My opinion is that you are a colossal dick for mindlessly parroting that bullshit without pausing for a moment to ponder if it’s true.
It isn’t. The US barely makes the top 20.
https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index
10 Likes
15 Likes
State boundaries are artificial, and could be said to be a form of gerrymandering. Granted, not by the technical definition, but by the more broad definition of drawing artificial boundaries which benefit one side over the other.
Consider this: if 2 counties in Florida had been in Alabama, and 2 counties in Illinois had been in Wisconsin, Trump would not be president (or so I’ve read). All counties in question are on the state line, and only by artificial drawing of state lines are they in one state and not the other. That may not be technically “gerrymandering”, but it amounts to much the same effect…
State boundaries, while “artificial,” aren’t an example of gerrymandering.
2 Likes
I do agree that killing Nazis did stop the mass genocide of Jews but by the time the situation got to that it was past the time for argument. There were decades that led up to that point during which minds should have been changed. Racism and xenophobia were commonplace and the US was at the forefront of eugenics experimentation. These ideologies were already running deep all over the world not just in Germany
Reasoned argument has changed plenty in history. Gay rights and gay acceptance has been changed by such. People’s attitudes towards gay people were changed, not by people shaming others for being homophonic (something I feel is actually setting gay rights back and causing backlash), but by showing people that gay people are just like everyone else and not the humanity-destroying forces of evil they were long considered to be. Will & Grace, Ellen, etc helped humanize gay people to populations that have never experienced them. Increased visibility helped change people’s Minds. Yes, there’s been a increase in hate crimes but they are nowhere near the levels they were before. This is a version of the reasoned argument I am talking about.
Atheists have been at this fight for a long time with reasoned argument and they’ve changed countless minds. Just watch the Atheist Experience some time. I’m not sure why you think that reasoned argument doesn’t work
Dance clubs are famous for allowing or disallowing whoever they want or don’t want in to the party, it’s hard for me to get worked up for the injustice of this. Agreeing to serve someone alcohol on one’s property, that seems to me a different kind of business proposition than making a wedding cake (for example).
6 Likes
I’ve been mistreated by both kinds.
That the guy is a huge jerk is a great reason. Because you don’t agree with his politics, well you might have to kick out 40% of the bar’s customers. (sure Trump didn’t win the popular vote, but it was still a scary number of people that supported him)
1 Like
Maybe he was wearing the hat ironically, and the barkeep totally missed it.
Then again, there are many things it is inadvisable to do, even ironically.
Maybe his head was too far up his ass, and he was suffering from anoxia.
The whole thing is a mystery, wrapped in an enigma.
1 Like
What do you mean by both kinds? You mean by both liberals and conservatives while working in a restaurant? Yeah, no shit.
In NYC? You think 40%? That’s probably a little high, even with tourists.
And again, it had nothing to do with his hat. It’s was all about his attitude to staff. The customer isn’t always right.
8 Likes
In god we trust.
How does he manage to lose ?
and, tied at 9th place, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom
I don’t agree with the Cato Institutes definition of freedom, but that was a low bar and the US still failed.
7 Likes
That’s like a curse, like saying; “may your first born have dropsy.”
It’s a miserable business that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
I don’t get why religion gets a special pass here – you choose your political affiliations, you choose your religious affiliations.
You don’t choose your race, gender, etc.
If you don’t serve someone at a bar based solely on their gender or race, you’re making a prior judgements that are unfair.
If you don’t serve someone at a bar because they are an asshole, then you’re making a judgement based on the “content of their character”.
But there’s a blurry line there between offensive behaviour and your political beliefs…
But certainly, if religion is a protected class (and I’m not sure it should be), then so to should political affiliation – if we say “what you believe can’t be held against you for services” then in the modern age, this must include any form of belief, ideological, scientific, etc. And yes, wearing a hat is not so different than wearing a cross or a headscarf. It’s a signifier of your beliefs.
And promoting beliefs – we do that all the time, do we really want the state to weigh in on who can and cannot be served on the basis of their political affiliation? What weird and unsettling precedents might that set in the law…
I also don’t happen to think this is effective political strategy – serve the guy a drink, enter into a dialogue with the guy, keep him coming back, and see if you can change his mind. It’s a slow process, but I’ve certainly, over time, moved people on certain issues… it’s how progress gets made. Kicking him out just makes him angry and forces him to double down without reflection…
But let’s continue to ignore that they kicked him out for his behavior, not his politics.
As for religion, I do think that people should not be discriminated against for their faith - because keep in mind, the people most often discriminated against are those who follow a minority religion, Jews, Muslims, Neo-Pagans, Satanists, etc, not mainstream Christians. That’s the reason it’s part of the first amendment, because by the time the country was formed, we had a very complicated religious landscape and these were people not too far removed from very violent religious wars in Europe. Religious toleration became enshrined as a positive because of Pennsylvania, which was founded as a Quaker colony and it actually was religious tolerant and diverse.
It’s no secret that white, evangelical Christians attempted to weaponize religious freedoms that we enjoy. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea as long as people continue to be religious. The point is that you or I, no matter how we might feel about faith as a world view, do not get to make that decision for others. Because then it’s just another form of totalitarianism.
12 Likes
And a hell of a lot of it at that time was over who was the right kind of Christian.
ETA The reason lot of the protestant sects like the Quakers that made the dangerous journey to the colonies in the early days was they were not just facing day to day ridicule/denial of service etc. persecution but beheading or even nastier forms of execution.
11 Likes
Exactly! Although I’ve been watching Tudors lately (that show based on the reign of Henry VIII), and it struck me just how intertwined religion and politics were at the time. It was a real issue that Henry broke with the Pope and set up the Church of England, and it wasn’t entirely a cynical move to get his divorce - it was a real political event in Europe, because it really helped to cement the role of protestantism in Europe. But unlike now, there was no separation of church and state - they were one in the same. I find it a hard view of get across to people who are used to not living in a religious state. It’s hard to grasp (the whole idea of the past being a foreign country thing).
10 Likes
I’m just setting his behaviour to one side, the more interesting argument is about why religious belief is protected and political (or any other) belief is not.
That seems inconsistent to me, especially since many atheists and agnostics are more concerned with their political beliefs than their non-existent or diminished religious ones…
I gave you pretty solid reasons why religion is so. As long as religions exists, as long as they don’t break other laws in the course of their practice, they should be protected, primarily for the benefit of religious minorities than for the religious majority. And their specious arguments about gay marriage trampling on their first amendment rights hold no water, as SCOTUS has decided. The misuse of the first amendment doesn’t invalidate it.
As for political beliefs, we know how Washington felt about political parties, which his cabinet quickly broke with and used to suppress political speech, but Washington’s views probably explains why it wasn’t protected, except as part of free speech. So, it many ways, political speech is protected from government suppression (which has not always been respected with regards to the left, who have regularly been suppressed by the government).
4 Likes
a) Many bars forbid any kind of hat, regardless of type. This isn’t universal but it’s quite common.
b) Dude got his drinks and tipped well.
Nothingburger is nothing.
