Comment by EdSharkey
9 years ago
Please don't try to change the subject.
The answer is: no, the baker cannot discriminate against pro-choice customers or else they'll be shutdown by the mob and cease being a baker.
I think GP's point was that there's a nasty double standard as to whose conscience can be exercised and whose cannot.
I think the gracious thing for you to do now would be to acknowledge that that double-standard exists AND confirm that you're fine with that double standard in some cases.
There's a single standard. You are free to engage in business with whomever you choose. This applies to everyone. But this freedom doesn't liberate you from the social consequences of your actions.
Cloudflare will probably endure social consequences for its actions - mostly inflicted upon them by social libertarians who believe they made this decision arbitrarily. Some of the social repercussions may be justified. But that doesn't mean their decision was unlawful, just frowned upon by certain quarters.
It always comes down to a war of values. This discussion is just a proxy for the larger discussion, which concerns which values are right and which are wrong. And there is, most of us would say, a real, universal answer there. We might not know what it is, but we believe there is one. Or else all of this hand-wringing is just arbitrary, and it comes down to who has more power.
To paraphrase JFK: those who prevent peaceful self-expression make violent self-expression inevitable.
I don't think Cloudflare is preventing DailyStormer from engaging in peaceful expression. They are just not going to help them do it.
And based on events in Charlottesville, white supremacy is inherently a violent movement & don't need any excuses to engage in violence. If they say they engage in violence because media & internet companies shut them out, I'm not sure I buy that excuse.
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The baker can discriminate against pro-choice customers perfectly legally, as far as I'm aware. The same thing - the boycott and protests - will happen to the baker who discriminates against anti-choice customers in a rural town, except their customers might actually have legal backing since being anti-choice is usually a religious belief. What the society that baker operates in chooses to do about it is entirely separate from what the Government should be allowed to do about it.
Yes, a "double-standard" exists in that people think that some forms of discrimination are reprehensible and others aren't. I think it's entirely reasonable that people use their freedom of speech and freedom not to interact with people they don't like in any way they see fit - to think otherwise is to deny people some of their core human rights.
At the root of it all, the state is in the position of ensuring a person's livelihood, not me as an individual, not any individual business.
> some forms of discrimination are reprehensible
Nazis vs Gay couples are easy, softball examples of "clearly reprehensible" versus otherwise. But if you allow the double standard, you'll find a fairly large grey area. Are meat eaters reprehensible too? The religious? The anti-religious? non-religious pro-lifers (like myself)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Cakes_by_Melissa
As I said, the answer is simply NO. The mob will try to destroy you if you're on the mob's bad side.
Oh you are a dear for air-quote acknowledging that there is a double standard that you approve of. A CEO can break his company policies and refuse to serve an ugly customer who is engaging in protected speech but that they find morally reprehensible. A baker cannot refuse to serve a protected class that they find morally reprehensible or else suffer government penalties, media firestorms, and a ruined business and reputation.
Four legs good, two legs bad, am I right?