(no subject)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/313613

Second amendment rights. But only for Christians and McCain voters.

This is really dumb, and I'd like to see everyone in this comm agree that the owner of this store is violating the law and discriminating unjustly. That is my view, if there is another view out there, please, share it with me.

Comments

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Dickish, yes. Ignorant, yes. Discriminatory, yes. Unlawful, well that remains to be seen.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I understand that for it to be "officially" unlawful, it has to go through the legal system. It seems to me that denying Muslims this course is akin to denying blacks the ability to eat at your restaurant. And that's not legal.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

His license to train people is apparently in jeopardy, since his license is issued by the state and subject to the laws and protections against discrimination.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I disagree, free association should win out. He doesn't have to sell or associate with people he doesn't want to.

Though I suppose Muslims might be able to get into the course since they may be a protected class.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Are you OK with an entire township springing up that would refuse to let Muslims move into the town?

[oslo.livejournal.com]

You're right, he shouldn't have to associate with people he doesn't want to.

As for what's actually happening here, of course, what he's doing is participating in a government-created monopoly but in contravention of the law. Which is, y'know, kind of hypocritical of a conservative.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

His license to train people is apparently issued by the state, and if he wants to be in compliance with the statutes of his license -- then free association LOSES.

Medical doctors should not be able to refuse treatment based on race or politis...

Neither should dentists...
Or plumbers....

or any other licensed professional. "Free Association" is a nice sound byte, but fails when we consider what Licensing and standards mean.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Free association isn't a license for someone to discriminate against people.

He doesn't want to serve everyone? Then he should go get a job somewhere that there's only people like him, or become a hermit.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They are? If state Republican Parties suspend their freedom of assembly it certainly does not seem that way. Were this a Muslim forbidding non-Muslims, you would scream bigotry and rightfully so. But if it's only for white Christians, those poor, persecuted, maltreated tubs of lard that don't understand in the least what democracy really means.....

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

At least queers can still take the class.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

Queers use guns? (It had to be done.)

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

The only people likely to shoot you in or around Mason, Texas are drunk Baptist deer hunters.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

and Vice Presidents

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

This always comes back to whether or not, in operating a place of business, the patron has a right to the wares or services of the establishment. Or stated differently, if the entrepreneur maintains the right to association in all aspects of his life or only in a restricted part of it, whether he wants to be dickish with that right or not.

I come down on the issue closer to the latter, and the analogy I use is with speech, which most of us here already give the greater part of the latitude, even when we find it offensive.

This has always been difficult in the same way that it's difficult to argue against the drug war to proponents of the same. How to make it understood that you're honoring the right and not the expression of it.

On the more practical note, if a store owner does harbor dickish motivations, I prefer they are able to show them on the surface as this gentleman of questionable character did, rather than have the visible signs stifled only to have them expressed to me (if I am the target of exclusion) in less pleasant and more deceptive terms without me knowing.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how often conservatives scream about

"The war on Christmas" or "The war on our culture"....

but then we see crap like this clown, who blatantly declares open
disdain on other cultures and beliefs.


And where I disagree with you is that the places of business are licensed by the State, and part of the conditions of that permission to operate and serve the public is that they serve them equally unless some special circumstance arises.

Free Association does not trump equal treatment -- otherwise the 14th amendment, and even Civil Rights legislation would have no meaning.

Let's not put the individual on such a pedestal that we allow an individual to abuse groups of people, and congratulate them for doing so at the same time

Re: Also:

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Ha, well there's always "Indian" bars. Whites can enter, only they risk life and limb.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

By all appearances, I'm white. I can certainly pretend to be a Christian. And I was in the Army for seven years, so I can pretend to be a right-wing nutbag easily enough. I'd love to go through his training course, and after he signs off on the course, thank him for certifying a gay atheist liberal.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

He's surely certifying people he hates right now.

I don't think giving him more money will vex him all that much.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The only thing he did wrong was state bluntly what a lot of those people say behind closed doors.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I like how people wear their bigotry like a badge of honor.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

In before this post reaches 400 comments.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

you got religion and guns in the same post. add abortion to it and it'd crack 1000.

Also:

Hail Eris!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If he was the only place someone could legally get certified then you would have a point. Since he doesn't seem to be, then I don't see a problem with him choosing who he wants to be his customers. There is a problem with governmental/legal discrimination, there is no problem with personal discrimination.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually yes, there is. Just ask the black guy who got dragged to death behind a truck, or gay men who get beaten to death by Christians who love them very literally to death as a bruised, bleeding, mutilated corpse.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I have a very simple test: reverse the situation and see what would happen.

If the guy providing the lessons bluntly advertised that — since they are demonstrably stupid based on past decisions, and smelly and ugly too — no Republicans or Christians need apply, would he still be able to hold his training classes?

If yes, then there's no controversy. If he gets lynched or brought up on state charges, there's a problem no amount of "private enterprise rights" libertarian sophistry can obscure.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I'm fine with it going in the other - or any direction.

I also say this as someone who adheres to a religious philosophy that would possibly significantly hurt me in the marketplace. I am not entitled to anyone else's service.

Request for feedback from the community.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Can someone tell me what in the world is going on? Passions have been flaring here since yesterday. Slow news day or what!?

You're really not making this easy for us, guys.

Re: Request for feedback from the community.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

I blame Halloween, more specifically all the booze being consumed at Halloween parties.

First, let's start with the assertion with respect to Second Amendment rights.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Second amendment rights. But only for Christians and McCain voters.

If you actually read the Second Amendment it clearly states that the government is expressly forbidden from enacting legislation infringing the individual's right to own firearms. Nowhere is Keller Crockett advocating that the State abridge anyone's right to keep and bear arms. On the other hand, the idea that the State can require a license to keep and bear arms is pretty much an infringement of the right to keep and bear arms by the State in the first place, if we want to get right down to it. Neither the federal government of the United States, according to the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, nor any subsidiarity (shaky legal grounds already) government within the U.S., according to the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as applied to the Second Amendment, has any authority whatsoever to license the possession or bearing of firearms.

Now let's consider the two points of potential contention:

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

As to your request for feedback, you actually implied asking two separate questions when you asked for other views. The assertions you make break down as follows:

1. The owner of the store, one Keller Crockett, is violating the law. (Legal Question)


2. Keller Crockett is discriminating unjustly. (Moral Question)

Considering the Answers:
Statement One: The Texas Department of Public Safety clearly seems to think Keller Crockett is violating some law, somehere. This is apparently disputed by Crockett and others. Of course, since the actual law was not cited, by either party, so that it could be looked up and checked out, I would argue that there are damned few on this forum, or in the public at large, for that matter, who are knowledgeable enough about what the law actually says to even argue the matter. In other words, the fact itself is obscurred and there are probably all sorts of interesting sticky legal self-contradictions which could be brought to bear on the question. In all of my reading of the comments posted here so far, I have not seen a lawyerly argument, with proper citations, to the effect that one party or another to the dispute has the better case. Given the extent of legal expertise here, the OP is effectively calling for a discussion of the validity of String Theory by people who have no expertise in physics. I notice how few are actually circumspect about venturing an opinion on this statement. There is a textbook exhibit of one of the crucial problems of democracy, right there. Ignorance of the law is not deterrent to the presumption of having an opinion on it or even tinkering with it.

Statement Two: This is actually a much more complicated question than it looks. Consider the question: do people have a right to behave immorally? Put another way: is is moral to use State violence to impose sanction on someone just because someone else thinks that this person is acting immorally? Be careful where you stand here; it's a mine field. Sharia Law? Prohibition? Blue Laws? Blasphemy, Profanity, Obscenity Laws? Is the law a tool for "socially engineering" your neighbor? Considering further, we may believe that it is unjust, a violation to Crockett's right of free association, to forbid Crockett from discriminating among his potential customers on certain criteria, such as race, religion, or national origin, but it is nevertheless morally wrong for him to actually discriminate according to those criteria.

For what it's worth, I personally believe that laws which violate the right of free association, except in certain narrow circumstances, are unjust. As for whether Crockett violated actual statute I think that case, as with far too many of the laws in the developed world, is ambiguous and can and will be argued both ways. Any attempt to answer the question, at least in a U.S. context, is merely horserace speculation on how nine people in black dresses will rule on the issue. Sadly, the Rule of Law is under serious attack and is in dangerous disrepair in the developed world. That said, there are quite a number of irrational criteria, immoral criteria, and outrageous criteria for denying one's association to another. I think such irrational collectivism is offensively immoral and wouldn't want to associate with someone having such irrational collectivist criteria.