2 posts tagged “rmm”
In the comments section of this post, RMM says,
“The one thing you have in common with feminists, Scott, is this belief the world owes you something. It does not. Not respect, not employment, not love, not acceptance, nothing. You don't have a right not to be viewed as a stereotype any more than I do. What you do have, and what you seem to place no value on, is the right to try and overcome these and many other obstacles, and earn these things. “
In a word, WRONG!
I’m an atheist and a materialist. I don’t believe that the world owes me anything. I don’t even believe in rights as they are popularly understood, you know, as in “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I don’t believe that. I don’t believe in a Creator, so I don’t see that it could have endowed me with rights. I believe in matter, gravitation, and electromagnetism, and frankly, I don’t think they give a damn if I’m able to pursue happiness, have liberty, or even if I’m alive. The universe doesn’t owe me anything. The universe doesn’t care.
But I do. We do. What rights we have are not the construction of a Creator or the universe. What rights we have are our constructs. They are given existence only by our collective will and power. I have the right of free speech not because the Creator wants me to have it but because the majority of us in the US think that having the right of free speech is a good idea and we are willing to put power into supporting that idea. In other words, the only reason I have the right to free speech is because it is the law.
And it’s a law we can expand or abridge if we wanted to. In fact, we have. For instance, at one time, free speech did not include burning the flag, but now it does. We added to what free speech is. Although free speech is considered the primary freedom in our legal system, we do limit free speech. It is possible that you could even be executed for what you’ve said. For instance, some speech might be treasonous if you were telling State secrets to an enemy, or if you plotted a murder, the instructions you uttered could make you culpable in the murder. Other abridgments of free speech have lesser penalties. You could be jailed for inciting violence with your speech or sued for libel.
No right is absolute. Even life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can be taken away from you in some circumstances no matter what you think your Creator endowed you with. We weigh individual rights against the rights of others and will of the community. For instance, we believe in the right of the individual to have free speech, but we also believe that person has the right to be protected from untrue slander and most of us don’t want our community to be a place where slanderous liars have safe refuge, but we also want people to be allowed to say even the most hurtful insults if they are true, so we allow freedom of speech to be abridged in cases of libel but say that the truth of the statement is an absolute bar against being sued for libel.
If people have the right to be judged when applying for jobs or buying homes without regard to their race, religion, sex, or sexual preference, it isn’t because they are “owed” that right by the Creator or the universe. If they have that right, they have it because enough of us said that we wanted them to have it and we used our power to enforce it, i.e., we made it the law. Those rights, where they exist, come from the same place as all the other rights and, IMHO, are, therefore, just as valid.
RMM has granted that communities have the right to create laws that make the community better. For instance, among other laws like those that prevent business from putting up large signs or making too much noise, he seems OK with zoning laws that prevent business from being in areas zoned for residence. Most of would agree with him -- even those who are inclined to always disagree with RMM out of principle or habit. However, he believes that zoning laws are “a far cry” antidiscrimination hiring laws. But are they really?
Let’s say my neighbor decides to start a barber business in his living room. According to RMM, it’s ethical for me to get the government to stop my neighbor’s business. If I don’t like the extra traffic it brings to my street, I can get the government to put a stop to his business, and even RMM wouldn’t be persuaded by the guy’s arguments that zoning laws are un-American or unethical. RMM wouldn’t agree with my neighbor and he wouldn't say to me, “Scott, you aren’t owed a street with only non-business traffic. Shit happens. Man up. I don’t like everything that happens on my street.”
But what if my neighbor said, “It is un-American and unethical to tell a man what he can’t and can’t do in his own home?” What does RMM say then? He’s not opposed to zoning laws. Do we have a right to tell a man what he can and can’t do in his home? If there is anything more sacrosanct in America than one’s business, it’s one’s home. So why does RMM think I have the right to tell a man that he can’t hire people to work out of his home, but I don’t have the right to tell a man what he can and can’t do when hiring in his business?
RMM says that a business should be able to hire and fire whoever it wants without governmental interference. Apparently, that means that RMM is opposed to child labor laws. If we as a community decide that we don’t like businesses taking time away from children’s studies or putting them in positions that might be bad for their health, well, that’s tough. He’s apparently also opposed to sexual harassment laws as they pertain to hiring and firing. So if as a community, we decide that we don’t want women to be pressured into sleeping with their bosses, that’s tough. Shit happens. If I guy wants to fire a woman if she doesn't put out, that's his right. We know he’s opposed to laws against racial discrimination, so if we see factors creating an underclass that might come back to bite the rest of the community through crime, loss of property values, or even uneasy feelings about allowing an underclass to suffer, he’d say that was just tough. We’d be un-American if we created laws that prevented hiring discrimination.
In other words, according to RMM’s logic and ethics, if we want to improve our community by banning big signs, loud noise, or extra traffic, we’re fine, upstanding, civic-minded citizens exercising our right to create zoning laws and other rules that make life better. However, if we want to improve our community by preventing children from being distracted from school or even being tempted into dropping out of school by creating child labor laws, we’re un-American, unethical people who need to grow up. If we as a community decide that we don’t want our neighbors to feel like they have to become whores to keep their livelihood, their homes, or their insurance, we should come to understand what an unethical thing it is to impinge upon the freedom of an employer. If we want to create rules that we think will allow people to feel as if they will get a fair shake in the work force or be able to move into any community so that we encourage them to try to succeed or encourage the best and brightest of them to move to our community so we have a competitive edge, RMM would say we should be better than that.
Why is that? Why doesn’t RMM believe the reverse is also true? Why not say to the bigoted employer, “Oh, you don’t want to work with blacks? Tough. Shit happens. You aren’t owed a white only life. From what did you think you got that right? It’s not in the Constitution, state or federal law, the Declaration of Independence or even the Bible. The courts haven’t found it, so how did you? I don’t like all the laws that affect me either, but you are part of a community, and you have adult responsibilities to that community. Quit whining and man up.”
“Scott, community benefits, roads, fire department, etc. is why we pay taxes.”
Yes, but you also aren’t allowed to put up signs that are too large, make too much noise, put a business in a place zone for residence, etc. Community is more than paying taxes. There are rules that are created to make the community more pleasant and more successful. If you want those rules that benefit you, you have to follow rules that you may not like.
“Furthermore to claim that the autonomy of the individual, even the freedom to
be a hating idiot, threatens, "the economy" or "creates a permanent underclass:
is specious.”
“Even during the 50's at the height of segregation, employers who refused to
hire blacks were hurting themselves more than their prospective employees.”
And yet they still did it and created an underclass of poor blacks.
“The economy is simply too damn competitive to stay competitive if your reduce
your hiring pool in such a way.”
“More to the point, these ideas violate all our rights. Should you be forced to
hire a man who believes all gay men should be killed outright? Of course not.”
No one should be forced to hire any particular person. But that is not the same as refusing to hire an entire protected class of people. If there was the threat of creating an underclass of homophobes, perhaps they -- as a class -- should be protected. I don’t see that being necessary right now, but maybe in the future. The courts have defined particular classes of people who are prone to become underclasses by prevailing bias. If there is not a prevailing bias that can create an underclass, the group of people is not protected and can be discriminated against for whatever attribute one might care to discriminate against them. Right now, homophobes are not a protected class, but religious affiliation is a protected class. In most cases, I should not be allowed to consider religion, even anti-gay religions, in my hiring because religious groups have been subjected to collective discrimination by communities, which has created underclasses. If you don’t believe me, ask any Jew. Catholics could tell you something too.
”So long as you do that, you deserve the benefits of being an American.”
I’m sorry, but weren’t you the one suggesting that gays should be excluded from one of the biggest employers in America, the military? If I follow the rules and pay my taxes, shouldn’t that benefit be available to me? Are governments allowed to discriminate in hiring? They are collectively the biggest employer in the US.
"The single best way for gays, or women, to be treated with respect, is for more
of them to achieve success.”
Agreed. But it’s not the only way and it becomes far more difficult to become successful if the culture suggests that they shouldn’t be hired, shouldn’t live in good neighborhoods, and shouldn’t be seen in public roles. You really don’t know what it’s like to be a minority. I can be fired if it is discovered that something having nothing whatsoever to do with my job is found out about me. That means that I not only loose my income, I loose my house because I can’t pay for it and I loose my insurance, which means that there is fair chance that I could loose my life because I have an odd genetic disease that I couldn’t afford to treat. I work for the state in a job that they could hire any number of other people to do so the idea of competition is kind of silly. I already was prevented for getting my dream job because a recruiter found out I was gay. She was a in your face Christian who loved me and even offered to hire me herself if the company she sent me to didn’t hire me. Then she found out I was gay and I never heard from her again. Not only did I not get that job, but I didn’t get any of the opportunities that job would have opened for me. So when you say that hiring bias won’t create an underclass, I have to tell you that you are full of shit. It does happen. We are hindered in our advancement.
“even the world’s biggest homophobe, if he’s a swimming fan, had to respect mark
spitz. But attempting to run to mommy gov and crying that the "straight white
boys" wont play nice, is the act of a child, not of a man. I know your better
than that scott.”
