“For example, can a private business legally put a sign in the window “no blacks allowed” and refuse black business?”
It’s illegal now, as well as taboo, politically incorrect, and even dangerous.
But yes, any private citizen SHOULD be able to refuse to enter into a transaction with anyone, for any reason.
If the concepts of individual liberty and free enterprise mean anything, no one SHOULD be forced to enter into a transaction not of their choosing. Period. That means they SHOULD be able to refuse to do business with redheads, tall people or cripples, and they shouldn’t even have to explain.
That sounds harsh, but think about it: If I decide not to purchase from a certain store owner, for whatever reason, nobody questions that - so if a buyer is free to choose a seller, why shouldn’t a seller be free to choose a buyer?
After all they are two sides of a trade - what is the difference? In fact, in a barter economy, where there is no currency, both traders are equally buyer and seller. I’m selling my furs to you in order to buy potatos from you. You are selling your potatos to me to buy my furs. We are both seller and both buyer.
In today’s racially charged America, the Left has figured out that it can exploit identity politics to create divisions and thereby justify redistributive socialism.
It is a false justification though, because it sacrifices the constitutional right to property ownership for the unconstitutional, imaginary and nonenforceable “right” to equality. Once a citizen can be forced, on the basis of inequality, to enter into a trade not of his choosing, then all property rights are forfeit.
Unfortunately, that train left the station a long time ago - there is no limit to the legal plunder that can be committed by the majority through taxation, regulation, fiat money and deficit spending, whereby it can simply vote to confiscate other people’s money, or for free services. This conversion to socialism was all justified by the false boogeyman of inequality and it started with the notion that citizens can be forced into transactions against their will, if it suits the collective to force them.
When there are only a few “stores” (Google, twitter, Facebook etc) customers are beholden to the media companies who own them.
When the censorship rules are based on abstract concepts like hate speech, PC or civil rights (but only for s ome) those who run the media control the message.
The solution comes down to two possibilities.
One the corporations that get critical mass and significanta following must be forbidden from all censorship except for illegal activity.
Or these mega limited organizations need broken up into culturally, ethnically and politically diverse entities that represent the viewpoints of all of America and not just certain groups. The latter is more difficult to implement.