Re: Freedom Forum report on the State of the First Amendment

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 11:58 AM -0700 12/19/97, Jim Burnes wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Dec 1997, David Honig wrote:  ...
>
>> If one ever questions this in public, as Tim did, the liberal response
>> is to show that unPC 'discrimination' is possible if humans are free,
>> and then the dutiful citizen gladly sacrifices employers' liberty for
>> their warm and fuzzy feelings.  The first amendment is about what
>> government can't do to you, not what your  neighbor can or can't do.
>
>Yeah.  The real question is what humans are free to do.  The freedom
>to do something is also the freedom *not* to do something.  The freedom
>to conduct a transaction (employing someone) must also be the freedom
>not to conduct that transaction because the transaction is voluntary.

Indeed, this is why I was very careful to include the magic phrase, "in a
free society." I rarely try to explain what's legal in the United States
today, as the U.S. has not been a free society in a long, long time.
(Arguably never, but I'm not quibbling about pure liberty, I mean that the
changes in the past 30-60 years have moved the U.S. very far from being a
free society.)

>Freedom of association cannot exist without the freedom to not associate.
>

Exactly. The confusing web of laws governing whom one can hire, whom one
_must_  hire, whom one may not fire without facing a civil lawsuit, etc.,
shows that freedom of association is dead in America. When a Christian
church is told that not hiring a Satanist will be a violation of Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act, we know we've plunged through the looking glass.

When a health food store faces a crippling lawsuit under Title VII because
it denied a job to a "person of poundage," the Mad Hatter is running the
show.

Megadittos for rules requiring access to cripples (*), rules requiring
non-smoking areas, rules requiring ethnic diversity in the workplace, and
on and on.

(* The cripples example is amusing, and sickening. A strip joint in LA,
which the City Fathers didn't want sullying their urban paradise, was
inspected for compliance with all of the thousands of laws. The inspectors
discovered that the "shower stage" in the center of the main room lacked
"wheelchair access." Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the club
had to close until an evevator or ramp could be installed (presumably so
sickos could watch paraplegic strippers or flipper babes disrobing? Gimme a
break.).)

California is starting to unwind some of these unconstitutional (in the
"original" sense) rules. Quotas have ended, welfare is ending, etc. Maybe
some day we'll see freedom of association returned.

--Tim May



The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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