> By being a business owner in a community, you give up certain civil liberties because you have increased power to infringe upon the civil rights of others.
Big [citation needed] here. The Constitution doesn’t say you give up your rights by being a business owner and participating in the economy.
Owning a business is not a right, though. Public commerce is pervasively regulated in all sorts of ways that might plausibly constitute "speech". The first amendment guarantees your right to make your opinions heard to all who want to listen. It doesn't say anything about making a buck doing it.
Owning a business is most definitely a right. One of the highest. It falls under 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' and is explicitly a right given by the constitution. It is on the same as familial association which is also a right legally recognized as being granted by 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.
It comes from Locke, actually, and the third right enumerated was explicitly "property". But this is strawmanning anyway. I'm not saying the government has the right to seize property (that's covered quite explicitly under the fourth amendment). I'm saying that there is no right to operate a public business without regulation.
And sometimes regulation says "you can't police what your customers say with your product". Which is why I have a hard time taking some people seriously on this argument, which is so precisely analogous to the Twitter situation where they stand on the other side.
(FWIW: I think Masterpiece v. Colorado was absolutely correctly decided. Twitter doesn't have to put anything on their cakes that they don't want to say.)
Sorry, I'm a little confused by your post(I didn't follow this story originally and was, um, indisposed when it all happened so I don't know any of the larger social discussions that occured at the time other than a few newspaper articles). I'm was raised by hippies to be a diehard libertarian with a son who has had a lot of judgements and pain in his life because of who he is (and who he is is amazing so f all yall who judge him without knowing him). So this is kind of an existential crisis for me. I'm really really grateful to read all these thoughts.
I was absolutist about individual rights. But this discuss has me seeing that the absolutist view can allow people to be denied basic freedoms too (like how blacks were in the past). Each side is actually advocating for rights in this scenario, no matter which side I take. Before I would say the government can't limit rights, so tough luck to people who have theoretic constitutional rights but can't actually take advantage of those rights because society as a whole denies them to them over something arbitrary (race, sexual preference). Now I'm not sure. Our Government was created to ensure rights are protected from the tyranny of the majority as much as to protect from government tyranny (hence religious freedoms, freedom of speech, etc). This discussion has me seeing that protecting protected classes need a way that they can actually experience the rights given to them by the constitution and that is no different than the government enforcing freedom of religion.
I'm kind of at the point of seeing that past freedoms (to discriminate) resulted in non government imposed limiting of peoples (minorities, those with non-standard sexual preferences) basic freedoms (freedom to travel, be in public life, associate, have the same life experiences as others).
I think you are saying that businesses shouldn't have compelled speech but that the government can regulate business so that protected classes have their basic rights to enjoy/live life actually made available?
Sorry, not trying to be dense, just possibly adjusting some major life long beliefs.
Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
> Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private".
Then cite where the constitution explicitly protects discrimination against protected classes.
The problem citing the constitution here is it's an argument from ignorance. You can't ignore federal laws just because the constitution doesn't say anything about them.
> Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
> The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the other way around.
> Then cite where the constitution explicitly protects discrimination against protected classes.
That reply was not about protected classes, per se. Please don't strawman off constructive criticism. Acknowledge you made a bad assertion or ignore it as irrelevant to your point.
- Asking where the constitution talks about protected classes is a loaded question, because it's protected by federal law.
- Stating the constitution overrides federal law is an argument from ignorance, because the constitution doesn't say anything about discrimination against protected classes to override it with.
Selectively ignoring the context of this conversation (i.e. "it's not about that per SE") to make my comment look like an unrelated straw man is cherry picking.
The problem with constitutionalists declaring freedom of association here is that the courts have repeatedly, undeniably upheld that the federal laws protecting civil rights are more important than the centuries old document (or, in a way, linked to the 14th amendment).
> Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
> The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the other way around.
> Stating the constitution overrides federal law is an argument from ignorance,
It is not an argument from ignorance. There was no argument about discrimination made. There was a reply (a correction) to point out a flaw in your argument. You are intentionally trying to pretend there was no error in your own argument by circling back to an orthogonal point. It was simply incorrect on its own to say "Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law." I don't understand why you are bending over backwards, to defend something that doesn't matter to the points that matter to you, at all.
You have been striking out against people who are trying to help you have a stronger argument, by pointing out weakness. That's something worth thinking about in the future. GL with whatever.
The US Constitution guarantees freedom of association, i.e. the freedom not to associate, to discriminate on any basis you please. The CRA removes that right for a delimited number of protected classes but doesn’t remove it generally.
Big [citation needed] here. The Constitution doesn’t say you give up your rights by being a business owner and participating in the economy.