Defining the noun "Liberal"

No, it doesn't. There is no regulation of private thinking at all.

It is illegal, in the US, to form a whites-only community in any way. And of course the common ways in the US did not involve laws, and would not need them now either - no statutes required.

It's not a triviality, especially when you make such a big deal about the law and ideology. If you think it's a triviality, you are - as I mentioned - unfamiliar with the entire concept. And that explains a lot about your inability to grasp the difference between regulating racist actions and regulating racist thoughts, speech, etc.

No expropriation is involved, of any kind.

No, it isn't. It's regulation of ownership, and terms of contract.

They don't have to serve everybody. They don't have to serve anybody. They just have to treat black and white people the same. That's not any form of slavery.

You are simply wrong - physically, historically, theoretically, and obviously, wrong. You fail to take into account basic physical reality, even when provided with a direct and well-described physical example to examine. It was a very significant problem, and millions of black people undertook serious risks and bankrupting expense to even partially and incompletely escape it. It was called the "Great Migration" - the single largest human migration the planet has ever seen, undertaken by millions of black people to partially - only partially - escape that situation you describe as "no problem".

Until liberal government undertook defending them, black people were denied civil rights and liberties on the American landscape by voluntary cooperation among white racists. And they would be again, were this voluntary cooperation permitted. They still are, to a visible degree, at the levels liberal governance cannot or will not reach.

 

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Sorry, I'm unable to make sense of this. There is no regulation of private thinking, there is no law, and no law is necessary, but to form whites-only communities is somehow forbidden. So how is it forbidden, without law? Is the US a totalitarian state where many things are forbidden, without a law forbidding them?

If not, to form a white-only community is forbidden by some law. What does the law explicitly forbid? Is it, say, sufficient to have a formally non-white member? Or is it forbidden to forbid, somewhere (once statutes are somehow not required) to mention the race of the community members? What about communities of "fans of XXX", with XXX being some racist?

Posting nr. 2 with the new standard "I'm unable to grasp the entire concept".

So, or they are not allowed to serve their white friends, or they are obliged to serve blacks. That's a mild form of slavery, which you can avoid by not using a large number of professions where you do some service to other people.

Again, you confuse the description of that situation in the past, when a lot of repression of blacks was present which was in no way compatible with libertarian/liberal principles, with the theoretical problem if, in a hypothetical society where we have libertarian/liberal laws, which are not violated except by a few criminals, but with a majority of white racists who prefer to live in gated white-only communities, there will be serious problems for the blacks living outside these gated communities.

This clarifies and nicely summarizes an important principal difference between American liberalism and libertarianism/classical liberalism.

There is an extended notion of "civil rights and liberties" which includes right which do not exist in liberal theory, like the right to use some services provided by other free (non-slave) people. This is all what voluntary cooperation of racists can lead too. To enforce these "rights" the government has to use involuntary means, forcing the white racists to do involuntary servitude to the blacks.

 

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It required a law to forbid them, in fact. It requires no law to form them, in fact. Ok?

It forbids the exclusion of black people, as a group, from anything available to the public in general otherwise.

No extra rights are involved. It only involves the actual, physical, possession of the civil rights and liberties which exist in liberal theory; governance according to liberal theory.

Everything necessary for the situation I described is fully present, right now, in the US. The only reason it does not exist is that it has been forbidden by enforced law. In places where for whatever reason the law does not reach, it does exist, and black people are here and there denied civil rights and liberties in those limited circumstances.

Penny drop?

They are allowed to serve only their friends, regardless. They are allowed to refuse service to everyone not their immediate friend.

They are not allowed to serve only white people generally - they cannot serve the white public, but not the black public. That's one of a half dozen distinctions they cannot make - all the rest are open to them. The reason is that in physical fact allowing that particular distinction deprives black people of civil rights and liberties.

And that is not any form of slavery - it is a regulation of ownership and contract, in defense of equal civil rights and liberties.

 

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Ok. It, of course, requires some law to forbid people to use basic freedoms, namely in this case of association.

You have never heard about some right of association? Which seems explicitly denied to white racists? Instead, I have never heard about about a civil right for a place in a motel, or a civil right to be served in some shop or so. These are, in liberal or libertarian theory, things which require voluntary agreement from above sides.

I think this is fantasy. Even if racism is more popular than the liberals wish, racists are clearly a minority. Moreover, only a minority of those named racists in the liberal propaganda are really racists.

So they can serve only, say, "supporters/friends of XYZ", with XYZ being a rabid racist? In this case, American racists are simply stupid if this law changes something in reality. Or, more probable, the dangers of racism are overestimated from the liberal side.

Imagine a shop which is not officially a shop, but a club with club membership, to buy there something you sign some membership declaration, where you support racial segregation and support that it is amoral to visit a shop of somebody from a wrong race. This is a straightforward technique to circumvent this type of regulation. I have seen a lot of "sex in public" regulations in Europe circumvented by transforming public sex shops into clubs with some formal membership, which you obtain easily by a single signature at the entry. So, if there would be a white racist community really as strong as you claim, they would use such straightforward methods to circumvent such regulation.

No. Once there is no right to be served, except if the guy who has to serve is a slave, or has voluntarily agreed to serve, this is not a regulation, but a violation of basic rights.
By the way, if supporters of a totalitarian state have succeeded to get a totalitarian law, they will never allow its abolition. Even if there would be not a single white racist community which wants to create a gated community. And anti-liberal law has its own value for them.

 

It isn't.

The question is what constitutes agreement, in fact - in the US, agreeing to serve the general public is voluntary, but if you do agree to do that you have made the agreement with both the black and the white public. Voluntarily - you don't have to make the agreement - but if you do make it that's what it is.

You still don't know jack shit about US racial politics, obviously. Since you declared you felt no need of better informing yourself, I recommended that you avoid the whole issue, so you wouldn't post such comically ridiculous stuff in public - this is another one of those times.

Then you would have a serious and direct conflict of basic human rights - the civil liberties and rights of black people, vs those of white people. You couldn't have both, in your formulation, in the US or any similar place. That would invalidate your entire theoretical structure, by showing it to be self-contradictory.

Fortunately, you are wrong. Regulating ownership is not the same as expropriation, slavery is not the same as being forbidden certain specific actions based on one's racial bigotry, and so forth.

Of course. And you can try to do that, in the US: in the US people are often even more clever, and you don't have to sign anything, just pay your dues and obey the unwritten rules. It turns out that doesn't work for entire communities, though, dealing with strangers as customers in roadside businesses, and so forth. So no problem - civil rights of blacks are safe, no government intervention necessary.

In fact. Remember that - it's factual reality that holes your theory boat.

 

About the right of association:

It was one of the most important ones for me in East Germany 1989. I have participated in the foundation of the Social-democratic party of the GDR. If American liberals do not support this right, they are even less liberal than I thought.

Fine so far. And it would be reasonable, even obligatory, if the state is allowed to support (subsidize) only firms which agree to serve the general public, given that any such support is paid by the taxpayers, thus, the general public.

The question is what happens with those who agree to serve only whites, or, say, only supporters of the white racist XYZ.

Feel free to inform me about relevant aspects of US racial politics. I, as a stupid European libertarian, think that a liberal state should not have any racial politics at all, and therefore feel no necessity to care about details of racial politics, but I'm always open to reasonable new arguments. Naming my position "comically ridiculous" is cheap polemics.

About my thesis that there is no right for getting involuntary servitude:

Sorry, in liberal/libertarian theory there is in general no such right for involuntary servitude of other people. If you think that such rights exist, you are certainly not a libertarian or a classical liberal. But an American "liberal", which is something, as becomes more and more clear, completely different, which supports, in particular, involuntary servitude.

Formally, not, and I have never claimed it is. As if this would matter in reality. You want that a white racist motel owner gives a room to a black guy, and even if he has, after this, 3 times the costs for cleaning the room (because of his own prejudices) for the same price? That means, you do not care nor about property rights, nor about freedom of contract. That all the violations of these basic liberal principles have the general form of "regulation" is irrelevant. As if Stalin would have had a problem to send people to labor camps based on "regulations" instead of laws.

The claim that it does not work for roadside businesses is in contradiction to "US people are often even more clever". But, whatever, once such methods remain legal, but are not widely used to exclude blacks, the much more plausible explanation is that the white racists who would support such things are only a small minority even among whites. Despite your claims that such legislation would be somehow necessary to protect some non-liberal "rights" of blacks to enslave whites.

 

It is fully supported by American liberals.

They cannot agree to serve the "public" of whites only - the public includes blacks, by law. They can of course exclude all those not in some club or organization, as long as black people can join on the same terms as white people. This isn't rocket science.

Yet again? We had slavery, based on race. We live in its aftermath. Racism has been (for more than ten generations) and remains a structural factor in American economics, politics, and society in general. No aspect of US life is free of its influence, or ever has been. It physically exists, and has very significant physical effects - including depriving black people of their civil rights and liberties, if not forbidden to.

If you think that a liberal State in the US should have no racial politics, you are requiring all the liberals in the US to care very much about the details of the racial politics the US (and any government of the US) currently has, so that they can figure out how best to minimize or - ideally - eliminate them.

Which they have, btw, and determined that forbidding certain specific racist behaviors was necessary to begin with.

It means the government defends the civil liberties and rights of the black person equally - property, contract, and so forth. Including travel.

Note that the voluntary assumption of extra costs by the white person is not forbidden - merely that it is no part of their contract with the black person.

That is of course not at all plausible, being in conflict with the daily experience of millions of US citizens and the physical facts of US history.

As throughout: your theory fails by failing to account for physical reality.

 

This was not the problem. They do not agree to serve some "public", they are not prostitutes. They agree to serve only their friends, but, different from humanist, which have all people as friends, they have only those as friends who admire the writings of the white racist XYZ.

Fine. If this happens, they will have a lot of fun meeting the black admirer of the white racist XYZ, it is nice for them to see that XYZ is supported even by some black people, which may have a low IQ, but some of them appear clever enough to recognize that XYZ is right.

Let's, just for illustration, consider a religious analogy:

"There has been, in many states, some leading religion. They live now in the aftermath. But that religion has been (for more than ten generations) and remains a structural factor in economics, politics, and society in general. No aspect of the life of this state is free of its influence, or ever has been. It physically exists, and has very significant physical effects - depriving people believing in other religions of their civil rights and liberties, if not forbidden to. "

So far, a fair description of the situation in many states of the world.

"If you think that a liberal State should have no religious politics, you are requiring all the liberals in that state to care very much about the details of the religion the state currently has, so that they can figure out how best to minimize or - ideally - eliminate them."

Does not really make sense. The liberal state should not have any religious belief. I think this is clear. And the liberal state has to be neutral in religious questions, and in no way one-sided, nor in favor of one "state religion" nor against a particular "evil religion", as, say, the communists in their fight against various religions. Not?

The liberal way to exclude religion from the state is to exclude it, completely, from the law. But, on the other hand, to ignore the fact that most of the people in power will remain to follow that leading religion. This decision is part of their religious freedom, and, even if they believe in that religion, this is not sufficient to punish them by not allowing them to get positions in the government. Not?

The analogy: "Which they have, btw, and determined that forbidding certain specific religious rites was necessary to begin with." I think it is sufficiently obvious that this is something a liberal state is not allowed to do.

Ups. In this case, this would be openly racist law.

Except, let's look for the theoretical possibility, if the voluntary assumption of extra costs by the black person is not forbidden too - merely that it is no part of their contract with the white person. But if this would be the case, it would be easy to make fun of this law too.

And even without this, it would be simple. Simply offer a general tariff - cheap, but intentional with so low quality that nobody will use it anyway. And the premium service, which can be paid voluntarily, but by whites only.

Maybe this claim is nonsense, maybe something else in your constructions. I have seen a lot of countries, some of them almost openly racist ones (like India, where the cast system has a quite visible black/white component), so your claim of "you know nothing" type make no sense to me. So try something else, like explanations why the simple strategies I have presented would fail. Given that they are strategies to stupid circumvent laws, it is possible that there are already laws which close these loopholes. These laws - if they exist, and you find them - would be even more relevant to the actual discussion. Why? Because laws which try to close such loopholes of anti-liberal laws are usually even more openly anti-liberal.

Therefore I'm eagerly waiting for real, good counterarguments against my proposed strategies. (And, I think, that's why you prefer not to present them, but restrict yourself to the "you know nothing" non-argument.)

 

Again, physical reality. People who agree to serve the public are not prostitutes (and vice versa, btw - you're a "libertarian"?), and people who agree to serve everyone who likes racist XYZ (or says they do?) have in fact agreed to serve a public, people they don't know, not just their friends. This is demonstrable in a court of law, where the term "friends" has a meaning and the status "friendship" has physical attributes that can be verified - or disconfirmed.

Anyone who tried that would be vulnerable to a lawsuit by injured black people, and/or Justice Department prosecution, in other words. And - again - this has in fact happened in the US, and court verdicts rendered. This is physical reality, where I come from.

But the liberal State must - in that circumstance, which is also found in the US and is not theoretical only - forbid any actions by those religious people that deprive the non-religious of their equal civil liberties etc. And that is the case, or at least the attempt, in the US (the US does not have a liberal government, only an aspiring one).

Why are you bringing in religious rites? If they are behaviors that interfere with other people's civil rights and liberties, they would be restricted to the point they did not do that. If they aren't and don't, they would be ignored by a liberal State. So?

They fail because in reality they fall apart - businesses on the scale that their operations can interfere with the civil rights of whole groups of people cannot be run with just a group of friends as customers, for example. Gas stations on the highways that don't serve the public are quickly put out of business by those that do. Such tactics do not work at the scale involved.

 

It becomes more and more absurd. (What my hypothetical white racists think about prostitution is, of course, not my personal opinion, but invented just to illustrate the point.)

But let's try. The white racist has a shop. On the door is a declaration: "For friends only". An unknown white guy comes in. Hi!, Hi!, How are you? I'm fine. I see, you are a nice guy, you want to be my friend? Then you can use this "for friends only" service. Yes. Fine. ... A black guy comes in. "What do you want here? Learn to read, this is for my friends only!" How you demonstrate the racism in a court of law?

Anyway, to offer something only to members of some organization is forbidden too? If not, the shop owner can create an organization, and offer membership to any potential customer. Those he does not like to not receive such an offer.

I know that in totalitarian (liberal American) states horrible things happen. That one is vulnerable to a lawsuit by almost anybody for almost nothing is quite typical for totalitarian societies. Ending in court for behavior as described above would be, indeed, sufficiently close to totalitarianism.

In the naive hope that you at least support religious freedom, have some common sense understanding what religious freedom means, and, by analogy, may be able to understand the basic points. If you, instead, think, say, that it is part of civil liberties to visit Holy Places of other religions to urinate and masturbate, and therefore this should be, of course, allowed and protected by the government, the idea to bring in religion has not reached its aim.

So you rely on simple economic common sense? Fine. Economic common sense tells me that big firms will anyway not allow their staff to discriminate customers, without any government regulation. Because this would give an advantage to other firms.

 

In the US it's often done by eyewitness testimony, statistical calculation, even undercover sting operations if necessary (easy to get a warrant for the business records, based on that behavior), subpoenaed accounts, etc etc etc. That's a lot of trouble, of course, but people who would otherwise suffer the consequences will go to that trouble. In the mortgage lending business, one common setup was to match pairs of people identical except for race, and send them into lending offices alternately.

You keep overlooking the fact that this is a reality you are talking about - this situation exists, in the US, right now. It's not speculation.

No, I rely on demonstrated economic reality. They fail whether their proponents want them to and think they should or not - no sense involved.

So now you have defending civil rights and liberties defined as totalitarian government, and must invent an entire mythology of "lawsuit by almost everybody for almost nothing" to back the silliness up. And all because you cannot handle physical reality in your theory.
Once you take leave of physical fact, once you lose the correction of the reality check as you have, your world of myth will grow rapidly more elaborate.

If that is your motive, the matter was settled by my response (If they are behaviors that interfere with other people's civil rights and liberties, they would be restricted to the point they did not do that. If they aren't and don't, they would be ignored by a liberal State. So?) - and that's done with.

And once again: in reality they did, do, and would again. In fact.
Because there was no such disadvantage as you imagine. Quite the contrary.

So: change your theory. It conflicts with the facts.

 

Wow. That's really totalitarian.

And, no, reality is not the question. The degree of totalitarian control of the people in America is interesting side information, but nothing more, because the question discussed is the conceptual differences between two ideologies, namely libertarianism/classical liberalism on the one hand, and American liberalism on the other hand. I think there is a big difference, and have found a lot of particular differences. But, ok, once the American liberal feels comfortable in actual America, and America has, in essential points, totalitarian mind control, this would be an additional argument for big differences.

I said "common sense" instead of "economic theory" simply because we hardly will agree about most parts of economic theory, but about this particular question I think there is agreement.

I was born and lived a long time in some totalitarian state (ok, post-totalitarian would be more accurate, the hard totalitarian time was already over), so I know very well that there is a big difference between real liberties and the "liberty" as used in the totalitarian propaganda. And, by the way, the "economic rights and liberties" have been explicit part of that propaganda too. With the classical discrediting of liberal notions of liberty as the "same right for the homeless and the millionaire to sleep under the bridge".

If I give somebody a credit or not is a very subtle decision, and for reasonable people it depends on a very subtle thing, like personal trust. What you have described means that one is not allowed to rely on a personal feeling of trust, given that it is this vague personal feeling which often makes the difference between people who look equal in their records. Once you can be penalized for this, this means you can be penalized for almost nothing. This is nothing I invent, but you presented it. I interpreted it, based on libertarian principles and own experience with communist ideology.

Fine that you have ignored my implicit question behind, namely "If you, instead, think, say, that it is part of civil liberties to visit Holy Places of other religions to urinate and masturbate, and therefore this should be, of course, allowed and protected by the government, the idea to bring in religion has not reached its aim." Of course, this choice of an example was polemical, but it is a question of principle, because there is not much conceptual difference between a Holy Place of some religious belief and a gated community.

Indeed, for small firms there is a chance to survive because one discriminates against some customers. A motel or a bar, where different customers see each other, becomes more attractive to white racists customers if it excludes blacks. So, the loss because of the black customers may be overcompensated by additional income from white racist customers. But for this case of a small firm in a predominantly white racist environment the techniques I have described would work - except in the case of a totalitarian mind control police state. (Which, if one follows your description, already exists in the US.)

Don't forget, your economic point was that this does not work for big firms. "It turns out that doesn't work for entire communities, though, dealing with strangers as customers in roadside businesses, and so forth. So no problem - civil rights of blacks are safe, no government intervention necessary."

Here I agree. Big firms may be controlled easily in a police state. Only small firms can find ways to circumvent police control.

Seems, we need a little excursion into elementary scientific methodology.

The part of the theory we are talking about cannot conflict with the "facts", it is about how they have to be interpreted. How can a theory, which distinguishes just law from unjust law, be in conflict with some facts? All the facts can change is the classification of the laws in some particular state. Is actual US law just or unjust? If the facts about US law change, the answer can change. But there cannot be a conflict between the theory of just law and facts. You have to add something else - say, a claim that actual US law is just. Then you can have a conflict between the theory, this claim, and the facts.

This additional hidden claim in your argumentation seems to be that actual US law, say, after 8 years of liberal hero Obama or so, is, at least in essential parts, just law. But this, if present, would characterize only the American liberal notion of just law. And if it appears that from point of view of classical liberal/libertarian theory actual US law is unjust, totalitarian law, all we have found would not be that classical liberal/libertarian theory is in conflict with facts, but that classical liberal/libertarian theory is in conflict with American liberal theory as well as with the claim that actual US law is just.

This is just a test. I think you are able to understand this point. If you ignore it, and continue your "It conflicts with the facts" nonsense, you degrade yourself down to the joepistole level.

EDIT - fixed quote tags, per request of poster - Kittamaru

 

Not in real life. In real life it defends a greater degree of liberty and civil rights for everyone in the region - even for the "racists", who now can make contracts with black people and white people both, without penalty. The law gives them an excuse to defy their social pressures, which is better for business.

Not at all. The question being discussed is how you can learn to correct your theoretical speculations according to new information and physical fact.

You were wrong in what you said. I pointed out why - because of physical circumstances you have yet to acknowledge.

No, it doesn't. You are perfectly free to rely on your personal feeling of trust. You just can't use race as your criterion for doing business with the public.
And you have an odd idea of how mortgage and consumer loans are granted, in the US.

You can't be penalized for anything except using race as a criterion for doing business with the public.

I answered it, directly and fully. I quoted the answer - you've seen it twice.

No, they would not. In fact, they did not. As was pointed out to you - you have a conflict with physical fact.

And also for big firms - remember: you are talking about a situation that existed, in the US. A physical reality. Big firms discriminated voluntarily by race, and were at no disadvantage in doing so, until and unless forbidden to do that.

By incorporating unreal and counterfactual presumptions in its criteria for distinguishing just from unjust law, thereby screwing up the distinction and leading to errors of classification.
For example, your theory incorporates this among its presumptions: "Economic common sense tells me that big firms will anyway not allow their staff to discriminate customers, without any government regulation. Because this would give an advantage to other firms "
In fact racial discrimination by staff was enforced at almost all big firms over large areas of the US, up until government regulation forbade it, and no advantage was given to other firms thereby - instead, disadvantage was avoided. This in fact deprived black people of basic civil rights and liberties white people possessed. That has a direct bearing on whether the law forbidding it was good and just by liberal principles - right?

There is a good deal of conflict between your assertions, based on your theory, and the physical reality of the US - the facts on the ground. You make many false claims and mistaken assertions of physical fact, based on your theory.

 

So, according to your/American liberal theory, it is appropriate for law to "free" people from the moral "pressure" of their own community, by giving them an "excuse" to violate the morals of that local community?

The classical liberal concept is different. It does not allow the state/law to have some own moral, some state religion.

Feel free to discuss this with your own strawman. I would suggest to create an own fake pupil here to present you abilities of a teacher of American liberal ideas. If you want to have, for whatever reasons, a discussion with me, you have, at least, to pretend that you are interested in discussing the topic.

I'm aware that big firms do not trust their employees, but will give them some detailed formal prescriptions. That's reasonable. And, once they are made, they can be made known by whistleblowers to secret police, sorry, law enforcement.

But your description what is done shows clearly that you can be punished for using your personal feeling of trust:

But there are no people "identical except for race" in real life. There are only people identical for a few number of formal criteria, say, income, or whatever the two fake customers present to the victim of that fake as their personal situation. So, all you need is that the white fake appears to be a better actor than the black fake, so that the victim is cheated by the white fake, but detects that the black fake is lying.

Sorry, but your answer has not answered my implicit question. I will try again, now in direct mode:

Do you think that it is part of civil liberties to visit Holy Places of other religions to urinate and masturbate, and therefore this civil liberty should be, of course, allowed and protected by the government?

If not, what makes the principal, conceptual difference between the liberty to urinate and masturbate in the Holy place of another religion, and the liberty for a black to use a bar or a motel of a white racist?

Here we have a clear case of a distorted quotation - the part of my answer, which is obviously essential, I have marked:

No, I have accepted the physical fact - and given even an interpretation of this fact.

There may be, of course, other reasons too. Like, purely hypothetical, that giving mortgage to blacks is, from a statistical point of view, really more dangerous. A rational big firm would use statistics to obtain estimates of reliability and so on of their choices of employees, as well as for their customers, if there is a business where some sort of trust is necessary. If some statistics give results unfavorable to choosing black customers, discrimination becomes profitable. Clearly everything related with giving credits or insurance has such properties.

No. There is no such presumption in the theory. This is an unrelated economic speculation about various possible consequences.

And there simply is no such animal as an "error of classification" if the theory gives a classification, and the reality gives only examples. An "error of classification" may appear only if there is another, error-free classification. So, you simply presuppose some hypothetical error-free classification, I would guess your own.

How is it relevant how racism worked in a time of the US history where there were no equal rights yet, but a lot of racist laws?

No, because there is no such "civil right and liberty" to be served by some firms in liberal theory. Neither basic nor secondary. Because in liberal theory, there is freedom of contract, and, as a consequence, freedom not to make a contract.

The law may be good and just according to some other moral theory, but it is not according to classical liberal/libertarian theory.

 

It's a very common side benefit - and it allows one to avoid the presumption of evil intent, which is socially nice.

There are mortgage applications identical except for race, in real life. There are job application identical except for race, in real life. There are statistical methods and large number effects. There are examples like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me . There are people who can alter their presented race simply by changing their hair style or spending a few minutes under a tanning lamp (I have at least one friend who changes race every year, from winter to summer).

And there are jury trials, where some claim of one's "personal trust" always and only mistrusting black people by coincidence can be presented to a jury of one's peers.

But all that is superficial - the central issue is that same old rock you always crash into, reality: it's true that very small and personally owned businesses can be racist in fact, because it can never be proved in court, but limiting racism to such small and scattered operations prevents the denial of civil liberties to black people - and since that was the problem a liberal government had to address, not the racism itself, the law successfully addresses it. Minimum law is a liberal principle as well, no?

Doesn't matter. There is no sound mechanism there, and the use of that correlation denies civil rights and liberties to black people, hence the law forbidding that criterion.

It is directly related to your theory's faulty handling of the physical fact: your theory depends on such possibilities always existing to avoid the liberty denial otherwise inherent in such naively composed theoretical principles - a self-contradiction of your theory.

I propose you divest your theory of its most blatant conflicts and self-contradictions due to physical reality. Once you have done that, you can decide for yourself whether some theory of mine would suit you better.

Because the relevant situation was the same, so you can see how things worked - helpful, when correcting theories.

But there are all the other civil rights and liberties otherwise denied - again, in fact, in reality, in the real world - that liberal governance is bound, by its principles, to defend.
- - - - - -
And just sweeping up the stupid:

The US is not a totalitarian State, and if it ever becomes one (increasingly likely, I grant you) it will be by the revocation of the current civil rights and liberties legally established now - not their establishment in the first place.

The theory misclassifies the examples, according to the reasoning by which it was established in the first place. That's an error.

First you declare that no such rights and liberties exist in liberal theory; then you provide an example of one that was - and still is, in places - commonly denied across continent-sized landscapes by people acting on their voluntary white racism. The folly on stilts: in this case denied to both black and white people, in fact, in reality, in the US, in recorded history and present circumstance. Hello?

 

If some firm gives mortgage or jobs without having a personal meeting, then, fine, this may work. This is what I would expect only for large firms, and, as I have said, large firms are quite easy to control.

Whatever, even in this case the impression they make in a personal meeting may be quite different.

And how do you prove an "always and only" without NSA spying complete life for long time? BTW, anyway the guy will not only reject blacks, but sometimes white trash too. So, the "always and only" cases will be rare exceptions. And what are you doing with a guy who claims that he has some experiences with cheaters, and some strong but imprecise, intuitive feeling who is a cheater? Who, then, has to admit that indeed, most of those cheaters he experienced in his life were black people?

But it is not minimum law. It forbids racism to every business, even a very small one. Thus, forbids things which, as you now have admitted, are unnecessary to prevent the denial of the "civil liberties" for slave labor which you think the American liberal state should preserve.

And your examples suggest that these laws are really used to target such small firms. And they will be, probably, even the main victims. Because for big firms, the proof that one or another employee is racist does not matter at all, no firm can prevent this. So, the only dangerous thing for a large firm is a written prescription to its employees to discriminate against blacks.

So, let's add the point that what is forbidden to the firms includes behavior in their own rational self-interest. We agree that in most cases, discrimination will harm a business. But I think we have clarified that there are exceptions.

Unfortunately, I was unable to interpret this sentence in a meaningful way.

Once there is no liberty to have cooperation with somebody else without the agreement of this other person - such "liberties" are rejected as liberties of slave owners - there is no liberty denial too in my theory, so that I don't have to avoid such denials.

A liberal government should defend: Equal rights before the law, which is given if the text of the law does not make explicit differences between the people. The property rights. Basic freedoms - that means, certain types of behavior should not be forbidden by the government. Same access to property of the state for everybody, given that all this is build from extracted money from all taxpayers.
You "liberty" to use slave labor is not among them. And it cannot be. Because it is in conflict with the personal freedom of contract of the other people.

You seem unaware that totalitarian states like to use talk about liberties and rights in their propaganda. These "liberties" and "rights" are, of course, distortions of real liberties and rights, as defined by liberal/libertarian theory. How you can distinguish between such fakes of "liberties" and "rights" used by totalitarian propaganda and real liberties and rights? There is no better way than to evaluate them in the light of standard, classical liberal/libertarian theory.

I agree that the US is not yet completely totalitarian. Regarding personal freedoms it makes sense to compare it with Breshnew time communism, where it was possible to live with a lot of personal freedom simply by ignoring many laws which were not enforced at all, quite different from Stalin time.

It is a misclassification only if there is also a correct classification, given by a correct theory. Because there is no such animal as a classification in nature, classification is always part of human theories about nature.

Hello? What you are talking about? In the text you quoted, I was talking about freedom of contract. That means, two persons have the freedom to sign whatever contract they want to sign. And this in nobody else business. It does not mean that one person has the right to force another one into a contract. So, if the white racist does no want to make a contract with a black guy, this is not at all a violation of freedom of contract.

 

It does work, and has worked. Remember the situation? Reality, in the US. You are gathering information, to improve your theory.

(People are often denied mortgages, or shunted into less favorable terms etc - treated differently, physically and verifiably - according to their application data, prior to their meeting with the actual loan approval guy, or by someone other than that guy, someone who has not seen them. In fact. Racial discrimination is often visible in that process).

Look, you seemed confused about how such laws could be enforced without mindreading - I have pointed out that racial discrimination on the scale at which it denies black people their civil rights and liberties is visible in its operations and leaves a physical record in its wake, something that one can bring to a court of law in many specific cases. I mentioned a few, of the many.

If it leaves no provable record, if as you point out it can't be proven in court, what then? Then the racist has broken the law in a way that cannot be enforced against them. Clever! But as it turns out, we have discovered in fact in the US, that means the racial discrimination has been reduced to a scale and distribution that does not deny black people their civil rights and liberties.

So we have good law, in theory (if it is in fact enforced): not so rigid that everyone ends up being harassed for trivial violations, strong enough that its enforcement does defend the civil rights and liberties of those formerly denied.

No, I don't seem anything like that, to anyone who's paying attention.

But that involves the physical facts - the actual, physical, situation. The exact area in which you keep crashing. You need to find a way to incorporate physical facts into your theory, and correct your theoretical conclusions when they conflict with those facts.

Fix this, for example:

That is false. There are many ways to deny people equal rights under the law (and before the law, but the liberal government is governing more than just the inside of a courtroom) without writing the denial into the language of the law itself. The language need only allow such denial, for starters.

And fix this:

In fact, in many physical circumstances (if it takes place on a large enough scale on the landscape, say, or if a few racist white people own too much of the resources) allowing white racists to voluntarily cooperate in denying contracts to black people can, has, and will deny to black people in particular and also many others (non-racist white people, say) many civil rights and liberties, including freedom of contract.

And so forth. You keep making false statements, in other words, because your theory has not been corrected to account for physical fact. You have to find some way to get yourself out of the corner you have put yourself in with this:

Because if you cannot find a way, a theoretical way, given your theory and the physical reality of the United States (for example of a kind of situation), to govern white racists's "freedom of contract" so that it does not deny black people not only freedom of contract but almost every other freedom, right, and liberty a liberal government is bound to defend,

all you have is a theoretical argument for the impossibility of liberal (or libertarian) government on any scale capable of managing a sewer and water system in a large city.

 

No, information about that particular half-totalitarian state is of no relevance for those elements of liberal/libertarian theory discussed here. I have also some other, more empirical theories, and for these theories such information maybe, by accident, interesting. But not for the question discussed here, which is a theoretical one.

Fine. I have, again, no doubt that for big firms this may work.

You have presented some methods which work for big firms, which are easy to control.

But the problem I have is not that much about big firms. It is about the small groups of white racists who want to create a gated community, and similar guys - small shop or motel owners who don't want to have black customers. Your point was all the time that they have to be repressed. If you think now that this is not necessary, that it is sufficient to control big firms, and act against them only if they are too stupid to make their racism provable, this is certainly already some progress. Then, a law which would forbid racist discrimination for big firms would be sufficient.

Unfortunately, the examples you have presented look more like it is enforced especially against small firms. And, as I have argued, with totalitarian methods. But, ok, this is an irrelevant factual information about the degree of totalitarism in the actual US.

And, just for the record, once there are no such "civil rights and liberties" for service by slaves, there is no problem to be solved in a liberal state. In an American liberal state, with all those "civil rights and liberties" to use slave labor, the situation is, of course, different.

No. The question is if some right is in agreement with principles, the theoretical principles used in liberal theory. It was the very purpose of development of this theory to develop simple and rigorous principles, which can be easily applied to reality. But we do not even have to apply them to reality, we have to apply them to laws. Laws are, themselves, not reality, but rules how to interpret some reality. And what has to be done is comparison of the laws with these theoretical principles.

So, for example, if the principle requires that property has to be protected, and a law allows to take away some property, the law violates the principle. This is quite certain, but no reality plays a role in this conclusion.

There are unavoidable ways, namely that the government is not a robot, but all what is done by the government is done by real people, with real own feelings, interests and so on, thus, also interested in doing even various explicitly illegal things. Then, the very problem that people are not equal anyway, and "equal before/under/over/whatever the law" can be only some sort of compromise. And is, essentially, a compromise, because an ideal just behavior would have to handle different people differently.

Essentially you have a choice now: Or you reject a political theory which simply accepts these problems as unsolvable and restricts "equality before the law" more or less to the texts of the laws, together with more or less informal rules of behavior for government employees. In this case, you are not a liberal, but at best an American liberal. Or you accept it, despite these weaknesses. This gives you some clear rules, for a very restricted, but certain domain - the texts of laws, which have to agree with liberal principles.

 

dup

 

If you only want to talk about theories that do not apply to reality and are useless for governance, why are you posting here? Nobody is going to need a definition of "liberal" that doesn't apply to any actual liberal governance.

And that along with other things work for smaller firms. In reality, various things work at every scale on which black people's rights are denied as a consequence of the forbidden behavior.

And that was addressed, several times, right in front of you - pointing to the exact flaw in your theory, by reason, and with a real life example, namely the United States.

If you allow them to do that in their dealings with the public, black people will be denied equal civil rights and liberties. You can forbid them to do that with specific law that addresses their voluntary contractual dealings with the public only, resolves the conflict between the various liberal principles involved, and can be enforced by a liberal government at the appropriate scale.

And you repeat yet again an obviously false claim you can make only by ignoring the physical world (as well as the theoretical arguments made) You have an example - the US. You have the exact problem - allowing white racists to discriminate on the basis or race in their commercial dealings with the public leads to denial of basic liberal-endorsed civil liberties and rights to black people, in fact, in the US and any similar place. That is a problem for a liberal State, in which such equal rights and liberties are guaranteed by the government.

An actual right, that real people in real life possess, or a theoretical one only? If you are talking about an actual right, equally possessed in fact, you will have to check up on that, and adjust your theory according to what you find in the world.

So far so good - so when you can't apply them consistently, because of some fact, you will then adjust them - right?

As it turns out, that doesn't work - if you ignore the physical circumstances of the laws and their enforcement etc, your theory will fail apply to reality.

Don't change the subject. The problem you have with reality is the avoidable ways in which your theory comes into direct conflict with itself as soon as you attempt to apply it. Are you going to change your theory of liberal government, or are you going to give up on liberal government in the real world?