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Something no one is addressing in the argument concerning discrimination by businesses (in the Rand Paul thread) is the nature of property. Classical conservatism and libertarianism treat property as essentially an extension of a person, making no real distinction between, say, a large-screen TV and a garden plot. Now, if that classic view is correct, then Paul is correct, and telling business owners that they have to cater to everyone regardless of race, color, creed, etc is immoral and unjust -- there's no way around it. If private property is private, then it doesn't matter if it's my living room, my shower, my business, or my empty stretch of mud, it's no different: I can tell a anyone I want to get off and get lost, and invite anyone I wish to come and enjoy. Thus a lunch counter could tell people over 5' 10" to move on, a movie cinema could forbid people over 2.5lbs/in to stay out.
The solution proposed is to treat business property differently than residential property, and decree that no discrimination is allowed. Note that this is a restriction on the use of property, and thus an implicit admission that it is not private property. That doesn't sit well with conservatives, nor with many liberals; upholding private property is sort of built in for us. But if we want to have anti-discrimination regulations -- or any others, for that matter -- on business, we should be honest and admit that we have abandoned the concept of private property is essentially an extension of a person.
In fact we may as well go ahead and recognize what we effectively have: a system of land leases, with the government as tenant and the title a certificate of lease. That's how you get authority over a piece of property, by owning it. If government has authority over a piece of property, it owns it, at least in part (the other option being that it owns the businessperson, but in that case it only owns him part-time, i.e. at work, which is silly).
The question is why we should treat a person's real estate -- the class of property under consideration -- and specifically, business real estate, as an extension of his person, or why not. If it is, as explained above, he can bar males from sitting at the bar, refuse Koreans use of the restroom facility, or otherwise restrict anyone at all on the basis of any characteristic he chooses in any fashion he might desire (if customers would put up with it, he could ask them to verify their last year's income, and provide service based on that). If it is not, which is the premise of regulations concerning his use thereof, then one may regulate away, on the basis of whatever foundation for land ownership one adopts.
The obvious rationale for me owning my clothes is that I bought them with money that is the fruit of my labor, or at least of my creative efforts. The same is true of portable property, including vehicles. But on this rationale, there can be no foundation for the ownership of land: land is already there, not the fruit of anyone's labor or creativity; it merely exists, not coming from manufacture. Early efforts at rationales for ownership of land included improving it or at least making use of it, but that merely dodges the question of why one may acquire ownership in any way at all. Other claims rest on long-term occupation, or on acquisition by force, but all in the end reduce to the simple act of laying claim to something o human has made, without any other basis than to say, "It's mine".
OTOH, the flip side of that might be that there is no foundation for land ownership, that all such claims are false, that anyone may use whatever piece of land he wishes and move on.
But on the gripping hand (for those who get the reference; suffice it to say it's the third option in a set), if there's any rational foundation for ownership of land by humans, can it apply unequally? There either is one or there isn't; if there isn't, our whole society is in trouble; if there is, then it has to apply equally to all given the equality of all. That leads to a simple solution: all the land belongs to everyone. Every person belongs to a "corporation of the whole", and as a member of the human race, owns the planet.
Leaving aside the details of how that would work, here's the point: if all land belongs to all people, there is legitimate foundation for anti-discrimination law. Instead of the rule, the sort of provisions for a person's home become the exception, an exclusion granted to accommodate the right to privacy; the use of business property becomes the norm. And since business property sits on land owned by the corporation of the whole, no holder of business property has the authority to deny any member of the corporation access to the property (except under specified provisions, e.g. a court order or other such existing causes).
If we all own all the land, no one may bar us from access to a business.
The solution proposed is to treat business property differently than residential property, and decree that no discrimination is allowed. Note that this is a restriction on the use of property, and thus an implicit admission that it is not private property. That doesn't sit well with conservatives, nor with many liberals; upholding private property is sort of built in for us. But if we want to have anti-discrimination regulations -- or any others, for that matter -- on business, we should be honest and admit that we have abandoned the concept of private property is essentially an extension of a person.
In fact we may as well go ahead and recognize what we effectively have: a system of land leases, with the government as tenant and the title a certificate of lease. That's how you get authority over a piece of property, by owning it. If government has authority over a piece of property, it owns it, at least in part (the other option being that it owns the businessperson, but in that case it only owns him part-time, i.e. at work, which is silly).
The question is why we should treat a person's real estate -- the class of property under consideration -- and specifically, business real estate, as an extension of his person, or why not. If it is, as explained above, he can bar males from sitting at the bar, refuse Koreans use of the restroom facility, or otherwise restrict anyone at all on the basis of any characteristic he chooses in any fashion he might desire (if customers would put up with it, he could ask them to verify their last year's income, and provide service based on that). If it is not, which is the premise of regulations concerning his use thereof, then one may regulate away, on the basis of whatever foundation for land ownership one adopts.
The obvious rationale for me owning my clothes is that I bought them with money that is the fruit of my labor, or at least of my creative efforts. The same is true of portable property, including vehicles. But on this rationale, there can be no foundation for the ownership of land: land is already there, not the fruit of anyone's labor or creativity; it merely exists, not coming from manufacture. Early efforts at rationales for ownership of land included improving it or at least making use of it, but that merely dodges the question of why one may acquire ownership in any way at all. Other claims rest on long-term occupation, or on acquisition by force, but all in the end reduce to the simple act of laying claim to something o human has made, without any other basis than to say, "It's mine".
OTOH, the flip side of that might be that there is no foundation for land ownership, that all such claims are false, that anyone may use whatever piece of land he wishes and move on.
But on the gripping hand (for those who get the reference; suffice it to say it's the third option in a set), if there's any rational foundation for ownership of land by humans, can it apply unequally? There either is one or there isn't; if there isn't, our whole society is in trouble; if there is, then it has to apply equally to all given the equality of all. That leads to a simple solution: all the land belongs to everyone. Every person belongs to a "corporation of the whole", and as a member of the human race, owns the planet.
Leaving aside the details of how that would work, here's the point: if all land belongs to all people, there is legitimate foundation for anti-discrimination law. Instead of the rule, the sort of provisions for a person's home become the exception, an exclusion granted to accommodate the right to privacy; the use of business property becomes the norm. And since business property sits on land owned by the corporation of the whole, no holder of business property has the authority to deny any member of the corporation access to the property (except under specified provisions, e.g. a court order or other such existing causes).
If we all own all the land, no one may bar us from access to a business.
Buh-bye!
](/images/smilies/bang.gif "Brick wall ](*,)")
