Before I start, let me say that you’ve grossly misjudged my concerns over discrimination. It never even occurred to me that in a truly libertarian society that I would be discriminated against. Rather, it was more along the lines of would we allow a restaurant to post a ‘No n****rs allowed’ sign, or even just enforce such a policy absent the sign. I’m white, straight, middle-classed. It is people LIKE me who have historically been the source of discrimination, not the victims, and I see no reason to think that would ever change.
Even now that I’ve thought about it, my sexual habits are not something someone could know about me unless I chose to make them aware of it, so facing discrimination in a day to day basis is not even possible.
One of the great “cons” in modern society is the idea that discrimination is wrong.
Let me stop you for a moment. You are absolutely correct, virtually every decision we make in our lives involves ‘discrimination’ of some kind. What I’m talking about is treating one kind of human different (worse) than another type based upon a trait upon which such mistreatment is not justified. Believing that whites are superior to blacks (or vice versa), refusing to serve Irish people simply for being Irish, not hiring someone because they’re too old, that sort of thing.
We all discriminate, and much of the time reasonably so. Choosing our spouse, where we work, who is, and is not, one of our friends. Certain, personal discrimination is, and should be legal, both in our society and in the hypothetical hyper-libertarian one we’ve been discussing. If you don’t want to date black women, that’s your choice. If it’s because you are a racist, that just means you are scum, if it’s because you are attracted to asian girls, well, you like what you like.
The question is, should you be a bonafide racist (please know I’m using ‘you’ generically here, you personally have given me no reason to think you are), and decide to open say a bed n breakfast, should you have the legal right to turn black people away at the door. On the one hand, it’s your business. On the other, one of the prices of being allowed to operate a business is being required to serve everyone, without discrimination.
On that question is where I struggle.
Did it ever occur to you that so many marriages fail today simply because couples no longer go through a process of discernment? In other words, they rush in and buy before they realise what they have bought into.
Truth be told, I haven’t spent too much time analyzing why so many marriages fail. I imagine, though, that sexual incompatibility is pretty high on the list, and the morality you espouse necessitates that people wed without having any idea whether or not they are sexually compatible. Think that might be part of the problem?
The thing is the under 40s are forced to accept it. Still, we read of bullying against homosexuals by the younger generation and of homosexuals committing suicide.
The bullying you refer to is horrible, but that’s simply because theres no such thing as 100% in anything. Even though younger people are more likely than older people to accept homosexuality as normal doesn’t make it absolute.
Regardless, you say they are ‘forced’ to accept it. I say that’s the natural condition, that discriminating against them is a learned behavior. Learned from their parents. Learned from peers. And, most importantly, learned from religion.
As you know, I reject man made religion. Because I think it’s man made. So I have asked myself, well, if god didn’t actually declare that all these sexual things are bad, what made the men who created religion think that he did? What I concluded is that sexually transmitted diseases, which 2,000 years ago was a much more serious problem than it is today, due to our advances in medical technology, were seen, literally, as punishments from god for the underlying behavior. And if god punishes behavior, that must mean the behavior is bad.
Back in the day, syphilis, gonorrhea, you name it, just about every STD was a death sentence.
But today, the physical consequences of promiscuity have been all but eliminated. Most sexually transmitted diseases are completely and easily curable, and the one that isn’t that is serious is easily prevented.
Your morality made sense during days gone by. But not anymore.
Why, they demand that the kids be “educated” to stop the bullying and the discrimination. In other words they are being forced to accept that which they have a natural abhorrence towards.
To the extent that your kids think homosexuals are ‘abhorrent’ and deserving of bullying and discrimination, it’s because you and your church have taught them so.
However, what worries and concerns you is that you and what you do will be discriminated against. You worry that homosexuals and hedonism would be discriminated against, so in order to protect your own vested interest you find it hard to accept that discrimination would be given free reign.
I believe I covered this sufficiently way back in the beginning of this post, but let me just say this. To the extent that laws are being enacted to restrict people from engaging in swinging, while I certainly object to them, but in a true libertarian society they would not exist. For if I am free to put dangerous drugs into my system, and in Libertyville, I would be, I am certainly free to engage in reckless sexual behaviors.
