there's no work to be done at all? Nope. But the existence of a problem does not immediately imply that government must do something to fix it.

In the abstract, you are correct. If there is just one bar among hundreds where a black person can get a drink, that's a collective problem, leading to government action. But in reality, that's not the case at all. Even if we allowed bar owners to discriminate, I would simply not expect that suddenly all the bars (except for one) will be white-only bars. I expect relatively few to change. The social trends and sociological perspectives of the population is not facing in a direction that suggests that would happen.

The same applies to bakers. The ability to discriminate against gays will not suddenly cause a bunch of people to discriminate. Some might, but given the trends we expect that to be a minority by a significant margin.

Not at all. I generally assume one resorts to grammatical issues as a last resort. Do you really want to push the idea that government shouldn't interfere "as far as possible"? Because the Supreme Court and the majority of the US disagrees with you with how far the government should encroach upon the rights of land owners to enforce their prejudices, implicit and explicit, upon others. Regardless of being regarded as truth or a guiding principle.

I mean really? "minimal ethical standards"? It's a licence for the demographic majority to oppress the minority regardless of any universal rights. The same has been going on for centuries. Even a cursory understanding of history would show anyone with an ounce of sympathy knows that. Why do even think the Civil Rights Act was passed in the first place? Oh that's right, you know nothing about it. It's a black hole of history.

I have repeated it multiple times and you're simply trying to avoid it at this point, libertarian has no claim to a universal idea of having people responsible for their decisions, it ignores whole classes of people's decisions or worse uses force against them. it's universality is a lie. What it is, is an attempt to push state power to agree with, in this case, land owners more so than any other group. And if its a case we can simply ignore it to focus on more Christian, or humanitarian ideals, namely egalitarianism and human dignity regardless of property ownership.

I usually say that about cutting out half a sentence, particularly when the other half of the sentence contains relevant information. Six of one...

As for the rest of it, it's merely sufficient for me to point out that your various arguments continue to be tangential at best, and pointless at worst. The necessity of you continuing to make strawmen combined with your argument by demagoguery in order to attempt to make meaningful statements demonstrates that the most you add to this conversation is noise and hot air.

Edit: But by all means, go ahead and argue against those white male internet libertarians that read but don't post in religious forums on poker websites.

Really? Because when I brought up the fact that your idea that if we allowed bigots to discriminate again there wouldn't be widespread racism was predicated on the antithesis of your idea, the antithesis being that widespread violation a libertarian ideas resulted in this trend there was no answer, and yet you bring up this same argument with Ute. In conjunction with that, the idea that implicit and explicate racism continue to exist was accepted but never refuted as a defeater of the allowance of libertarian ideas. Neither the idea that libertarianism is merely the redirection of state violence in the favor of, in this case, land owners instead of some universal idea of libertarianism allowing "freedom of ideas free of government interference". Also that libertarianism would not reject ,and in fact, would sanction some of greater moral atrocities of American history such as Jim Crow law and the systematic discrimination against minorities through out history was not rejected. Likewise that libertarianism oppresses people through denying them a political buy in through identities such as race or gender as opposed to the generic and restricting identities of patron and landowner was never addressed.

And what have we heard in refutation of these arguments? Nothing but the meek bleating of claiming of tangential arguments and obfuscation combined with blind ignorance of historical face. So i'll leave it to the audience to decide if the man who knows nothing about the history of those who he claims it's in the better interest to allow the oppression of but who also has no idea about the continuing historical and cultural significance of the word n*gger is correct if or, perhaps someone who has laid out a series of points describing the weaknesses of libertarianism using a wider range of moral arguments including the involvement those whose oppression would be sanctioned.

Anyways I'll leave Ute and Aaron to play the 'what if' game ad infinitum

So just for clarity, I think a huge portion of the solution is non governmental. Namely, what has occured is a partial change in societal attitudes moving very quickly towards LGBT acceptance, and what I want is that social attitude to move considerably further. Each decade has seen massive increases in social acceptance and it is pretty reasonable to assume that will continue with or without any government action. For a long time, the government shamefully had that erected (we are talking about the gays, after all) legal barriers that have largely fallen. The biggest legal hurdle is marriage equality. After that, what the government does is going to be a small piece of the puzzle. So no, I don't expect it to be primarily solved by government. But I think government can help. I think it can move it along faster, make the acceptance more robust, more complete.

I don't necessarily disagree (although I don't like to downplay the extent of the discrimination against LGBT people, it can still be very high in some places). However, the little this does the more this tends off into irrelevancy. Suppose the law does absolutely nothing. As in, all that I may wish comes to pass and nobody discriminates against a gay person again. The now archaic "don't discriminate against gays" law remains on the book. What is the problem? No gay person is harmed. And no homophobic bakers are harmed, because they are all no longer homophobic. The net consequence of the bill is zero, or at least this is how my framework "sees" the issue.

So I think at the level of sort of general approaches this is where the conflict between us lies: when I look at a particular bill like 1062, I am interested in the social consequences of it. That is the only real measure that I find to be relevant. Since the bill affords legal protections to businesses to discriminate against gays above and beyond what exist already, the effect would seem to be - at least briefly - some increased amount of businesses that actually do discriminate, and contribute to the negative consequences that society's discrimination already creates. That is one form of harm. Don't have the bill, and there is a harm done to said business owners who won't be able to act as their conscience dictates and so on. So to me, it is a measure of which of these harms is more significant and impactful.

You, however, have a somewhat nebulous "something else" thrown in. Heck, for all I know you might agree with me that the harm to LGBT's is more significant than the harm to christian objectors to LGBTs either in weddings or more generally. Namely, something about the bill being government based in and of itself gives you a negative stink about it.

What I have been trying to weed out is precisely why it is you think that the government's involvement in a specific case - such as this one - is bad or to what degree it factors in above and beyond your other analysis (such as the social consequences). So I started to frame it as whether it was deontological (we accept an axiom that the government is bad, ergo it is in this case) or utilitarian (for some reason I have not seen, there would be additional negative consequences to this bill). You then told me it wasn't as clear cut as this, that your opinions were not absolute, and motivated by a mixture of such things as Christian free will, american freedom ethos, and observations about the inefficiency of bureaucracies (presumably the latter is irrelevant here). Okay, that's fine, but I fail to see any useful way that one uses any of this to actually make decisions on specific policy. It just seems wishy-washy.

So for instance, your objection to 1062 was that it grew the scope of government under a particular way of looking at it (which seemed to me a much more "technical" way than what you called the technical way in which it could be seen as increasing freedoms, but no matter). And if I am being fair here, you allowed this kind of anti-government involvement treatment to trump because (after the initial presentation of it) you noted that you felt the social consequences were relatively trivial. Well we probably disagree on how trivial they are, but it comes back to my basic lack of understanding with your perspective. Under your perspective, can you explain the problems that result from this government increased involvement? As in, can you point to specific consequence of this government involvement that is negative to you. An objector like me points to the harm to LGBT people, a supporter like erick erickson points to the harm to the christian cake bakers, but what is it you point to?

From what I can tell, you are effectively applying a rule of thumb. And when you defend the rule of thumb you speak about some relatively general platitudes. But it doesn't seem like there is any way to see how it applies, or to what degree it applies, in any particular situation. Or am I totally lost on your view?

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More minor stuff:


So? This is a pretty flawed measure of social acceptance of gay people. Presumably huge majorities of americans new a black person in the 50s.

That's pretty sad, honestly. To rephrase: almost 40% of people are not okay with a family member marrying someone of another race. Yes we have come a long way, but damn we still have a long way to go.

*You have spoken a few times - quite rightly - about how you don't seem to want government to privilege religious arguments and the like over generic arguments and one bad part of this bill is that it cherry picks religious arguments egregiously. You have also spoken about letting bills sunset. So what do you think about specific codification for freedom of religion, beyond just more generic freedom of speech and assembly? Would you let such things sunset? Surely one of the original issues that founded America - persecution of religious minorities in Europe - is long sense expired so that original motivator for the need to explicitly codify religious freedom above and beyond a more generic form no longer exists. I quoted the Canadian Charter earlier in the thread, could possibly all of the enumerated freedoms expire?
* I believe that symbols have power and influence in society. In particular, I believe that the act of coming together to accept a common principle solidifies that acceptance and reach of that principle, and helps to promote it. America is a better society more accepting of the ideas of various freedoms because of their codification and the influence that has. i think the codification of the civil rights act profoundly changed our societal consciousness and improved race relations. Even if enumerating a specific member of the above list had no direct legal conflict (nobody won or lost a court case due to it) I would tend to think that its powerful symbolism of accepting the principle in the founding documents of our country would have a social impact. Perhaps it even functions as merely a metric of progress, that a certain level of acceptance has been met such that we can codify such a freedom and it is worth marking that moment. Anyways, this little bit of proselytizing speaks to the idea that even were some of these relatively uninfluential directly in the legal sense, their symbolic importance can nonetheless be profound and influential in a positive way.

Libertarianism in a nutshell:

1.) You have the right not to be put in a concentration camp.
2.) Everybody else has the right to not help you.

There is no "problem" until there is one. That is, if we assume that there's no problem for all time with this law on the books, then by assumption there's nothing to worry about. But with more and more laws on the books, (especially in the litigious US) we run into problems of people attempting to use laws in ways that are unintended, which can create problems.

We generally seem to agree that there is simply no way that the eHarmony lawsuit should have gone forward and that it seems to be an overstep to make them change their business model. But the decision to settle comes mostly from concerns about how a particular law is on the books, and how that law might be interpreted in the courtroom (and the potential financial losses of fighting and losing). [Granted, both cases were settled out of court, so we don't have an actual legal ruling. But this only goes to show that the threat of lawsuit can be a powerful weapon even if it doesn't look like it should be won on its merits.]

To me, that sounds like saying that investing based on "market conditions" is wishy-washy. I mean, I guess it is in a certain sense. You look for indicators to help you make decisions, and you don't always use the same indicators all the time because the type of investment you're considering isn't the same as every other investment. So you have to pick and choose what you're going to be thinking about and go with that.

I would line up the argument something like this:

The law does not appear to add freedoms in a way that would be particularly meaningful. That is, there do not already exist people attempting to use religious liberties in order to not serve specific patrons. (See "left-handed writing.")

So this law should not be passed on the basis that it does not actually (practically?) provide new freedoms. Since it has no practical effect, it is better (on the basis of guiding principles) to not increase government in order to accomplish nothing.

I would point to the fact that there does not appear to be any Christian cake bakers who are seeking protection from serving gay customers. It does not appear to be a problem in that state, and the current state law does not appear to require people to do that in the first place. In the state (or states?) in which bakers were successfully sued, I believe that state laws were invoked.

I guess it depends on what you think a rule of thumb is. To me, a rule of thumb is a guideline that is used as a general principle to help guide decision-making. It's not an axiomatized standard by which all arguments must be measured, nor should it be seen as the only thing that matters. And there are even exceptional cases in which you should go against a rule of thumb.

(Maybe by analogy, does the fact that one man has a thicker thumb than another mean that he can beat his wife with a stick that the other man can't? Probably not. And that's why rules of thumb aren't globally held requirements.)

Yes. I don't claim that there has been an arrival. And I don't claim that there will be an arrival, or that it even makes sense to speak of an arrival. But at a certain point, there is a critical mass where civic life is self-sustaining without government needing to be threatening with a big stick to keep things in balance.

The structure of that statement is different, in that it is a law that prevents other laws from being put into place. That is, it can be seen as a formal statement of a libertarian outlook. In other words, it functions entirely differently than most other laws. It's a law that restricts government, not a law that restricts individuals.

I don't have any "strong" objections under the hypothesis that general freedom of speech and assembly are maintained.

They might. They probably won't for the foreseeable future. The current trend (internationally) is the increased codification of basic rights. I expect some level of alignment with that as long as that's the global trend of governance just because that's how things look like they're going.

We/you don't currently have codified that people of different heights should be treated equally under the law. It's just assumed to be that way. I wouldn't support (at this point in history) a change in law that would enumerate that specific freedom. It would seem to me to be a pointless waste of time and effort. But if the facts on the ground change in some way, then it may need to be put in.

I would also say that I don't think they probably should expire. Advocating an automatic sunset policy does not mean that I think every law should eventually sunset. It's a statement that we should actively choose to maintain laws by reconsidering them regularly rather than passively maintain them.

State law no, but LGBT protections are built into local ordinances for a few cities in the state which this state bill would trump (and is in term trumped by federal protections for race and religion). I think you are down playing the effect that this bill in particular, and those like it, would play. I think there would be a nonzero effect both in the courtroom as well as social ramifications (such as someone being more likely to discriminate, given the public attention that they are able to do so with impunity should they cite religious convictions). It is also not just cake bakers, it is actually very generally written. It was just that the ostensible spark that motivated it was that new mexico case on cake bakers. It can be also seen as part of a larger give and take - a preemptive strike perhaps - where currently on race and religion there is very robust nation wide defences against nondiscrimination, but a growing but still very patchwork defence for LGBT:
For most people, I would try to argue that there is little reason why these protections should not be on the order of protections for race and religion which tends to be relatively powerful, but it fails of course for you since you sorta maybe are okay with the idea of getting rid of all these anti-discrimination protections.







An investor presumably has good reasons they cite as to why one should be using various indicators in various cases. It is that ability to cite specific reasons for a specific case that help you make a specific determination that seems to be lacking for you.

If we consider government bill X, I'd like to see a specific argument about why the consequences of this bill is good or bad. That at least is how I try to judge bills, even if such analysis is very poor it at least seems to be the right basic framework. Maybe in other cases you normally do, but in this case it didn't seem like you were giving specific reasons why it was bad and had negative consequences.

Now this specific example might be a bad one to flush this out since you apparently view it doesn't seem to have any consequences good or bad, and are defaulting to perhaps one might even call it an aesthetic preference. There was a vague allusion to possible unintended consequences, but not much more. So maybe in other cases, cases where you think they do have real consequences, you are more inclined to argue for specific reasons why the government being involved makes it good or bad. If you say so, I can give you the benefit of the doubt on this. But on this case, you didn't. So perhaps it is better to accept for the sake of argument that it does indeed have some nontrivial level of consequences...how then would your general application of the "guiding principle" factor in? If it isn't explicitly stating what the consequences of a government action are in this specific case, how do you possibly measure any form of degree to which you should add the "but government is bad!" factor. Particularly, when you justifications for the factor seem to be very general motivations, unrelated in any way to the consequences of a specific action.


Okay, but the same argument surely applies to both race and religion, no? Seems like we are beyond the critical mass for all of them.

For clarity, I don't disagree. I think it is very likely that government can solidify, speed up and make more complete the transition, but sure I don't think it isn't going to collapse without just codifications. I will note your rhetoric is non standard (few would cite our protections against discriminating against people for religious reasons as the evil gubmint threatening with big sticks) but I suppose some libertarians think this way. I guess one man's hallmark of a just and equitable society is anothers oppressive one.



Sure. Would you be happy in that case with the codification of purely government anti-discrimination rules for LGBT the way there exists for race and religion - thus restricting your objections to the ones where the anti-discrimination affects people and businesses? For instance, the big fight over marriage equality comes down to how one interprets the equal protection clause which is as you care about a restriction on the types of laws that governments can pass. In particular, the claim is that the legal cannon should accept LGBT as a class with similar heightened scrutiny to race such that the government cannot pass a law like "marriage is between a man and a woman". One could imagine LGBTized civil rights act that didn't have equivalent things for title II perhaps

Okay, in that case do you have a compelling argument for why sexual orientation ought not be on that list, at least as long as you are content with the list not expiring: "race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability." And just in case you feel the need to say it again, clearly it is pointless to add trivialities to the list like tall people or people with glasses. But LGBT seems to have a level of social persecution (as have others on that list) that justifies, at least for me, its establishment along with the other major identifiers.

In this case, I'm broadly ambivalent to the practical outcome (in the sense that I don't think there will be a sudden increase in people claiming religious liberties to deny cakes to homosexuals -- and also deny services in general).

Ultimately, my reason for rejecting it comes down to the fact that the bill is just written quite poorly, and it's therefore not effective at accomplishing any of the goals that it set out to accomplish. In other words, it's just plain ol' bad legislation.

In this case, the guiding principle is suggesting that such a bill is already unnecessary. Perhaps "redundant" isn't quite the right word, but it doesn't seem to add what it says it will add in a meaningful manner.

Maybe the above will help? For me, it's not that "government is bad" but that government should be reticent to involve itself in the affairs of its citizens. For example, I think that there are things that government can involve itself in that could be an objective improvement. But just because such an improvement can be made is not a sufficient cause for government to get involved. If the current state of affairs is sufficiently good on its own, then even though government might be able to make it better, government should simply stay out of the way.

Sure. And with the sunset provision I had suggested earlier, in another couple decades (or whenever that period comes up), it may be decided that these extra provisions simply aren't necessary, and that government can step away from guarding those things and simply allow society to keep moving on.

The more extreme forms of utilitarianism seem to suffer from fairly basic logical flaws, and other arguments are just too narrowly conceived to be meaningful. So I don't defend all libertarian arguments in the same way you don't defend all utilitarian arguments.

Well, I've already stated my opposition to government being in the marriage business in the first place, so that's really how I would clarify the role of government there.

But to the bolded, I would be fine with that. Government should avoid singling out specific groups of people for special treatment (whether to treat them favorably or unfavorably) unless it is serving some really important function to do so.

Nope. And I wouldn't strongly object to it being added to the list. But I also wouldn't really object to it NOT being added to the list, either.

I don't view it as being particularly necessary at this point in time. That is, if it weren't added, it's not as if the current trends towards acceptance would suddenly be halted, or that by adding it one would expect a huge swing away from what's already happening.

It once again comes back to the question of what role government is playing. Most people (probably yourself included) try to use laws to "lead the way" towards progress. In some cases, that's necessary. But in this case, things are in the process of settling out already. So the addition of more laws are more symbolic in nature than practical. I agree that there is value to symbols, but in this case, the symbol looks closer to a victory dance than a practical protected class. That is, even without such a codified statement, it's happening anyway. And even if a few individuals start discriminating against the LGBT community, it's not really going to slow things down.

Right, so there really is something I dunno deontological for lack of a better word about this. Namely, if you sit down and dutifully write out every consequence you can think of, every problem that this government action creates and every benefit, and find it benefitial that analysis isn't enough. There is a sort of anti-government fudge factor that still applies (at least within some threshold) to change your analysis. Even after all the consequences that stem from it have been discussed, there is something left over that is sort of "in and of itself" bad about government actions, something "deontological" although I still am not sure that is the best word here. That's the part I don't understand. I don't see how one justifies this extra analysis (you gave some loose motivations, but its hard to see how they apply in any situation such as this one) particularly because all the negative consequences that government has in a situation are part of our "what are the consequences" analysis. What else is left that lets you say that there is still something to consider to flip it from good to bad?

For instance, suppose we were debating obamacare or something. There are many arguements you can make about the negative consequences of the bill. You can speak in terms of very real, very concrete consequences such as worse quality health care, higher monetary costs, etc. We could debate the merits of your analysis, but the framework would be understood. And then you tell me there is this extra thing, this extra "but its government!" factor. So now I am looking at higher morbidity (which i get), higher costs (which I get) and more..err...government badness (which I just can't measure or fit into anything in a meanginful way). (Just randomly picking a few factors to illustrate the point, no implications about obamacare itself being made)





Note that the bolded implied something about marriage. I know you have a different opinion, but if you were fine with things like equal protection clause being interpreted as limiting a state's ability to not equally protect LGBT, then marriage equality (whatever the government does or does not do for marriage it must be equal) falls immediately. Its looking increasingly likely that SC will find this to be the case regardless, but under the assumption it didn't.

I've forgotten, was your opinion that you wanted government to have no involvement in the prescriptions of rights and benefits to defined legal relationships (taxation, inheritance, hospital rights, etc) and then people could enter into whatever contracts they wish? Or was yours a government would still have a "civil union" legal relationship somewhat resembling what we now call a marriage and then marriage is something people can define outside of any government confine is they so wish?



I rather emphatically wouldn't. I see most freedom and discrimination laws as sort of middle of the transition things. Initially laws begin discriminating against minorities as they did with women or blacks or gays because of the attitudes of a past society. It takes decades of very brave and hard fighting, with martyrs like MLK or Harvey Milk, before social consciousness starts to shift. They lead the way. It isn't until you start to see major change in that social consciousness before the politicians and judges start overturning existing discriminatory laws en masse and replacing them with neutral ones or ones that codify explicit freedoms and protections. For gay rights, many such laws have been overturned and the last big stalwart - marriage inequality and all the associated consequences of that, there are many - needs to still fall. But government doing such things isn't a victory lap, for there is still much to be done. Yes there are many states with gay marriage now, but the social consciousness in those states still needs significant change. These government bills can help to strength the speed and completeness of some of that change, help shorten the all too long tail (like your nearly 40% still don't approve of their family members marrying interracially). I'd call these things important momentum pushes somewhere in the middle of the transition, but not leading the way. Democratic governments almost by definition don't lead the way.


We are FAR away from a spot where LGBT people can do a "victory dance" that the discrimination is over and relegated to a "few individuals" on the periphery. You might be right that such laws will do very little (I think you significantly downplay their potential effect, but its hard to know for sure), but they would do very little in a larger social context where discrimination still does make the lives of gay people - particularly teens - all too often somewhere between awkward and uncomfortable to excruciating and unlivable, literally. That shouldn't be minimized, by omission or otherwise.

There is an asymmetry in our positions that favours me, I think. If you are right, the law has almost no consequences. It is just an unnecessary symbol that we could have dispensed with, and dispensed with similar racial and religious analogues at the same time. Who cares one way or hte other. If I'm right, then we have an opportunity to make a meaningful reduction in the harm and suffering of a class of people currently experiencing far too much. I don't know the exact degree, but I rather suspect it is non zero, perhaps significantly so. Pascal's wager is on my side here (for once!).

Obamacare. I went from working 51 hours a week to working 28 hours a week. It was actually the first time I felt the direct, immediate effect of a president in office (that I can remember, except for Bush sending me a cool $500). And my healthcare stayed the same, too. I guess I'm just the "etc."

Have you ever been in a management-like position? There are many things you can do better than the people you hire (usually by virtue of your experience or whatever). But it's not your job to do their jobs, even if you can do it better. Your job is to do something else. It's all about role and scope.

You can frame that more formally in a utilitarian manner by invoking opportunity cost. The amount of energy invested in doing the smaller task means that you don't have that energy to invest in other, more important tasks.

In a governmental sense, the idea that if government can perform a task better then it should do it comes with an unstated assumption that government can be infinitely big without harm. But that's simply not true. Larger governments require larger taxes, and larger taxes eventually created an unnecessary burden the citizenry. This outlook can run into the slippery slope of every straw being the one that breaks the camel's back, which is where a lot of libertarian arguments fall apart in the deontological sense that you've described.

My view is much more moderated by the question of the marginal cost of government involvement. How much better does it get as a result of government involvement? If it's not significantly better, then it's probably not worth the investment.

I would be accepting of either one. I think it's a lot cleaner on the government side of things to leave individuals the responsibility for determining where their assets should go when they die, and it's possible to assert visitation rights at the same time. (In general, I think individuals should be far more active and conscientious in how they plan for life.)

A civil union would be a compromise position given where things are at present. It's likely far too disruptive to pull the rug out from under the institutionalized concept of marriage completely.

I disagree with your analysis on this point: In a purely conceived democratic government, nothing happens within the government without a majority opinion to support it. But we have seen in the US that many changes have happened as the result of minority viewpoints. In the US, there are cases where decisions by the judiciary have clearly "led the way" towards changes. I believe also the emancipation proclamation was an example of government leading the way. A lot of civil rights legislation was government leading the way as well.

But in general, I think we're probably seeing "lead the way" in slightly different terms. I think you're taking it in a very strict sense like "Government takes the first step and everything else follows behind." I was using "lead the way" as government being the primary force behind change, not the first mover.

Tangent: Do you believe society should be at 100% approval of interracial marriage? I don't. I think 60% is fine. The end goal is not uniformity of beliefs, but that there is a critical mass that can sustain the population against contrary opinions. I probably hold a much stronger view of what a pluralistic society is than you do. It's not about everyone agreeing with everyone else, it's about everyone being able to exist together in a functioning society. I might even say that 30-40% would be enough to accomplish that.

Let me repeat what I said, because I think you've misunderstood it.

*IF* extra laws are added, it becomes a victory dance. It's not entirely relevant to the analysis that follows, but it's an important distinction in what I've stated.

It's entirely possible. But that's not enough of an analysis that will get me to believe you that it's actually better. What I would say is that here, you're creating something like a government security blanket. Government involvement in this area may not actually do anything at all, but I want it there just in case it might. I don't find that to be sufficiently compelling for government to make a formal commitment of involvement.

Edit: When talking about long tails and that sort of thing, it gives the impression that perhaps one way to frame your view of government involvement is that government is "bringing the hammer." That if government gets involved, it "seals the deal" in some sense. And I would again point to the question or role and scope of government. Is it government's job to create uniformity among the citizenry? To drive people towards adopting a particular belief?

I'm late to the thread. This is pretty much what happened in AZ, right?

My feelings are mixed on this and not sure what the most logically position for me to take is. Perhaps someone can help me.

On the one hand, I'm shocked by a law that basically legalizes discrimination. If you don't have to serve someone because it offends your religious sensibilities that someone is gay, can you refuse service because being Jewish, Muslim, etc., offends you?

On the other hand, do people have the right to discriminate? If not, why not? Hey, you can't legalize what someone thinks. If someone is a bigot, they should be allowed to be one. The key in my opinion, is to develop societies where others consider this unacceptable. Another thing...

If someone doesn't want to serve me because I'm black, gay, Christian, an atheist, etc., I WANT TO KNOW THAT! I want to know that, because I don't want to do business with them. I want to tell all my friends that they're a bigot and hope they won't do business with people them either. I don't want someone who hates me making my wedding cake and I don't want to give them to make money off me either.

Of course, I'm sure laws like these would create problems when it comes to governmental and municipal discrimination. Also, if goliath companies such as banks were allowed to discriminate they could create more hardship for the minority than the other way around. But that's only because we as a society would let them get away with it. So I don't know how I feel. I think people should have the right to be an intolerable bigot if they want to be. And we should have the right (and the power of numbers) to not allow them to make to succeed in business.

While it isn't precluded by that specific state law, this is prevented federally which trumps it.