“The left has created a macabre myth that runs counter to the whole experience of mankind. The left has persuaded the gullible masses of America, including, sadly, most conservatives, that ‘discrimination’ by individuals and businesses is wrong and that it violates the Constitution.
Precisely the opposite is true. All serious cognition and all honest moral judgments involve discrimination. When individuals and businesses are not free to discriminate, then the power to determine what is true and false and good and bad becomes the sole property of the state – or that even more odious creature, that lobotomized Frankenstein monster, ‘society.’
Instead of diverse opinions and actions freely manifest, which are what happens when the state and society are denied the power to force a certain viewpoint down the throats of private citizens and enterprises, what happens is that all debate, all differences, and all individuality are crushed based upon what those who run the state or manipulate society deem sacrosanct.” – Bruce Walker, in The American Thinker
Interesting quote of the day. I’d be curious to hear how people understand what this quote means. They way that I am understanding it, it is an oxymoron.
Discriminating is but one in a long list of words the communists have chsnged over the years. It used to be used to describe a person with good taste or similar, as a positive-perspective adjective. The communists( statists, really) have not only changed the meaning to a negstive-perspective, but also to a verb. Most Americans today have no clue what the words of their native language actually mean, and thus fall victim to the deceptive use of words to induce emotion rather than cognition. The word racist, for instance, is nearly always misused for purpose. I am a racist. There, I said it. Of course, when I use the word, I mean it as originally intended, to indicate a person who supports and loves their race. Not that they have anything against snother race, but that their own race is not repugnant, but beautiful to them. In truth, I freely admire and associate with any person of good character, but associate most easily with those like me. Which means I am human. What a relief.
We need to be educate all those around us that words mean what they mean, nothing more, nothing less, and be ready and able to properly define words that are used incorrectly in our presence. One of the simplest responsibilities of a citizen is to learn and speak the language of their nation properly. It is high time Americans return to the proper use of our language and see the statists for the mentally ill, lowbrow psychopaths they really are.
Interesting. So, what does the quote of the day mean? Because from what you wrote here, how you understand what the quote above means is not clear. Also, I think language is something that is always evolving which takes on new forms, style and interpretation. How language changes can be seen in the bible through different versions and interpretations. I also did not see a mention of race, at all, in the above quote. So, how race plays in to the above quote is not clear.
I agree with your point about educating those around us. If you are willing, I am still interesting in learning how you understand what the quote above means.
The quote is decrying the idea that discrimination is always a bad thing. It is well within the rights of a person or business owners to refuse association with anyone, for any reason. Either we have liberty or we do not. We do not want the government to discriminate, and we being its masters can demand such. We may not wish to allow other citizens to discriminate, either, but to demand such is not within our purview, as the individual is his own master in our society. To demand association or business transactions with a person who does not wish to engage with us is not a right we possess. The right to discriminate belongs to the individual, and should not be toyed with. The government must concern itself with equal treatment of its citizens. The individual should have no such responsibility.
Thanks for the reply, Old Gray Wolf.
So…are you saying, or do you think that an individual and a business have the same rights? How you answer is important in the context of survival, which is why I ask and the reason I asked to hear how people understood this quote.
To be more clear, is there a difference between a mom and pop business, and say…a multi-billion dollar corporation? If so, do you think a multi-billion dollar corporation should have the same rights as an individual?
What is liberty to you? To me, it is the exercise of rights without infringement upon the rights of others. In other words, responsible freedom. Is denial of one’s time, resources, or other value to another a right? Do we have a right to demand that another associate or deal with us against their will? Should we be required to deal with those we desire not to in order to provide them with satisfaction of what they desire?
To be fair, granting the current iteration of large corporations the same right of discrimination as individuals would present thorny issues, to say the least. However, to your point, Amazon recently deleted the accounts of hundreds of customers without notice. The reason? Too many returns. Is that not discrimination? Is that Amazon’s right? By the same measure, would it be, should it be illegal(government control) for Amazon to refuse service to Trump supporters? The CEO of Camping World recently stated publicly that he would prefer Trump supporters not enter his business establishments. Gutsy move, considering his business is travel trailers, and heavily dependent on older, wealthier people, many of them Trump supporters. I wish he would simply demand to know a customer’s political affiliations when they enter, and tell them to leave if they answer against his tastes. Then he would suffer the full weight of his decision, as he should. Multi billion dollar corporations refusing me service does not concern me. Them having the right of free speech or due process does not scare me. Really, if wemlook at our rights correctly, there is very little to fear from any business exercising the same rights that we possess as individuals. Indeed, a smart businessman loves only one color. Green. Green trumps silly political statements to any businessman who uses his brain. We seem to have quite the crop of mental defectives in business these days.
Bakers should be able to refuse to bake for anyone they wish to. Queers, evangelical Christians, moslems, little blond girls in pink dresses. Liberty is not slways pretty, or even kind. It has been referred to as tumultuous by better men than I. But it is always best, hurt feelings and tears notwithstanding.
According to Miriam Webster
Definition of racism
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
Definition of discriminating
1 : making a distinction
Definition of discrimination
1 a : prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment
Sorry: Merriam Webster not Miriam Webster
That definition of racism is mostly true. The very definition of race is a person being identified by obvious physical attributes and traits(traits often being the result of the person’s culture). Indeed, one race is on average superior over another- at certain things. We all have our strong(and weak) points, many of which are directly the result of our environment and culture. It is ok for us to be different, and to remain so. God scattered us intentionally, and it is worth noting that it is always man who desires that we become one indistinguishable culture and ethnicity, mostly for dubious reasons.
As far as thinking oneself superior in all aspects to another race or all other races, only a fool with an inability to see physical evidence can remain long so. Such a person is more deserving of the title idiot rather than racist.
@Old Gray Wolf, there was no option to reply under your most recent reply, so I am replying here.
I question that liberty is an illusion that has an imbalance between the potential and actual. Liberty seems to often appeal to nostalgia that gets wrapped up in ideas of an older American history that has and always is changing. When we talk about liberty, liberty for what and for whom? When bankers (large multi-billion dollar corporations), have the capacity to wreck the global markets, meet with lawmakers on demand in effort to lobby legislation that benefits their business model at the expense of everyone else, is that liberty?
A common theme in survival is the collapse of society due to dislocation of infrastructure. Business owns the infrastructure. Liberty, by the way in which you have defined it, wraps up the individual’s identity with business, and thus how we see the world is through consumerism. American identity includes dependency upon commodity chain infrastructure, and survival becomes a narrative to support and defend those supply lines(hence, political violence is near, go buy stuff to survive).
The problem is, similar to your talking point about the Camping World CEO, corporations destroyed rural America to the point that the small time farmer is the profession with the highest rates of suicide. Walmarts destroyed rural living along with diabetes and other health issues are on the rise due to the way in which these corporations produce food. This in turn forces migration to urban centers to be more dependent upon supply lines, while also contributing to the decay of rural America. This process then further aggravates and supports narratives of scarcity that make the world more insecure while the market of security becomes the solution to the problem which fundamentally erodes your and everyone else’s liberty. Every week there is a new article about how technology and government surveillance is required to make you safe. I would consider this a soft “guns and butter” debate that transforms humans in to a commodity. It is not clear how liberty becomes tied up in this process, but it clearly has, and to the extent that the definition of that word changes all the time. To again reference a more appropriate question to ask is…liberty for what and for whom?
Thanks for the discussion and I will look forward to seeing more comments in other threads. If you are interested, consider the book “Seeing Like a State” by James Scott. It is pretty interesting.
No one forced any American to buy a single thing from Walmart. Americans en masse made the decision to patronize Walmart and other businesses at the expense of local businesses. Whether due to greed or necessity matters not. As alr day stated, liberty is tumultuous. If things are easy or quiet, better be looking to your liberty, because it is likely slipping away. My whole family are farmers. They have gotten fat and happy on subsidies. Walmart and Monsanto aren’t killing them, and the government literally pays them to farm, and in some cases not to farm. They choose whether to accept that money. At the end of the day, Americans are responsible for their choices. Liberty does not punish the successful for any he decisions of the unsuccessful, even in the interest of bailing out those unsuccessful. We are all free to do as well or better than Walmart or Amazon. Get the government out of the way, and it would happen. Using government as a hammer to beat on the successful
does not make us successful, it only impoverishes us all. There is no
government solution to whatever the problem is. They consistently make more problems, cost more money and steal more liberty when we hand them a problem to fix. Part of liberty is take care of your own business and being rezponsible for your own decisions. Americans would do well to relearn such things