LGBT Rights and Gender Equality Thread - Page 17

I can certainly see the argument for public washrooms. I don't think I would agree with those in private institutions. I don't think any private business should be forced into this choice. In fact if they don't want to build bathrooms at all....let them. If they want to hire only white people, let them. If they want to discriminate in any way they want, I say let them because they are private businesses. Let them make whatever choice they want on their own premises, and deal with the consequences of it. Those consequences would be a smaller potential hiring pool, less customers, and a bad reputation. The businesses that allow and accommodate for as many as possible will have the upper hand, so let the social and real market sort that out.

On March 26 2013 08:19 NHL Fever wrote:


Right but the issue (I think) that we're talking about is when someone has not undergone that, most likely because of cost. In that case they may look like a male but want to use the female washroom.

On March 26 2013 08:19 NHL Fever wrote:


Not to get to off topic from something serious, but despite all those urinal problems (which are all true), it certainly beats sitting on a public toilet seat!

On March 26 2013 08:19 NHL Fever wrote:
I can certainly see the argument for public washrooms. I don't think I would agree with those in private institutions. I don't think any private business should be forced into this choice. In fact if they don't want to build bathrooms at all....let them. If they want to hire only white people, let them. If they want to discriminate in any way they want, I say let them because they are private businesses. Let them make whatever choice they want on their own premises, and deal with the consequences of it. Those consequences would be a smaller potential hiring pool, less customers, and a bad reputation. The businesses that allow and accommodate for as many as possible will have the upper hand, so let the social and real market sort that out.

On March 26 2013 10:44 fugs wrote:

Except that attitude has been happening for decades where people discriminate against other people. The problem is when a majority of people either don't care, or encourage that discrimination. Just letting it happen doesn't work and isn't right. That's why we have women's rights laws, and fully integrated schools, and 'equal' pay in the states.

I don't want to come off as rude but it sounds like, from your post, that you've not been in a situation where people have blatantly discriminated against you. The ones suffering from discrimination are usually the minorities and they aren't called minorities for nothing.

You aren't dealing with chess pawns here, these are people's lives. People get killed over stuff like this, families starve, homelessness, beatings. The law needs to be there to protect them/us.

On March 26 2013 11:09 shinosai wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a minority that was actively discriminated against use this argument.

But it does come up a lot. In every LBGT thread on team liquid, it comes up. And every single time, the same refutation occurs: Capitalism does not fix discrimination if the people being discriminated against are a minority. It didn't fix it in the 1950's and it won't fix it now. Think about it: If everyone in the community dislikes black people (time machine!) and if discrimination against black people is normalized, then there are no consequences to discriminating against black people.

It's easy to say things like this when you will never have to worry about being fired from your job for simply being who you are. It is my opinion that this argument can only work for those who have privilege and are unable to see it.

On March 26 2013 11:15 Alay wrote:

That's all well and good in a perfect society, but we're very far from that. Further, the prevalence of trans people is really really tiny (1/1500? I think that's generous.) The amount of people that would actually give two fucks either way is probably just as small. Hell, my own family doesn't care, and at least three of them would actively support something that discriminated against trans people. The truth is, social ramification of discrimination by businesses only really works when the group they are discriminating against is either big enough or cared about by enough of a majority to matter.
As such, I'd disagree with that idea in a real situation. On paper it's great though, I hope one day that can be our world.

On March 26 2013 13:59 NHL Fever wrote:


I've heard it plenty from my family and they were severely discriminated against, although generations ago.



Just because it didn't instantly happen in the 1950's, doesn't mean it would not have. It happened perfectly naturally in other places. And yes there are consequences even if some people accept it. The consequences are that no black people go to that store. That's a loss of business. The consequences are people will be pissed at that store. That's a loss of business. Furthermore it give the advantages to the store that allows black people - they get all the black business and the business of the pissed off people.

And yes I certainly do need to worry about being fired from my job for my beliefs. In fact just having a yard sign for the wrong political party could conceivably get me fired without laws against it. I still don't support those laws.

Instead, a far better way would be for people to negotiate terms of their employment in their contract. Employers would rapidly realize that contracts stating 'can be fired for any reason I want' would not be popular and they would not retain qualify people. Very quickly, realistic contracts protecting against stupid things like that would materialize. The law is not necessary to have that.

On March 26 2013 14:11 FabledIntegral wrote:
Except what are the benefits of having those freedoms you espouse? Is having the freedom to run a business as you choose really worth the degradation it results on members of society, especially children? Do you understand that such segregation can cause massive inferiority complexes in children? Do you also realize there's a widely accepted premise (that you might challenge for some reason) that a business has the basic obligation not to be harmful to society?

The benefits of allowing an employer to fire his employee on grounds such as political beliefs creates an environment of instability and constant fear. The so called freedom to conduct business as you please hurts the overall economic welfare as society as job security falls, spending/consumption decreases correspondingly, and, oh wait, the concept that racism should be tolerated is promoted as commonplace.

For what again? So you can choose to run your own business as you please? Give me a break, that's one of the shittiest premises around. The negative side effects that come from your useless freedoms are so awful that I can't even begin to understand why people are even in favor of it. And this is coming from an Business Econ major when in college that had a conservative curriculum and a political belief most align with those of the libertarians.

On March 26 2013 14:30 NHL Fever wrote:


But those laws don't actually protect against the degradation. They just protect against the veneer of it. Employers can still not hire black people, they just need to come up with another reason. Minorities are still complaining about it - the laws obviously didn't not fix it. And they never will, because they actually institutionalize the problem. 'Not to be harmful' is not a definable term, and obviously a circular one if the definition includes the action.



This is handled by contracts. You sign a contract that outlines terms of employment and terms of termination. No employer who want to keep decent people, will offer contracts that include 'you can be fired for anything'. If they did, nobody would work for them and they would go out of business. Overall economic output would actually increase, as employers could fire people who are terrible employees according to the terms of their contract.



Give employers and employees more freedom in their personal lives, will lead to increased competition and increased productivity. It benefits all parties. It doesn't actually help somebody to work at a place with a hidden undercurrent of racism even if they are forced to not openly state it. It's actually better for them if its just out in the open and they can choose to work somewhere else which is more supportive. It benefits that second business more as well. The marketplace of ideas should be a factor driver the actual marketplace just as any other. The social contract is incredibly powerful and I don't think you are giving it enough credit.

Just because it didn't instantly happen in the 1950's, doesn't mean it would not have. It happened perfectly naturally in other places. And yes there are consequences even if some people accept it. The consequences are that no black people go to that store. That's a loss of business. The consequences are people will be pissed at that store. That's a loss of business. Furthermore it give the advantages to the store that allows black people - they get all the black business and the business of the pissed off people.

And yes I certainly do need to worry about being fired from my job for my beliefs. In fact just having a yard sign for the wrong political party could conceivably get me fired without laws against it. I still don't support those laws.

On March 26 2013 16:36 FabledIntegral wrote:
It's irrelevant if they can find another reason. First, lawsuits happen all the time if it's deemed there is sufficient evidence that someone is using other reasons to mask it (although I question the validity of said lawsuits). And we are not only talking employment, we are talking permission to even go upon premises. When you're an 8 year old child and you're told that you're not allowed to go somewhere because of the color of your skin... that's damaging. It doesn't matter if what we currently have ends up being a facade, it prevents the damage. And to insinuate that forced acceptance hasn't done miles at actually reducing racism amongst the newer generations is laughable at best. Do you honestly think society would have made such strides without the end of segregation and such? If you say yes, you're crazy.

Inequitable contracts do not hold up in court. You're giving employers an unnecessary power. And are you crazy? Contracts *already* state that you can be fired for anything. That's the definition of "at will employment." Do you have anymore than basic ideology you've heard? Have you actually been in the workforce? Do you understand that the vast majority of employees are at the will of their employers? Do you understand how contracts in daily life *need* to be standardized and cannot be customized without incurring vast legal expenses? Your insinuations of everything being so simplistic is ironically completely crazy.

And no, what you're advocating only limits employees freedoms in their personal lives. There is no extra freedom, only reduced freedom. Crazy news, the economy needs workers to function, not everyone can be a business owner. There are not infinite choices. Switching employment is not simple, like you suggest. What if your spouse has a job in the area and she can't relocate her job? What if you want a stable work environment for your child? Sure, it's your choice when to get settled, by why exactly are we advocating that you should not be able to work around these things? Why are we not advocating for worker rights? Stability is one of the most important factors of any productive society.

The productive byproducts you're espousing are completely nonexistent due to limiting factors. Only in a complete theoretical world that operates in a perfect free trading market with no barriers is your system valid, and anyone who studies more than econ 101 knows that.

On March 27 2013 04:15 NHL Fever wrote:


But there is no way to substantiate that. Because B occurred after A does not mean A caused B. Life exists outside the United States. Plenty of societies have reduced racism, that's not because they all signed onto a single grand law. If the contention that laws make those changes were true, we would no longer have claims of racism and such. But we do, in fact the ACLU has never been so busy. We also hear about it constantly. So it hasn't worked. In fact, I would say it's made things worse. I think if you had just let the progress of society erode those attitudes, you would be in a much better place today. Instead, what developed was a fixation on the issue that just entrenched the segregation. Even when you get rid of it, you won't be rid of it because you will have taught people to permanently believe it is present. The best way to reinforce attitude that every is equal....is to treat everyone equally. It's kind of amazing how that's become a dirty word.

On March 26 2013 23:52 shinosai wrote:
Except in the 1950's before we made equality laws, the consequences did not exist. Because stores that were open to black people were to be avoided because of the rampant racism of the times. So, yea, you could open your store to hiring black people - but then you'd lose business for it. What, you thought that being more diverse automatically led to more profits? Not if your customers are just as racist or homophobic as you are.

Your assumption that discriminating against people can only lead to a loss of profits relies on the naive assumption of a perfect free trade economy with no barriers to entry and only consisting of rational economic agents that only wish to maximize trade. The real world does not work like that. Many places, for example, still discriminate against trans people, and the so called 'consequences' of doing so are nonexistent because there aren't that many of us. Nor is there much awareness of our existence outside of poor media portrayals.

The lengths privileged people go to say "I could be discriminated against, too!" Unlike you, every single job I apply to, I have to worry about whether or not they will fire me for simply existing if they ever find out about my medical history. Unlike you, I cannot easily hide it by simply not putting a fucking sign outside my house. And they have the right to fire me for this reason. And guess what? They aren't losing any business over it. If they are, it's certainly not enough business lost to encourage them to stop doing it.

You assume that social contracts would have simply eliminated racism from being profitable because society would have eventually seen how wrong it was, and thus injured employers who chose to discriminate. But this assumption is not necessarily true. It's contingent on a lot of factors, one of them being that society is always becoming more progressive and socially liberal. This does not have to be true.

On March 26 2013 11:09 shinosai wrote:


I don't think I've ever seen a minority that was actively discriminated against use this argument.

But it does come up a lot. In every LBGT thread on team liquid, it comes up. And every single time, the same refutation occurs: Capitalism does not fix discrimination if the people being discriminated against are a minority. It didn't fix it in the 1950's and it won't fix it now. Think about it: If everyone in the community dislikes black people (time machine!) and if discrimination against black people is normalized, then there are no consequences to discriminating against black people.

It's easy to say things like this when you will never have to worry about being fired from your job for simply being who you are. It is my opinion that this argument can only work for those who have privilege and are unable to see it.

On March 27 2013 04:22 Shiori wrote:
The progress of society did erode those attitudes. It eroded them by making it illegal to actually infringe upon the rights of someone else.

Are you seriously contending that people were just going to gradually wake up one day and decide "Hey, those black people? They're alright." And while it's true that A then B doesn't imply A causes B, it's not like there aren't good reasons to suppose laws against racism result in the discouraging of racist practices/attitudes. Compare a child who grows up in a society where keeping black people out of restaurants is okay versus a society in which such a thing isn't permitted. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which child is more likely to think there's something about black people that sets them apart. Besides, we have eons of human history filled with discrimination which was sharply curbed directly after the various civil rights movements. A then B doesn't mean A causes B, but there are pretty good reasons to think the civil rights movements had something to do with changing the attitudes of societies.

And then you go on to insinuate that because the ACLU is "busy" we have worse problems with racism than we did before laws against racism were implemented? Come on. We don't have nearly the problems these days as we did when there were segregated schools, buses, washrooms, and God knows what else. The reason the ACLU is so busy is because people can actually have some recourse when someone discriminates against them; that wasn't always the case.

This is akin to arguing that the creation of a police department indicates that murder should be legal since the brand new police department is so busy arresting murderers.

On March 27 2013 04:46 Iyerbeth wrote:
I don't much slippery slope arguments, and I personally prefer to deal with the problems people face, rather than some principal of freedom - especially when the driving cause for that freedom has nothing to do with people. I don't think it's acceptable for anyone to be oppressed or discriminated against in any way for a second longer than is necessary, and the idea of waiting on the whims of a theoretical free market, I find to be disgusting.

To be clear, I'm describing my opinion on your proposal, rather than meaning to attack you personally.

On March 27 2013 04:43 Kaitlin wrote:
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about increasing taxes in the top 1% and nobody else ?

On March 27 2013 04:47 NHL Fever wrote:


Absolutely. But here's where the argument breaks down. It's not your right to go into a private business. It infringes absolutely nobody's right to throw them off your property. Just like you are not infringing anyone's rights if you tell strangers to leave your home. It doesn't matter why you are telling them to leave, they have to leave.



I'm not saying the ACLU being busy means you actually have more problems, I'm saying the perception is widely held by many people that those problems are still here and keeping them down, and they are enlisting the agencies like the ACLU like never before. The laws have obviously not fixed that, even if it is just a perception. They have reinforced that perception.

So there are two problems here. One is that obviously for the countless minorities who believe it, to them the issue has not been solved. The second is that America is not the only country on earth, and plenty of countries evolved their views without massive civil rights movements. So the laws are both not effective (assuming we believe the near-constant statements from minority groups), and not necessary. They do however introduce all kinds of collateral damage, and in have probably made your (not being in the US I say your) racism problem permanent.



Fair points, I don't take it as an attack at all. My counter argument is simply that in a free system nobody does need to be discriminated against. They have absolutely no compulsion to go to establishments that don't accept them. The establishment should be free to conduct it's own private affairs to its liking, and the customers should be free to not go there. It's about the most free choice for everyone.



I think that's probably a much more complicated question than that. I favor progressive taxation. But by taxing only the top 1% more, you can actually wind up just taxing the middle class more and shifting money even more into the hands of the elite. So it depends on your goals and specific type of taxes. We could go more into it.

On March 27 2013 04:47 NHL Fever wrote:


I think that's probably a much more complicated question than that. I favor progressive taxation. But by taxing only the top 1% more, you can actually wind up just taxing the middle class more and shifting money even more into the hands of the elite. So it depends on your goals and specific type of taxes. We could go more into it.

On March 27 2013 05:28 farvacola wrote:

That would probably have something to do with people having different conceptions and weightings of the notion of "minority". If you are of the mind that we are to regard black Americans, the disabled, or gays and the rich as minorities of equitable consideration, then I am to consider your standard of consistency irrelevant.

On March 27 2013 05:34 Kaitlin wrote:


So, it's not a matter of "minority rights", it's picking and choosing what groups we choose to give special treatment to and which we can feel free to discriminate against with a clear conscious. Continuing with your logic, each person is free to choose which groups deserve "equitable consideration", so you can't be terribly surprised when others have different opinions of whether your favored "minorities" deserve special treatment.