Discrimination...

[Hotu Matua]

Of course it does. But how can you say that it takes a stand against that, if it protects someone who discriminates against a group of individuals? Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction?

Nope.

I can have a moral stand against having sex with hundreds of partners without a condom, and still defend with my life the right of a person to have sex with hundreds of partners without a condom.

I can have a moral stand against making fun of a venerable old lady as she passes by, and still defend with my life the right of a person to do it without being caught and punished by the police.

In the first case, the sexual partners are consenting to behaving irrationally.

In the second example, it it the man making fun of the lady who is harming himself. No right of the venerable lady is being violated.

In the example of the street taco vendor, it is him who is destroying his business and reputation.

Again, you are thinking in terms of "The State must prevent its citizens to act irrationally against themselves"

[RationalBiker]

No. I believe businessmen have no right to deny someone employment based on race or sex.

So, does that mean you believe that other people have some right to this businessman's property that transcends his right to his own property? Do you believe that the businessman should be forced at gunpoint to trade with people he would otherwise not want to trade with?

[bluecherry]

“It will help you to remember that Objectivism condemns discrimination as irrational and hence immoral.” <-- Hotu Matua

“Of course it does. But how can you say that it takes a stand against that, if it protects someone who discriminates against a group of individuals? Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction?” <-- clean remarks

I think you are missing something about what the government is for. The government is not there to literally be the morality police, making sure nobody does anything they shouldn’t. It is there only to make sure that people’s rights are protected from others initiating force against them in order to allow for people to live according to their own judgments for their own ends and reaping the consequences of such because reason and not force are the primary means of survival consonant with the nature of human beings. The government may protect the rights of a racist, but that doesn’t mean it protects their racism from any and all negative consequences. It has already been pointed out how the racist can get bad results from their racist business practices without anybody violating the racist’s rights. He’ll lose a ton of business both from the people he refuses to give service to and the people who will refuse to use his service because they don’t want to support his business practices. Since the vast majority of people are rightly against racism as extremely irrational and unjust and thus evil, I expect it wouldn’t take long for this racist’s business to go under. Even if it didn’t quickly go under though, he is still losing out on a lot of potential value he could have had if he’s been more rational anyway and thus it was still him shooting himself in the foot and punishing himself for his bad ideas. You do not need to force this guy to accept damages for his irrational business practices, he’ll be getting plenty of them already necessarily from the very nature of what he is doing as being irrational, refusing service to a ton of potential good customers. Furthermore, his refusal to service certain people is not a LOSS to the people he refuses service to, it is just a failure for them to gain more value because without him making and keeping up that road, they wouldn’t have had the option anyway. He didn’t take anything away that they already had, so it isn’t like the people discriminated against have really been hurt, they just haven’t been helped, so it isn’t like they’re having a forced loss put on them. Though I could understand the discriminated against people being disappointed and them judging the irrational prejudice of that racist road owner VERY harshly, really, the racist guy is just hurting his own interests, refusing to pursue more profit (or any profit at all) from plenty of good people. **AND SO, all having the government force him to change his practices does is shield him from having to experience the consequences of his own bad ideas by refusing to let him find out what happens when he puts them in practice. You are just coddling the bigot and protecting him from himself and throwing the protection of rights as principles under the bus in order to do it.** The people who were prejudiced against irrationally by that bigot road owner don’t need the government’s help, they weren’t in peril, they hadn’t suffered a loss, and if that road would have been really useful, even if the bigot manages to stay in business a while, somebody else can come along and create another transportation system to accomplish the same job, picking up all the customers that bigot is refusing or who refuse to do business with the bigot. Simple competition could drive the guy out of business after a little while even if some people had been willing to put up with his racist business practices for a while because the road seemed really useful to them.

“The premises I've put forth, when taken to the logical extreme(which I am not doing), are totalitarianism.” <-- cleanremarks

That’s another part of your problem. If your ideas when applied consistently lead to totalitarianism (which you admit they do), then you are fighting a losing battle, trying to keep people inconsistent and contradictory, to not realize where these ideas can and do lead. You are now turning their minds against them, trying to keep them from realizing logical conclusions of things and acting on their thoughts, which is the antithesis of what humans need to do to live and live well. Getting people to accept refusing to look at and act on logical conclusions is also a way to shoot yourselves in the foot, because then how do you decide when and to what one should apply the “don’t think about it too carefully and don’t act on those possible conclusions”? This isn’t something one can easily contain to just doing on one or two issues you feel good doing it on and have no unintended side effects from what they tried to avoid realizing, especially not keeping other people too to only make laws based on ignoring conclusions only when you want them to. You can’t anymore try to argue why your cases of ignoring things are good and those are bad based on consequences, but they’re ok with ignoring the logical consequences of things. You’re either going to fail to keep them inconsistent and get the bad logical conclusions from your premises anyway or else there is likely to be an expansion of ignoring conclusions and consequences on things you don’t want and you won’t be able to use reason to argue them out of proceeding with it, because they’ll ignore any call for consistency and conclusions they just don’t like.

“I suppose that I, selfishly, wish for the welfare of all people.” <-- cleanremarks

We don’t have some kind of desire for a world of people suffering either. Seriously, it would sure be nice if things were great for everybody. BUT, we do not think you can achieve this grand world where things are great for everybody by the means you propose. If people are going to be well off, to lead happy lives as successful human beings, then they have to act consonant with their human nature and that of reality. That is what Objectivism would propose as the way for everybody to get there. It is an admittedly unlikely scenario that it would ever get to 100% of people doing this and thus everybody doing well, but your proposed methods are not just unlikely to work, but impossible due to going against human nature and its requirements in reality.

[ScarlettCatherwood]

No. I believe businessmen have no right to deny someone employment based on race or sex.

And, with the restrictions you advocate, what happens if they do deny emplyment to someone based on race or sex? They either go to jail, or must comply with the restrictions and hire someone they do not wish to hire. Like is proposed in the statement below. Both of which involve force.

You believe that a business man should have to hire people he may not want to hire. You want to dictate your morality to them.

[Jake_Ellison]

The premises I put forth aren't totalitarianism.

The premises I've put forth, when taken to the logical extreme(which I am not doing), are totalitarianism.

There is no such thing as "logical extreme" defined in the field of Logic. It is as senseless to talk about "extremes" in logic as it would be in any other science that doesn't define the concept. What would it mean to reject set theory in Mathematics because it's a mathematical extreme? It's a terrible, senseless reason to give, mathematicians would spit on you. It won't work with those of us who love Logic either.

There are logical conclusions. If you denounce the logical conclusions of a premise, arbitrarily (or because they seem extreme, yellow or undercooked to you), you are denouncing Logic itself.

[liberal]

Presumably he would lose a lot of business, not only by driving away these specific demographics, but also anyone who would boycott him for such foolish discrimination. As a result he might not be able to maintain that huge highway, and would lose even more business. His poor choices would thus create a huge incentive for a parallel private highway to be created/expanded, in order to feed that demand.

That policy hasn't hurt golf courses.

[Dante]

That policy hasn't hurt golf courses.

Name a golf course which refuses to let black people on it. That was the topic under discussion.

[Myrtok]

I agree with you all that arbitrary, unchecked power is something to be passionately resisted. However, I do believe that the government has the right to make reasonable laws at the demand of its people. The PEOPLE are the government. The PEOPLE decide what is reasonable, not by overwhelming majority, but by reason and fairness. Any educated adult knows the difference between a fair legislation(i.e. the civil rights movement or minimum wage) and the arbitrary practice of tyranny.

Reasonable rules at the demand of its people. . .That is the key phrase. First, keep in mind that no law has any effect unless the government is willing and able to use force to, well, enforce it. Now, consider what you mean by "reasonable" when you devise a law to be enforced. If that law violates the rights of one man, then it is no longer reasonable, despite the fact that any number of men demanded it. Neither you, nor any number of your friends acting in concert have the right to use force on me, unless I've first used force on you or violated your rights in some way.

Consider, do I have a right to enter your home without your permission? Do I have a right to force you to give me that permission? Obviously, that is contradictory. If I forced you, you wouldn't actually be giving me permission. I would be violating your right to choose who enters your home. What if all of the people in the country demand that you give me permission to enter your home, and state that they will use force if you deny me that permission? Again, since you are being forced, you are not actually giving your permission. It is being taken from you by force, and your rights are being infringed. The possibility that your decision to bar me from your property is based on my skin color does not somehow grant me a new right to enter your property without permission.

The only laws that a government can legitimately pass are laws which do not violate any person's rights. For example, I don't have a right to kill you, therefore the government can pass a law against murder. I do have a right to determine who enters my property, therfore the government can't pass a law forcing me to allow you on my property.

[Leonid]

Anti-discrimination Laws are in fact an assault on individual rights -in this particular case: property rights. This is common perception in today's "duty" society that so called "public servants"- like taxi drivers, doctors, teachers, even owners of hotels and restaurants or grocery shops and golf clubs have no right to choose their clientele or to serve them according to the best of their own judgment. The notion “The right of admission reserved" became meaningless anachronism. Freedom of association is one of the basic principles of free society and it includes "public servants". The only institution which is strictly prohibited to discriminate anybody on the basis of race, gender religion or what you want is a government, since government has no rights. However in today’s statist society the boundaries between government and private establishments became very vague. As result we're living in topsy-turvy society in which government does discriminate people on the ground of gender, race, age or even physical conditions through affirmative action but taxi drivers are not allowed to choose their clients.