Why in God’s name is it legal for KKK and other racist groups to get licenses to use public property to propagate their filth?

Oh, I forgot.  Every man, woman, and child has a sacred right to express their views even if it involves blocking traffic.

OK, fine. I think it’s debatable but, for the sake of argument, lets agree with the ACLU and Liberals and Conservatives everywhere that idiot racists (redundant) have a right to express themselves on public property.

If I agree that they have that right am I a racist?  Am I a promoter of White Supremacism?

If I think the Drug War is a horrible policy and that the entire “controlled substance” network of bullets and prisons needs to be entirely dismantled does that prove I want to give cocaine to children?

If I want the US Military out of Afghanistan and Iraq (and Korea, Germany, and every other country) does that mean I am Islamic?

But if I think we should (at least at the Federal level) stop watching over shopkeepers to make sure they don’t discriminate among their customers, that makes me a racist?

Advocating the contrived right of using public property to express views is liberal and permissible but advocate that people who own property can share it with whomever they want without getting crushed by federal police power and I’m worse than a liberal?

What would happen if tomorrow the Federal laws all disappeared and some moron tried to destroy their customer base by eliminating minorities from it?  He wouldn’t just lose the minorities.  He would lose most everyone else.  And the same right of discrimination that he decided to use would be used against him by all his neighbors.  He would be crushed.

Without one politician having anything to do with it.

Society can and does regulate morality without needing to threaten to kill people for not conforming.

I am not saying that this was the situation in 1964.  I am totally thankful that God used tyrannical social engineering to get us out of a horrible cultural situation. People who act like rotten children get treated like rotten children–they get a spanking. That’s the lesson of exile in Babylon.

But we’re facing other kinds of horror now.  And much of it in my opinion is due to the powers that politicians have claimed for themselves. So if someone wants to say that all property owners, of every race, ethnicity, and creed, have the right to do what they want with their own, I think attacking him is uncalled for.

By the way, the reason why businesses were able to practice discrimination in some states and stay in business was because the state passed laws requiring them to do so.  No owner of a bus would tell his customers where to sit, racist or not.  Money talks louder than prejudice. It takes politics to drown it out.

For some historical food for though, consider this wikipedia article.  My favorite part:

Black taxi drivers charged ten cents per ride, a fare equal to the cost to ride the bus, in support of the boycott. When word of this reached city officials on December 8, 1955, the order went out to fine any cab driver who charged a rider less than 45 cents.

Cities still have that municipal fascist lock on taxis.  That was never changed. Poor people with cars should be able to start their own taxi business but local overlords will not let them.

The title of this brief blog post may overreach since I’m not going to provide some kind of ethical analysis going back to the Bible.  (For a stab at that see John Frame’s essay and Vern Poythress’ thoughts.)

Rather, I just want to point out that, according to the U.S. Constitution law it is misleading to claim that using copyrighted material is “stealing.”

The period of history in North America that gave us the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had a lot to say about “rights” and how they are not given by government and how no one should violate them.

So if it were widely believed that there is a natural right to gain exclusive profit from ideas or writing or songs or technological designs, one would not expect the following to be in the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power… To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

But it is.

Do you see the point? This isn’t the protection of a natural right; it is a government-granted monopoly believed necessary in order to promote a public good.  And it is explicitly stated that this “exclusive Right” is to be temporary.

(I note in passing that the Constitution doesn’t empower congress to throw large wads of taxpayer cash at these authors and inventors.  Granting them a temporary exclusi.ve right is thought to be as much subsidy as is necessary.)

So while it is important to obey the law, it is also important to not get beaten down by false accusations that downloading a movie is the same as stealing a car.  This is one reason why such propaganda is wrong.

CARPE DIEM: Yeah, What’s Wrong With Price Gouging? Nothing!.

Thanks go to Kirk Nelson for forwarding this to me.

I remember when I was road-tripping to my first pastorate and our van broke down in the middle of Nowhere, Oregon.  (Actually I think we were 20 miles past Baker City or something similar.)

We had four to transport and a car to tow.  That was too many to ride in the cab of the tow truck, especially since one was pretty much still a baby and another was a toddler.

So the people we called agreed to rent us a car for a day.  They brought it with the tow truck and then our van replace the vehicle we were renting.

It was a wreck.  It cost us $50 and we had it for less than an hour before we returned it and checked into our hotel room.

I was so thankful someone out in the middle of nowhere had the foresight and motivation to buy the equipment needed and keep it on hand for the occasional stranded person.

I guess I should have condemned him for price-gouging.  Whenever I’m in bad circumstances I should have the right to enslave other people’s property, time and labor.

Yes, that would be the Christian way.  Instead, like mindless bourgeois thralls, we thanked God for the profit motive.