Why do Bakers have to Bake Cakes they don't Agree with but Google etc. can discriminate? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14836587
Like the title sets out, a baker is not allowed to discriminate according to viewpoints they find offensive but a giant monopolistic corporation like Google (which controls 90% of internet searches and video streams in the US) is allowed to discriminate. It's almost like the big companies get to do things that small businesses don't get to do?

Despite what the media tells you, a large majority of Americans don't want to censor "hate speech": http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... _dying_for
Image

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that an overwhelming 85% of American Adults think giving people the right to free speech is more important than making sure no one is offended by what others say. Just eight percent (8%) think it’s more important to make sure no one gets offended. (To see survey question wording, click here.)


http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?tr ... d=32868642
#14836591
Because they can?

You have a point, albeit a typically half-assed one. Google, Twitter, and Facebook are effectively monopolies in their respective markets. This gives them outsized power to regulate speech. As long as you are willing to tolerate such monopolies, don't cry over their abuses. You don't like Google, don't use it. If you can find enough people to agree with you, you will succeed in changing their behavior. That's how it works in a market system. So either reject the church of the free market, or manipulate it to your advantage.

The bottom line is don't stand on a street corner sobbing about how mean Google is - kick them where it hurts: in the pocketbook.
#14836615
quetzalcoatl wrote:Because they can?

You have a point, albeit a typically half-assed one. Google, Twitter, and Facebook are effectively monopolies in their respective markets. This gives them outsized power to regulate speech. As long as you are willing to tolerate such monopolies, don't cry over their abuses. You don't like Google, don't use it. If you can find enough people to agree with you, you will succeed in changing their behavior. That's how it works in a market system. So either reject the church of the free market, or manipulate it to your advantage.

The bottom line is don't stand on a street corner sobbing about how mean Google is - kick them where it hurts: in the pocketbook.


I agree this is what we should do, but that does not eliminate our right to point out the hypocrisy. The left says it is okay for business to discriminate as long as they agree with them. The lack of tolerance, by the left, is becoming totalitarian.
#14836631
EggbertEinstein wrote:The conclusion of the article is that only 8% of Americans are progressives. An alternative conclusion would be that many progressives are not as opposed to free speech as they are made out to be.


Yes, most progressives would say they favor free speech. Progressives in the 60's were all about free speech. The problem is their adherence to a political party that has abandoned this belief. Progressives now follow the political leadership with limiting free speech even though they know it is wrong. This is why I call them fanatics and crusaders. They justify sacrificing their beliefs for party goals. This is a universal weakness of supporting groups. Liberals are just the current ones to be mesmerized by the propaganda. It happens every time people get convinced of their own righteousness. It always leads to silencing the infidels.

Once you convince people of their righteousness, they will willingly justify any atrocities as for the greater good.

Edit: There is nothing new or unique about liberals and human rights. It is just a new 'religion ' that believes they have the inside view of what is right and it is their duty to force others to accept the 'truth'. Just a tired historical stereotype.
It is actually almost funny that we don't see it as being identical to ISIS. Their goals and methods are identical. Liberals are now even adopting more violence and destruction of historical reminders.
#14836635
Anti discrimination laws stem from the civil rights era (obviously) where blacks were systematically denied goods and services to the point that it put an enormous burden on their lives. In that context, and with the added goal of reducing discrimination against blacks as a national project, laws were passed to prevent companies from denying goods and services on the basses of race.

It was already understood that economic transactions are not subject to the first amendment, only individuals are.

These laws were expanded to sexual minorities in some places.

This is not an all or nothing type of thing where companies either can discriminate against everyone or against no one at all. They are not subject to first amendment protection. If you want political ideologies to be protected by anti-discrimination laws then you have to go through the legal and legislative processes to do so. If you think that somehow google has violated the first amendment then you would take them to court, you'd lose of course because you have a very different definition of free speech than the US governments.

Basically, if I happened to live in a state that actually had such laws (which I don't), I could rent an apartment without worrying about being discriminated against because a lot of activists have worked very hard since the 80s to try and make LGBT people less systematically fucked over. You have to put the work in as a group if you want the same.

Edit: as far as the monopoly thing, I fundamentally dissagree that these companies are monopolies, the alt right has developed tons of alternatives to spew their crap, the cost of starting up alternatives is very low. Regardless whether or not they are monopolies doesn't have any impact on whether or not they are subject to the first amendment so it doesn't even matter in this case.
#14836637
I don't disagree with this ^ . I disagree with where it goes from here. You have a group (political party) that accomplished their goals and now they become extremists in attempting to be relevant. Their 'group survival ' is now the goal. This requires new ideas or new enemies. They appear to be out of new ideas.
#14836640
That's just a narrative that ends up being a slippery slope fallacy. Just because a party achieves a particular policy goal doesn't push them to move left or right on an issue more. The parties relevance can be maintained by simply defending that achievement. They basically become conservative in terms of that policy and fend of reactionary elements.

The democratic parties entire brand is built around defending policy achievements from the the new deal and civil rights era. Its only the left liberal minority of the party that has managed to tack on one or two extra wins like gay rights. We had to drag the democratic party kicking and screaming to do it. It was within my lifetime that the democrats largely opposed gay marriage.
#14836644
I don't believe you can call it a fallacy when they're tearing down monuments, preventing free speech, encouraging violence toward police and any one on the right, calling opponents 'deplorables, Nazis, and racists, and supporting 'hate crime laws'. That is extremist reality, not a slippery slope fallacy.
#14836648
First, welcome to capitalism--companies will do what they want.

Second, the Google and the bakery instances arent' exactly comparable, as has been hinted at.

The bakery part is, as has been pointed out, an extension of laws prohibiting people from discriminating on the basis of housing and whatnot. You cannot anymore say, "Blacks aren't allowed to buy a house in this neighborhood." This being a legal precedent, it extends to virtually any good.

This does not extend, however, to, "You can sit there in work and write a manifesto whining about your boss and your boss has to let you keep your job."

Your boss can do virtually anything they want to you if you don't have a union. Since Google is a typical giant union-busting corporation, there is virtually no protection for employees.

Further, the First Amendment that guarantees Free Speech is about the government not coming in and prosecuting you for saying something it doens't like. It does not mean that everybody has to give your nutty ideas a platform. The reason that businesses cannot deny goods is not a free speech issue.

Even though a lot of reactionary feelings were hurt, the bakery thing isn't settled law yet. It will likely be decided that they don't have to make cakes for gays.
#14836649
mikema63 wrote:It's a slippery slope fallacy because you cannot simply asserting that gay rights will lead to the end of free speech. Your handwringing about Confederate statues is hardly proof of anything.


Gay rights is not the cause of anything. It is not having anything to replace it that is the problem for the Democratic Party. All they have to offer is to become more extreme on their current issues. Their past success has made them irrelevant. Extremism keeps them relevant, Why now? Why not tear down statues and limit free speech before? They did not need to.
#14836651
All they have to offer is to become more extreme on their current issues.


The Democrats justify their existence by being a conservative party battling the reactionary forces of the Republicans trying to destroy the Democrats accomplishments. Centrist Democrats are a conservative political force, not one becoming more extreme with time.
#14836654
One Degree wrote:All they have to offer is to become more extreme on their current issues.


:lol:

That's right. Obama and Hillary Clinton are more extreme than Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale; who were more extreme than Johnson and Kennedy; and Johnson and Kennedy were more extreme than FDR and Truman.

Can you imagine Hillary Clinton proposing the New Deal? Or trying to protect unions? :lol:

It is only in the wild imaginations of the ignorant that someone could say that the Democrats are getting more extreme.
#14836662
Good question. Its a bit like why are Jews allowed to have Gentile free spaces, but Gentiles are not allowed to have Jew free spaces. Or why is a British bowling club allowed to exclude women, but is not allowed to exclude Blacks or Muslims, when women are statistically less likely to attack you or rob you than a man.

Of course we all know its a two word answer. The first begins with "Cult" and the second ends with "xism".
#14836664
I agree this is what we should do, but that does not eliminate our right to point out the hypocrisy. The left says it is okay for business to discriminate as long as they agree with them.


Only in your own imagination. In reality the left do not want privately owned companies to exist, let alone for them to have any kind of power over anything.

Americans in particular seem to want to push out this nonsensical propaganda where the left are pro business and business is pro left. Why would business support the same people who want to exile them from the country (at the very least) and take ever single bit of their property down to the last stick of furniture?
#14836666
So you are using the term left to describe the centre right, do you not see how bizarre that is? The democrats are not on the left, they are almost identical to the republicans in all respects. Look at Afghanistan, Trump's policy is identical to Obama's which itself was identical to Bush's. If you think the Democrats are on the left you must also believe the republicans are on the left too?
Last edited by Decky on 24 Aug 2017 16:09, edited 1 time in total.

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