[ALawPoker]

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All instances of racism will tend to disintegrate when we stop all forms of it. When a state engages in racism it is still racism, and so it still carries the same real consequences. Maybe some business owners will resent the policies and see more reason to discriminate against prospective black employees. The state is not magic and it is still subject to natural human consequence.

Would all instances of racial tension suddenly disappear if the state's affirmative action and similar policies disappeared? Obviously not. Not immediately. But the problem is worsened and not improved when people let a state see race and factor it into their decisions.

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Well, yeah, and I'm with you on all of this. However, that's got very little to do with this particular case.

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Right, it's only tangentially related. I posted this as an aside thought after Iron informed me that there were already threads in other forums that discuss the case directly. I figured this would be an OK direction to take the thread. Is that against the rules?

I still don't know why you jumped at me and represented my thoughts as being some outlandish position if you basically agree, but just thought that it was off topic. I think you knee-jerked, realized you agree, and now are going with the off topic thing since it's your only reply.


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Edit: it's also really questionable to me how you got 'government does not work' out of a case of a bunch of racist local authority figures running amok. No, seriously, the most that someone "can" do in a state of anarchy in a community of racists is refuse to seat blacks in his restaurant? Really?

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So do you agree with me or don't you? If you think it's OK for a government to tell a restaurant owner that he has to let people of a certain color sit in his restaurant, then you are not "with me" on what I posted.

Don't jerk your knee and interpret this to think that I think it's good for people to refuse service to black people. If I witnessed such a thing, it would disgust me, and I'd never eat there again.

I, unlike you, am simply of the belief that government will make the problem worse. The best "legislator" for the situation is the market. If you think a restaurant owner could be successful by not serving to people of various ethnicities, you are gravely mistaken. Maybe it would work in some hickish pockets of Georgia or Alabama, but all that would speak to is the irrational mindset of those societies. There's a reason they aren't as prosperous as other parts of the country, and the irrationality of racial intolerance is probably a small part of that. Trial and error. Eventually the rational belief will win out. But we all lose when we try to FORCE rationality on other people.