In the past, I have argued that discrimination on
the part of private businesses should be a legally protected right. How could
an educated person such as myself, who is part of a racially mixed family,
support "hate?" I believe that opponents of Israel should be allowed
to use BDS despite the fact that it is an anti-Semitic conspiracy designed to
discriminate against Jews and ultimately to offer moral cover to people who
wish to murder Jews. Universities should be allowed to accept black students
over white ones regardless of qualifications. For that matter, schools should
be allowed to operate programs and create spaces solely for people of color. I
may find these practices to be morally repellent but then again I am morally
opposed to Aryan coffee shops and strip clubs. These are examples of social crimes
where patrons of a business do not cause anyone physical harm but are
encouraged to inculcate values that I believe are ultimately detrimental to a
well-functioning society and yet I still believe that they should be
legal.
As a classical liberal, I accept the horrific
doctrine that people should be allowed to openly support socially destructive
ideas to the point that they cause actual harm. The reason for this is that I
assume that the tradeoff is going to be even worse. For example, while strip
clubs teach men to objectify women and not get married, they are not going to
cause nearly as much harm as government-licensed Puritans armed with a modesty
checklist who rely on government power as opposed to articulating a case to
society (as well as themselves) why specific modes of dress (or the lack of
which) should be opposed. If I can defend the right of businessmen to operate
strip clubs, I fail to see how I can reject the notion that businessmen have
the right to be racists and openly discriminate in their hiring.
For a long time, I have accepted a distinction between discrimination
carried out by private businesses and that of the government. This distinction
increasingly seems strained to my mind. Imagine an election between evil
billionaire Monty Burns and Lieutenant Uhura (may the memory of Nichelle
Nichols be a blessing). Burns wins the election by openly appealing to the
racism of voters. Furthermore, we are able to find enough voters to cover the
margin of victory who confess that they voted for Burns not because they
supported tax cuts for billionaires and the elimination of government oversight
over nuclear power plants over more funding for linguistics and space travel
but only because they refused to vote for blacks. As such, it is an objective
fact that Uhura was discriminated against based on her skin color. Does this
mean that what the voters did was illegal and the election should be
overturned?
It is important to keep in mind that voters have the right to be idiots.
Democracy is not about giving voters the best leaders. It is about giving them
the leaders they deserve and giving it to them "good and hard." The racists who voted for Burns deserve whatever
Burns will do to them and the liberals who voted for Uhura do not deserve much
better as they agreed to be part of the same country as the Burns voters and
have not tried to secede.
Once we acknowledge that voters have the right to discriminate against
political candidates, why not allow their racist elected officials to fulfill
the wishes of their racist electorate by discriminating who is hired for
government jobs? Why should Burns not have the right to fulfill his campaign
pledge of paying for his billionaire tax cut by firing black teachers if that
is what his voters elected him to do?
It should be noted that there are limits to this line of thinking. For
example, it would not apply to the criminal justice system. If the district
attorney would, as his closing argument, choose to lead the jury in a round of
singing "kill the n-word," the conviction of the black defendant
could be overturned. There is a difference between voters and jurors, mainly
that jurors do not have the right to be irresponsible and follow their own bad
judgment; they are required to follow a clear set of legal instructions given
to them by the judge who in turn is bound by a code of legal ethics. Attorneys,
unlike political candidates, are not allowed to use a wide variety of dishonest
tactics to manipulate jurors. Defendants, regardless of their skin color, have a right to a fair trial and the burden of proof is on the prosecution and the judge to make sure they get one. Similarly, blacks cannot be kept from voting as
they have a right to vote.
All of this is distinct from a job, whether in the private or government
sectors, as no one has a right to a job. By contrast, people have the right to
discriminate and hand jobs to people for reasons that have nothing to do with
qualifications or actual life choices. Your height and looks are based on your
genetics. You never got to choose them and they are unlikely to be connected to
your job performance. That being said, the reality is that people are
discriminated against due to being short and ugly. It is certainly unfair but
that is life. Why should we treat discrimination based on skin color any
differently?
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