Barry Goldwater vs. George Wallace

[Ferguson97]

And it's almost impossible to sell voters on the importance of strict legal interpretation in the face of issues like abortion and racial discrimination.

It's extremely easy to view civil rights as expendable when they don't directly impact you.

[Ferguson97]

And it's almost impossible to sell voters on the importance of strict legal interpretation in the face of issues like abortion and racial discrimination.

It's extremely easy to view civil rights as expendable when they don't directly impact you.

And it's extremely easy to view the rule of law as expendable when you've never lived without it.

Dule, in tears as he watches a business forced to serve a Black man: "Noooo, this is lawlessness run amuck!"

[Ferguson97]

And it's almost impossible to sell voters on the importance of strict legal interpretation in the face of issues like abortion and racial discrimination.

It's extremely easy to view civil rights as expendable when they don't directly impact you.

And it's extremely easy to view the rule of law as expendable when you've never lived without it.

Dule, in tears as he watches a business forced to serve a Black man: "Noooo, this is lawlessness run amuck!"

Ferguson, in tears as he watches a judge interpret the constitution: "Noooo, being governed by people who refuse to break the law based on their personal whims is a violation of my civil rights!"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you said that you would actually oppose a new Constitutional Amendment explicitly forbidding private businesses from participating in racial discrimination? If so, your position on this issue would clearly go beyond "strict interpretation of the constitution".

[Ferguson97]

I'm generally opposed to laws that render a legal action illegal depending on the state of mind of the perpetrator. For example, it's legal to fire black people. However, it's illegal to fire black people because they are black. The difference between the innocuous action and the criminal action here is entirely within the mind of the perpetrator. I'm okay with using mens rea as an aggravating factor in an existing crime (hate crimes, for example), but when the question of whether or not the action was criminal at all hinges completely on mens rea, you place people's rights and duties within the purview of purely subjective speculation.

Whether or not the action of an adult having sex with another adult is criminal at all hinges on whether or not the perpetrator had consent. And consent is just as hard to prove as the state of mind of the perpetrator.

I do not like trying to guess at what's happening in others' minds, and I try to give people's motives the benefit of the doubt. The legality of your actions should not depend on strangers' wild guesswork about what's happening inside your head.

Defendants are still given the presumption of innocence in cases of racial discrimination, so they would necessarily still be given the benefit of the doubt.

[Ferguson97]

Consent is determined by the nature of communication between two people, which is an external act, not just a state of mind. Still hard to prove in a court of law, but clearly not what I’m talking about here.

And yes, defendants in these cases do get the presumption of innocence. Perhaps that’s why the success rate for such cases is so abominably low.

If the success rate is "abominably low", then it's likely that the rare successful cases are situations where the presence of discrimination is very abundantly clear. (For example, bakery owners that are explicit in their reasons for refusing to serve gay couples.) And if those abundantly clear cases are the only ones that wind up being successful, then what's the problem?

[Ferguson97]

Consent is determined by the nature of communication between two people, which is an external act, not just a state of mind. Still hard to prove in a court of law, but clearly not what I’m talking about here.

And yes, defendants in these cases do get the presumption of innocence. Perhaps that’s why the success rate for such cases is so abominably low.

If the success rate is "abominably low", then it's likely that the rare successful cases are situations where the presence of discrimination is very abundantly clear. (For example, bakery owners that are explicit in their reasons for refusing to serve gay couples.) And if those abundantly clear cases are the only ones that wind up being successful, then what's the problem?

I don’t like laws that exist to enrich lawyers and give plaintiffs false hope.

This sounds like a cop-out response, ngl.

[Ferguson97]

Consent is determined by the nature of communication between two people, which is an external act, not just a state of mind. Still hard to prove in a court of law, but clearly not what I’m talking about here.

And yes, defendants in these cases do get the presumption of innocence. Perhaps that’s why the success rate for such cases is so abominably low.

If the success rate is "abominably low", then it's likely that the rare successful cases are situations where the presence of discrimination is very abundantly clear. (For example, bakery owners that are explicit in their reasons for refusing to serve gay couples.) And if those abundantly clear cases are the only ones that wind up being successful, then what's the problem?

I don’t like laws that exist to enrich lawyers and give plaintiffs false hope.

This sounds like a cop-out response, ngl.

How so?

Because it's a cheeky response that carefully avoids directly answering the question, and I think that you're too smart to really think that "this law will enrich lawyers and give plaintiffs false hope" is a sufficient reason to oppose a law.

[Ferguson97]

Y'all should move this into another thread and either rerail to the subject or let this die.

I am letting it die because he has no response to my points.

I have responded to each and every one of your points, you're the one who keeps retreating to new arguments after failing to defend the previous one:

"I oppose racial discrimination; I just don't think laws banning it are constitutional."

"Sure, maybe I'd support a Constitutional Amendment banning racial discrimination, but that would be too hard, since I don't like guessing what people's motivations are."

"Sure, there are times when there's proof of such motivations... but hey, wouldn't this just make lawyers richer, hehe? And who wants that, am I right?"
I'd just like to ask you straight-up: regardless of whether or not such laws would be constitutional, or how realistic it would be for the state to prove in a court of law that there was explicit discrimination... do you think that businesses should be allowed to deny service or employment on the basis of race/religion/sex/etc.?