The Greedy Capitalist: David Veksler's Homepage :: Essay

You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.-- Robert Heinlein

From: Agnostic & Atheist Student Group Discussion List
[[email protected]] on behalf of David Veksler
[[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 9:33 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Anti-Gay Laws in Florida

In response to the Observer article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,788607,00.html
notice that the actual content of the bill is only mentioned once, and very briefly: "voters in Miami-Dade county will decide tomorrow whether to repeal existing anti-discrimination laws" -- the rest of the story is spent rooting for the gay lobby.

Ignoring the motivations of the people behind the movement, and focusing on the actual content of the legislature (which is what matters, after
all) I can say that I fully support repealing ALL anti-discrimination bills.

If I am running a business, and I am a smart businessman, I will want to have a friendly, work-conductive environment, where people focus on doing their job, not promoting their sexuality. Just like any heterosexuals, I'd expect any homosexual employees to dress and act business-like, and I won't hesitate to fire any that don't, by cross dressing in flamboyant outfits, promoting political agendas during work, etc. In other words, I don't care which sexual orientation you are, as long as you do your job well -- and this benefits me, my business, my other employees, and the economy at large.

Now, if for whatever reason I did care not to hire any gay/black/female employees, I'd be harming my own business first, by creating a standard for employment that was not reflective of the actual qualifications of the people I hired, and in a free market, I, along with any other bigoted businesses, would go out of business. Not only that, but if the public had any decency, they would not frequent my business, and certainly the excluded minorities (or majorities, as the case may be) would not, bankrupting me in any competitive economy.

When the government creates anti-discrimination statues, it does not actually stop me (as a business owner) from being racist, bigoted, etc. Rather, it creates a very arbitrary standard, which can only be widely enforced by the imposition of quotas. Liberals like Clinton have presented dozens of arguments as to why quotas don't have to be quotas, but it's impossible to escape that basic fact. Quotas ARE racism. They take away free choice, and replace is with rigid laws that promote once race at the expense of another. They ignore the important qualifications of a person and focus on irrelevant factors. As far as discrimination goes, quotas are far worse than private racism in hiring, because private racism tends to be solved by the marketplace, while law-mandated racism perpetuates itself much more readily. In fact, in many, if not most places in the pre-civil rights south, state laws forced private business to exclude/segregate blacks, and as soon as they had the opportunity, many businesses worked together to end statues mandating separate restrooms, etc to lower their costs in cities like San Antonio, Atlanta, etc. In the end, a shift in thinking begun by such people as Martin Luther King, Jr. ended racism in business, not government action. Government action has perpetuated legal racism in private and public enterprises in a larger scale than ever before in history through affirmative action, anti-discrimination statues, and the actions of various agencies, not to mention cooperating with racists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who extort millions from decent companies with threats of "exposing" non-existent discrimination with the support of the FTC and various other government agencies.

Racism is wrong and immoral, but so is government control over private enterprise, which inevitably creates a much bigger problem than existed in the first place. If politicians want to end racism, they should promote policies in government that focus on hiring people solely based on their qualifications, and leave the business community alone to do the same. If either one does not, they will only suffer the problems that come with any other form of racism.

--David

[Follow up]
About marriage, straight, gay, or otherwise, government should have nothing to say on the matter.

Marriage is a contract between two people, not a contract between two people and their government. As far as government is concerned, it should be like any other private contract, and government should not step in and regulate it either way. For tax purposes, the law should not favor either married or single couples, unlike its current policy of favoring and taxing marriages simultaneously.

If private business wants to recognize certain contracts for the purposes of giving benefits, they may do so -- or not -- either way, all my arguments from the previous email will still apply.

The only remaining question is what benefits should partners of government employees receive, but I'd say that you should not receive any extra free benefits just for being married -- if an agency wants to give spouses benefits; they should allow you to claim any one person as the recipient.