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To: SeekAndFind
What if someone refuses to rent out a property to a black family because his "conscience" does not allow him to do it ? I bet the law would nullify his "conscience".

All I'm asking is, where's the jurisdiction? What you described is a thought crime. Thought crimes are considered common, now. But are they legal? What about the 1st Amendment? What about property rights? Should minorities have special rights superior to non-minorities? Who decides, by what criteria?

We have a doctrine of negative rights in this country - whatever isn't specified as a power of the government, isn't - and everything else is legal. Where does the constitution prohibit a racist from using racism to decide who to rent his property to?

When the country was founded, there was an acknowledged distinction between the roles of law and morality. Laws were to be moral, but not all morality was to be codified, because it was impossible to get common agreement on all morality everywhere, or to do so without losing freedom.

So you say, "There is probably a limit to how one applies his conscience towards refusing service to others." Indeed, there probably is - now. All I'm asking is, where does it get it's jurisdiction?

14 posted on 06/22/2009 6:32:33 AM PDT by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: Talisker
In answer to your quandary about racism. In a truly free society you have the right to whatever opinion you want. You can act on that opinion as a right until that right encroaches or takes away another persons’ rights.

Example:

The right to exclude oneself from a medical procedure that by definition kills an unborn baby is the right of any medical profession, because that does not involve removing anybody elses rights.

The right to discriminate against person who has the proper information, credit, and money to rent an apartment, infringes on that persons right to live where they want in a free society.

Minorities already have special rights, Ask anybody who has lost their job in order to allow a minority to keep theirs. Or anybody who has been passed over for promotion in order to have a minority promoted in his place. The definition for this is Affirmative Action.
Where does the government and law get it's jurisdiction: At one time the government in this country received it's authority from the governed. Today I think a cabal of elite are in charge and through legal manipulation, media control, and campaign finance rules they manipulate the system to keep their positions of authority.

16 posted on 06/22/2009 7:00:21 AM PDT by Jim from C-Town
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