orcishgamer: It doesn't matter whether Rand Paul is racist or not, just that he's a sellout, he doesn't even stand by his own (seriously fucked up in some cases) principals now that he's a serious contender for political office. Several of his staff quit working for him due to this very issue, enough about him.
I'm not arguing really one way or another on this (though I have an opinion on how things should, ideally work, just like most anyone), just the Hessusio's aggressive and blatantly wrong statement is contradicted by real life. I get that the dude wants shit to work differently, I do too (though not in the same way), but his statements are at odds with reality. In reality, over quite a bit of the world (probably in almost every country in which internet services are hosted that he uses, indeed any English speaker uses) you actually can't unilaterally say fuck off I can do what I want with my stuff, even on the internet. There's people with guns that say you can't, just like there's people with guns that say you're going to pay your damned taxes.
Well, it seems like that's the only way to get anywhere in our politics. Selling out. Another reason I don't like it.
And to be clear, I do think government intervention was needed during the civil rights movement. It is needed to protect people's right to life, liberty and property and people were getting killed. I'm a little torn over whether or not it was appropriate to force businesses to serve someone they didn't want to rather than just protecting the people and prosecuting for murder, because refusing to serve someone does not deprive them of their life, liberty, or property, but it was a way for the government to make a statement that things were going to far.
Someone mentioned about what if a bill was presented to prohibit companies from using drm. I have been vocal about how much I don't like drm but I still don't think I would support such a bill. Steam can be assholes if they want. It makes me all that much more happy to come here to user friendly and mostly unmoderated gog. If such a bill passed, I would speculate that gog's business would take a big hit. The only reason I would support such a bill is because one could argue that drm CAN take away one's right to the property that one purchased. It was presented as property purchased when the sale was made and no EULA can change that after the agreement was already made.
The thing is if you allow exclusions you can essentially remove peoples' ability to participate in society. That's why many jurisdictions even protect womens' right to nurse in public.
We didn't need the civil rights movement to prevent murder, murder was already illegal. Society needed a restructure at the time, we should be thankful we didn't end up with extreme violence from the progressive movement on that one, often this is not the case with societal reform (the French unfortunately have usually had to resort to violence).
There's a very popular saying, "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose." That's a very attractive proposition, it seems to allow the maximum of freedom for everyone. Sadly it doesn't really cover everything (actually it does, but the folks so quick to identify with such a saying are the same who are most likely to grant even more leeway and rights to those who already have the imbalance of power in their favor, i.e. the modern bourgeois).
There are a few organizations who've managed to remain largely exclusive (The Boy Scouts and some private country clubs, for example), but not very many, and under pressure they all cave one way or another.
Now that may seem "wrong" and the preceding stuff rather abstract, but for a concrete thought exercise: how would you stop Jim Croweism without telling private individuals "You cannot discriminate, even on private property."
If that seems unfair, remember even a private shopowner operates at the grant of the public (i.e. the citizens). The property and services he consumes, even if he's arguably a net positive to the community, are after all, publicly owned. The US has an extremely large commons, the American people actually own most of the stuff in the US and the Feds are supposed to manage it in trust for us (they do a horrible job, btw). All the land, fresh water, gold (and other valuable minerals, including those on the continental shelf), and much much more, belongs to the people. You can literally do nothing in this country, according to The Constitution, without the consent of the people (often handled via The Federal government).
