Defining the noun "Liberal"

If it is false, explain the difference. I have simply applied the descriptions which have been given here to some situations, and made the conclusions. Correct me, but explain what is wrong, what I have misunderstood. That the law is somehow different explains nothing.

If you want to buy a bridge from me, and I want to sell it, but we are unable to sign a contract which really gives you this bridge, freedom of contract is violated?

But that they are physically denied does not matter at all. All what matters is that there are a lot of rights and freedoms which the prisoner is legally denied.

No. The same situation. Liberal government has to care about what is legally allowed and legally denied.

First, I say that liberal government does not have anything to say about unequal circumstances. A government which cares about unequal circumstances may be described as socialist or so, but not as liberal.

If they had no equal rights of ownership, say, would have to pay higher taxes, would have to accept whites walking through their property without permission and so on, this would be something a liberal government would have to correct. If they would not have equal access to public property, paid with their taxes too, this would also be something a liberal government would have to correct. But if they simply have a less comfortable life because they are not allowed to enter the property of white racists, or white racists voluntarily refuse to sign contracts with them, this is nothing a liberal government has to care. This would be, instead, a right of the white racist scum it would have to protect.

And all this would be illegal in a liberal government without your laws which forbid racist gated communities and white racists to refuse contracts with blacks simply for being black.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You keep saying this, but it is incorrect. Why do you persist in trying to keep this strawman alive?
If you invite the PUBLIC then you have to invite everyone.
If you do not invite the public, but instead invite specific people, you can invite (and deny) whoever you like.

Do you understand this basic difference?

And most are - until the assholes in the above example make themselves known. Fortunately, most people are not assholes.

No. The asshole is harming peaceful religious people. The peaceful religious people are free to exclude him by making it open to only their congregation.

Are you cognitively impaired? As I have explained half a dozen times now, YOU ARE NOT FORCED TO ACCEPT LOWLIFES. You can invite whoever you choose onto your private property, and exclude whoever you like.

No. If you were said asshole, and you were determined to ruin a ceremony/mass etc then YOU would be antisocial.

There is no such law.

Completely incorrect. (Unless, of course, the "classical meaning" of being polite, to you, means striking women with the appropriate rod if they speak out of turn.)

OK. If you treat men and women as fundamentally different, and you feel you are oppressed by the evil spectre of "political correctness" that forces you to treat them as if they have the same rights - then it is a good thing (IMO) you are so oppressed. I am sure many Southerners feel that allowing blacks to use the same bathrooms, same schools and same restaraunts that upstanding whites use, and this galls them as well. I have no problem with that.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

But, sorry, in this version it contradicts all the many previous statements. So the white racists are now free again only specific people, namely all white racists, or all white people? That's the same as all Christians.

Given that all my other answers where based on this assumption, which had been repeated often enough, but which you now claim to be wrong, answering everything else makes no sense.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

They are free to invite all the white racists in their area to their private event, and exclude everyone else from their private event. (These are often called KKK meetings.)

If they are open to the PUBLIC (i.e. their door is open, there is a sign that says OPEN, they are selling stuff to anyone, they have open seats/rooms for anyone) then they can't exclude people.

This is what I have been saying for the past half dozen posts. Not sure how you managed to misunderstand it.

 

You don't want to understand the problem?

They do not open it to THE PUBLIC, but only to white people, or white racists, or Christians. Not those of them they personally know, not from their area, but from the whole world - as long as they white, or white racist, or Christians. The door is open, but there is no sign OPEN, but, instead, a sign OPEN ONLY TO WHITE PEOPLE, similarly for the other examples.

 

Not necessarily. Why do you ask?

It matters in actual government, in the real world, where the actual possession of civil rights and liberties is exactly the matter at issue.

In particular, it must be illegal to deny black people equal civil rights and liberties under the law. Exactly.

Yes. Now you are catching on. That is why white racists cannot be allowed to discriminate by race in their commercial dealings with the public, in the US.

This is where you need to check in with reality, before making physical claims of fact.

As it turns out, you are wrong about that. In the US - and in similar situations generally - all of that was legal, and common, and would be again without the laws described or some such legislation.

 

They can't legally do that, in the US. So?

 

Then they can do so. Make a list. Allow only those people in.

What? It's too hard to make a list? Too bad, so sad. If you want to exclude people, you might have to do a little work.

 

Some of your examples of violation of freedom of contract looked similar. The point is: A contract between us changes nothing in our legal relations to other people. And if I do not have an ability to do some things, I cannot offer to do these things. This is a fact of life and is not a restriction of my freedom of contract.

Of course, the distribution of property, and the related inequalities which follow from it, are always a real issue. An issue that matters, which can cause even revolutions and mass murder and so on. But this is a problem which a liberal society ignores. By definition. A society which solves this problem by redistributing property rights is not a liberal society.

I see no reason to care about denial of things which you refuse to define precisely. You have refused to do this, but continue to use the phrase.

No, this was about something completely different, namely about using public property. It has nothing to do with this. Except if everybody who sells something to some unknown people becomes public property, a sort of slave, free to be used by everybody.

No. It follows from the correctness of your claims. Of course, if your claims are lies or distortions, if, say, you classify a peaceful exchange of opinions as "preventing" even if the guy volitional decides that his friendship with the white racist is more worth to him than an occasional black customer, then I would have to modify my conclusion.

First, I have not made claims about US laws. I make claims about liberal laws, laws in agreement with classical liberal or libertarian principles.

Second, of course, only some methods of "prevention" will be illegal. Peaceful argumentation and negotiation, which would include the right to start boycotts against those who sell to black customers, should not be illegal according to liberal principles. Because the right to boycott is part of freedom of contract.

So billvon has written in #242 nonsense.

It is simply impossible. Because the number of Christians changes in every moment, for example, because some people convert. But there is no necessity for this, in a civilized society. Allowing Christians and only Christians into a Christian church which prefers this any reasonable civilized government would allow, simply as part of the protection of usual standard property rights.

 

They are not free to do that. They can invite specific people, they can invite everyone - but they cannot say "everyone but X" (X being blacks, whites, Asians, Jews, Christians, gays, short one-armed atheist transsexuals etc.)

That's the problem right there.

That is why it is hard. It is certainly not impossible; indeed, the US census does something very much like it every 10 years or so.

What? It's too hard to be a racist and make such lists? I weep for you.

Nope, sorry. You can't exclude people on the basis of their religion.

 

That also follows from you checking in with reality. I recommend it - you keep posting obviously false assertions of fact, right in front of a forum of people deeply and personally familiar with the workings of racism in the US.

Meanwhile: Your theory is in conflict with itself, due to its flawed incorporation of physical reality.

That was one of the civil rights denied to black people by voluntary cooperation among white racists in their commercial dealings with the public. That denial is exactly what you said a liberal government had to do something about.

If black people's civil rights and liberties are denied, a liberal government has to do something.

The US laws involved were just as you require. That's why I used them as an example - and you have seen this many times now. The alignment between your claimed "liberal" principles and those of Lester Maddox has been noted before - Maddox's goal was denial of civil rights and liberties, of course, which we assume is not your motive for adopting his principles of governance.

I'm using your definition, whatever it is. You have also posted numerous examples, and I just use one of them at need - freedom of contract, say, which you called fundamental.

We are talking about the denial of civil rights and liberties, to black people. Just those inequalities.

We are talking about people who do have the ability, but are prevented by others - physically prevented - from doing them. People who are denied civil rights and liberties other citizens possess.

You proposed a sign discriminating on racial grounds while pretending to not deal with the public, which would be illegal; billvon showed how you could change your approach so that you really weren't dealing with the public. He still thinks you can learn from your mistakes.

Can you? Here's what you're working on:

 

Yes. That means, I'm not allowed to invite all Christians but not Satanists. Which is what you have claimed to be wrong in #242

Don't worry about me, I never plan to enter this police state, the world's greatest gulag, anyway.

After some repetition of the usual "I'm right" without arguments, iceaura writes:

I would not say that a liberal government "had to do something about". Because a liberal government would have to abide liberal principles, and simply "doing something about" usually describes doing something which violates all imaginable principles, simply because it does not care about principles at all.

This has nothing to do with liberal government. We have already clarified, by your refusal to define a precise meaning of "civil rights and liberties", that the real meaning of the first part is "something is not nice for black people". In the second part you don't even try to hide the fact that you don't care about liberal principles at all. If the government is doing "something", whatever this "something", fine. If this "something" violates property rights or general liberal principles does not matter at all.

No. I have criticized actual US laws as creating a (weak, partial) form of slavery and of violating basic, most important property rights, and therefore violating basic liberal principles.

Given that I have never claimed that liberal politicians have good intentions, this was a typical ad hominem and guilt by association argument. As well as I do not plan to claim 2+2=5 simply because Hitler claims 2+2=4, I do not care about Maddox's goals if I argue about libertarian/liberal law.

You have consistently shown that you don't understand (better, that you don't want to understand) the meaning of freedom of contract. Because it means that your poor black guy will have no chance for a contract if all the other guys are white racists, who do not want to sign contracts with blacks. That freedom of contract is not violated in this case. This would be an extreme case of inequality, but not a violation of freedom of contract.

No. Either we talk about civil rights and liberties, or about "those inequalities", which, in what you have presented here, refers to a wild collection of inequalities as in property distribution, as in popularity as a potential customer. (But, strangely, never about those inequalities forbidden by liberal principles, because these inequalities you support).

Because they have been incarcerated for some crimes? This was one of your quite irrelevant examples, and nothing worth to talk about. Or are you talking about those able to take your TV out of your home, but are physically prevented from doing this because you prevent them from entering your home with a door with a lock?

As explained, this is irrelevant. I own an apple. I have the civil right and liberty to eat it. You don't have it. So I possess a civil right and liberty to eat this particular apple, you are denied this civil right and liberty. So what?

 

It is not about a mistake. It would be a mistake if I would have misunderstood the meaning of the law. I have understood it correctly. I criticize this law as a violation of fundamental property rights. I have explained it using, as an example, that it forbids a quite typical use of a church, namely to be open for all those people all over the world who share the particular religious belief of the church owners, but to be closed for everybody else. As a safe space for believers of that particular religion, a place where they should not be afraid of haters of that religion.

It seems, I have ignored that religious people, especially Christians, are, for the left, only white racist scum they should not care about. Maybe I should have chosen a better example?

Let's try. What about a shelter for female rape victims? This should be, by intention, a place open for every female rape victim, even a rape victim yet unknown to everybody, because she had not told about this to any other person. A list of all those allowed would destroy the very aim of this shelter. Allowing everybody, including anti-feminist men, maybe even with previous convictions for violence against women, would destroy the very aim of this shelter too.

Sorry, I'm not working on nonsense.

Liberal theory is not at all about what you can really do in physical reality. Imagine yourself on an insular rock in the ocean. Nobody else there. You have, from a liberal point of view, complete freedom, because there are no other people there whose rights would restrict your complete freedom. Nonetheless, you will simply die, in a few days without drinkable water, a quite uncomfortable way to die btw. You would die, despite having complete and ideal freedom. Once you have understood this, you would know that liberal theory is not at all about what you really can do. It is a theory about rights. These rights may be completely useless in some situations in physical reality, but this was not the intention of developing liberal law theory at all.

In fact, if we change the example, with a white racist island, completely owned by extreme white racists, and a poor black survivor of a ship wreck, the situation could be, indeed, similar. It would be an extreme violation of every form of human decency and compassion, but not a violation of any liberal rights of that black survivor, if they would force him to leave the island by swimming into the ocean. So, not only reality, but even human compassion is not part of liberal theory, which is a theory of law, and a very special one.

How do liberals/libertarians handle this conflict between elementary compassion and liberal theory? This is not the question we discuss here. Many simply do not object to laws which violate liberal principles but have a solid base in decency and compassion, like legal obligations to help other people if their life is endangered. Other reject such laws, out of principle, but think that human society should be based on more than laws, that there should be also morals, not part of written law, which force people to behave in decent, compassionate ways even if they are not obliged to do this by law, with the penalty of contempt by reasonable people instead of prison and fines. Some (I would suspect some among Randians) would not care at all. Whatever, this is not the question we discuss here.

Then, we are not discussing at all the possibility of an anarchist libertarian society on a large scale, but the difference between classical liberal theory (which anyway supports a state) and American liberalism (which supports not only a state, but even highly criminal mass murder, like Obama's drone wars).

Last but not least, I'm an anarchist, not a minarchist libertarian, even less a classical liberal. Even classifying me as an anarchist libertarian is only a rough approximation. So what I'm "defending" here is not my own belief. The difference is much greater regarding racism. Among the countries where I plan to spend most of the time in future there is one Arab country, one African, two Asian ones. In any case, I plan to stay away in these countries from whites. I spend yet some time in Germany (actually I'm in Germany) because of family and friends living there, that's all.

 

It's not a violation of property rights under liberal governance. That's your initial mistake. It is a defense of property rights under liberal governance.

Then it is not a theory of government, or an ideology. That would be news to actual liberals.

Nonsense. Yes, it is. And among its principles of governance are equal civil rights and liberties under the law, for the governed citizenry.

It's about what you can do - really do, given the capability and resources and so forth - under the law: in particular here, what your fellow citizens are not allowed to prevent you from doing. It's all about that - that's the center of it.

The irrelevance of your several examples here has two explanations: 1) You are deliberately dodging the matter at hand 2) You still don't understand the matter at hand.

Quit changing the subject, it only confuses you and wastes time - argue the matter at hand, which is well illustrated by the examples provided for you.

American liberalism, in general, does not support the drone killings - or any other aspect of the Republican Party's neo-con promoted military bedshitting.
Why do you say such things, and refuse proffered information, regarding a situation you clearly know little about and do not understand? Is your own ignorance completely invisible to you?

What you have been attempting to defend is your own ignorance of American political reality - you simply don't know how things like racism work - and the implications of that for your quite naive political ideology and comprehension of the world.

 

Apparently, the goofy in 252 must be addressed as well:

You did, in fact, say that.

Once again: I am using your examples of civil rights and liberties - such as freedom of contract - specifically. How did you define them? That's the definition.

You said that about the new, current laws - not the old ones, which allowed the white racist behavior (and consequent denial of black people's civil rights and liberties, such as freedom of contract). The old laws were just as you require (you and Lester Maddox).

Once again, get it through your head: No, no, no - that's not the problem. The problem is that the poor black people in many significant matters cannot sign contracts with each other, or with non-racist white people, or other willing potential contractors. They cannot sign certain kinds of contracts at all, with anybody, regardless of their personal or individual capabilities. They have been denied equal freedom of contract, as enjoyed by the white racists, throughout the entire governed region.

Because they are black.

I am denied nothing: I enjoy an equal civil right and liberty to eat any apple I possess, just as you do. Why are you having trouble with the basic concept of ownership?
That is a pretty simple confusion for you to be dogged by for so many, many posts.

 

Ok, simple exercise. Present a particular example. One at the time. Then I will find out if this is really a violation of freedom of contract (in what I have seen up to now this would remove 95%), then if it is caused by a.) illegal behavior of some people, which would mean that it is irrelevant for discussing liberal principles, b.) legal behavior caused by some law which violates liberal principles, which would make it irrelevant too, or c.) some behavior which would have to be legal in a liberal society because of liberal principles. Only the case c would be relevant.

I have no trouble, I try to identify your errors, that's all. In fact, with this answer I have reached some clarification, so it was useful. Whenever you think that blacks should have some right to enter property of white racists, we have clarified now that this is nonsense. They enjoy equal rights if they have the right to enter their own property. If they really own some property or not does not matter, as it does not matter if you really own now an apple or not. Not?

What remains after disposing the usual "you don't know anything" and other cheap repretitions without any evidence supporting them, are minor points:

Maybe. The fact is that even if Bush has started this, it was Obama who has actually murdered with drones (by signing lists who has to be murdered) on a much greater scale. But he is, nonetheless, a hero of the liberals, not? Any liberal mass demonstrations against Obama the drone murderer, as we see them against Trump?

Of course, this is nothing specific about liberals. Republicans are in no way better, except for Ron Paul supporters they have not really cared about the drone murdering too.

First, liberal theory is certainly not about what people would really do, given capabilities or so, this part is clearly wrong. When we see a nice try to distort an issue using words which have a wide range of meanings, here "can do". A "are allowed to do" would be much more precise. But even after this correction, the result would be wrong. Because it would describe what is the actual law. Liberal theory is about how law should be, in some ideal liberal society.

Given your history of unsupported claims about what I have said, quote please.

In this case, all your claims of blacks being denied civil rights and liberties are simply wrong. Because, as I have explained several times, freedom of contract, according to my definition, gives you nothing if nobody agrees to sign a contract with you.

No, the old laws, which allowed slavery, were not what I require. Jim Crow laws, which are also old US laws, were also not what I require. Stop lying. Of course, the new laws which enforce the new type of slavery, forcing fundamentalist Christians to serve gays, in violation of freedom of contract, are also not what I require. And, anyway, 99% of all laws of all the world somehow violate some classical liberal/libertarian principles, and there is no such law code in the actual world which I would support as just or as being in agreement with liberal principles.

 

Already done, several times. You have everything you need for a good faith revision of your theory, to account for the US and similar situations. Go for it.
Need a reminder? Use this one: Redlining of mortgage loans to black factory hands, by Federally insured banks, in the automative factory towns of Michigan during the early 1960s.
Or this one: truck driving jobs.
Or this one: emergency medical care after dark.

At no time here have I claimed that anyone has the right to enter anyone else's property without their consent - black, white, or other. That was your deceptive rewording, by which you fooled nobody except yourself.

As far as the right the right to enter one's own property, public property, etc, that is among the rights damaged - restricted to the point of occasional denial - under a government that permits unrestricted racial discrimination in commercial dealings, amid a situation such as we have in the US. That is one of the rights a liberal government is by definition obligated to defend - you agreed to that.

The old laws I refer to did not allow slavery.

The old laws I referred to were not Jim Crow laws. They were the laws in force in the US, large regions of which did not even adopt Jim Crow laws.

When are you going to acquire information, or at least pay attention to what people post?

But as I have explained to you several times, it does give you something if people do agree to sign a contract with you. It gives you the right to sign that contract. Hence the problem, when white racists deny that to black people.

Not really, no.

Of course: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-protests-idUSBRE84G1FE20120517

Information. You need it.

 

That's because you are wrong. You are free to invite every single Christian in the US. Make the list.

Of course, you may get the list wrong. That's your problem - no one else's. It's too hard to make a list? Too bad, so sad - I guess you will find it harder than you expected to be a bigot.

No wonder you understand nothing about it!

 

Did you notice that, throughout, the question of presence and conduct seems to be answered by interchangeability?

If you go anyplace in the public square and deliberately cause disruption, you can be expelled for that disruptive behavior or else risk trespassing charges.

For some reason, our neighbor can't grasp this. Thus it seems all the more significant that he cannot distinguish between being born with dark skin, to the one, and willful conduct, to the other.

I mean, honestly, of all the reasons one is born in dark skin, going out of their way to offend Schmelzer just isn't on the list.

 

So you refuse to give an example and to discuss it.

Tried with the forums search engine, found nothing. So, links please.

But I vaguely remember your mentioning truck driving jobs. Sorry, no freedom of contract violation involved. If some black is not allowed to enter some white racists property, and this prevents him doing a job where this would be necessary, given some white racist customers, then this is the same problem as with the apple or selling the bridge. Freedom of contract has no relation at all at property rights of third sides.

Regarding emergency medical care, see my considerations about the island case, which is similar. Liberal law may appear in conflict with decency and compassion.

If a religious guy allows every believer of his religion into his church, but explicitly only believers, he is, according to you, nonetheless obliged to allow everybody else to enter the church too. So, a non-believer is allowed to enter without the consent of the owner. Not?

I agree that if such things would be legal, then some laws would violate liberal principles. I do not agree that this would be a right damaged by unrestricted racial discrimination in private contracts.

So what? Stop lying that some (whatever) US laws are something I would require. I would reject at least 99% of all US laws as completely unnecessary and violating elementary freedoms, all penal laws for violating elementary principles of just penalties (like an eye for an eye). If something from US law remains at all, this would be by accident.

Yes, if. But if the law would be liberal, they would have no legal method to deny that to black people.

Lol, "some of the roughly 50 protesters". I have asked about mass demonstrations. Intentionally, because I have been aware that such small demonstrations would probably have happened. I would not have wondered about 500 or even 5 000 participants. But only 50? Looks like Americans are even more supportive of Obama's drone murders than I expected.