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

[Steve Schear <schear@lvdi.net>]

>>> Where do you get the right to tell others how they can make a living?
>>
>>I don't have that right.  However, the Supreme Court has said that the
>>Congress has that right.
>
>If you would be so kind as to a) specify that supreme court ruling,
>and b) identify an online resource where I can obtain the text of
>that decision, so that I can 1) confirm or deny your allegation, and
>2) debate your position intelligently, I would greatly appreciate it.

It has to do with the application of laws, especially Federal, to corporations.  Recall that Corporations are legal fictions and, unlike individuals, are not constitutionally vested with inaliable rights.  They have been affirmed some rights, including free speech bu the SC, but generally with more limitations.

>
>>> I am not allowed to place toxic waste, or noise, where it can affect
>>> others; I can ingest toxins privately and listen to whatever music I
>>> like so long as you don't detect it in your backyard.
>>
>>Well, racism is hiring decisions is something that is detected in other
>>people's backyards.  That's why its illegal.
>
>What if I run a business out of my house?  What if I don't need
>employees (such that I could affort to hire a couple of people,
>or nobody at all)?  If I hire someone who is white because I don't
>want to hire someone is black, then it is not a loss that is felt
>within the black community, since I don't *need* to hire anybody
>in the first place.

Use of your property, as long as its private, were vested with many constitutional rights (many of which now been eroded by decades of SC 'interpretation').  However, once you operate a business upon a property (evidenced by the issuance of a business license) it becomes a 'public convenience' which can (and often is) heavily regulated and restricted.

So, operate w/o a business license and incorporation and keep your rights but risk prosection for tax evasion, or license your business and lose many of those consititional protections you covet.  Catch-22.

>I am not allowed to choose to hire someone based on skin color,
>and yet the country is riddled by "affirmative" action programs --
>which, in the short and brutal version of the description of "AA"
>is just a system of RACE-BASED PREFRENCES.
>
>I find it very interesting that liberal activists in California,
>who rabidly insist that racism is wrong, that we must have racial
>dialogues, that we should all "just get allong," used the court
>system to fight Proposition 209, which ends affirmative action in
>that state.  The people voted their will, and the activists took
>to the courts to override the people's will -- in effect, saying
>that the California voting public is just a bunch of idiots.

They simply showed their true 'liberal' idiological colors.  What they really seek isn't guarantees of equal opportunity but equal outcomes under law, what Robert Bork calls Radical Egalitarianism in his recent book, "Slouching Towards Gamorah."   

>So, back to my home business.  Let's say I build computers and sell
>them around the state.  Since I'm not transporting my product from
>one state to another, the Fed can't constitutionally regulate how
>I do business.

Wrong, see my explanation, above.

--Steve