Governments are erected by the citizenry of towns, cities, and states in order to protect people from being killed or robbed in the event that an individual can’t protect themselves. National governments are also tasked with facilitating international trade and with providing national defense. Over time, governments (powered by the American Left and the federal education dept.) have successfully convinced majorities of voters in almost every state that the government has the additional authority and responsibility to protect people from the struggles that every individual will inevitably encounter throughout their lives. There are a number of such struggles, and I may write an article on each one, but this article will analyze a topic that gained national attention for a few months, and remains a difficult issue to reconcile for even the brightest minds in the US, and even for some in the liberty movement: Discrimination.
As individuals go through life, it is inevitable that they will be treated unfairly and that they will be discriminated against at some point. I have personally faced discrimination/struggled for being short, Jewish, libertarian, foreign, for having a speech impediment, and for balding since I was around 20 years old. Why wouldn’t I support laws that prevent people from treating me badly for things that I generally have no control over?
In answering that question, it’s important to explain that the United States was founded upon personal liberty – meaning the freedom for any person to do anything that they want as long as they are not literally killing/harming someone else or literally stealing from them. I have written many papers explaining why the free market is moral, American, constitutional, and what the founders of the US intended for this great nation. If you understand this, then you should agree that in a truly free market – a market regulated by free people/consumers and not politicians – people have the freedom to prohibit ANYONE from entering their store (property rights) or doing business with them for ANY reason by simply saying ‘no’ to the potential business deal. If you’ve made it this far in the article, I assume that you would not support government forcing one or both parties to accept a particular deal.
As a former football player, I often use the NFL as an example for commerce. Should the government have forced The Denver Broncos to extend Peyton Manning’s contract? Should the Colorado government have forced them to pay him a standard modern salary for a QB, which is over $20 million a year? Should President Obama have forced Manning to accept the deal? Of course, you’d answer every one of those questions with an emphatic ‘no’!
Let’s leave the football field now and take the issue to the everyday economy. Instead of the Broncos, the company in this scenario is a bakery owned by a Christian couple in Colorado. Instead of the QB, Peyton Manning, the client is a gay couple seeking a personalized cake for their wedding. If the governing body of Colorado allowed for free exchange of goods, they would not force either party to enter into any contract whatsoever. Over the past few years however, the American left has convinced people that it is their duty not only to prevent, investigate, and punish people for crimes against individuals and property, but that it is also their duty to protect people from being denied what they feel entitled to – especially if they are possibly being denied something because of the color of their skin or their religion or their gender or their sexuality, or for any other reason that could make the left look more like they support minorities and less like the pandering Marxists that they truly are.
There have been countless articles written to support each side of this issue, but every single one of them seems to be missing the actual issue at hand.
In using logic, facts, the US Constitution, and economic understanding to judge cases, the potential bigotry/religion/sexuality/discrimination is truly irrelevant to my judgment. The only issue that must be considered is whether government ever has any right to interfere in the free market in any manner, for any reason other than murder/damages. If you are communist, you believe that the government should control the economy, and if you are libertarian, you believe that the government should have zero involvement in the economy. If you fall between the two, you seemingly do not fully comprehend the principles of freedom or communism.
The black hole:
Why do I sound so radical? Why shouldn’t government place some regulation on the economy, y’know to protect consumers.
Yeah, that sounds good!
Here are the two simple answers:
1) It is illegal and a free market means that the economy is completely free of government involvement. This is the only thing that actually matters.
2) Every government power expands. When they are allowed to take some, they take more. When Americans allowed the federal government to get away with implementing a federal income tax in 1913, they immediately began to increase it. It now has a top rate of 39%. When President Lyndon Johnson created Medicaid in 1965, its budget was $0.24 billion and by 2015 the federal Medicaid budget was over $350 billion (and states account for 45% of Medicaid spending).
If Americans do not fight the politicians on this important issue, they will rapidly take over the market, and within one or two generations, the state and/or federal government will go from controlling a portion of the market (maybe 20-40%) to controlling around 95% of the market (there will always be a black market as long as there’s demand).
If you are such a devout communist that you still believe that the US is better off with an economy fully controlled by the government, ask yourself this: Do you trust Trump, Pence, and Paul Ryan to control your life? Do you trust Chuck Schumer to decide how you operate your business? Do you want people like Jeff Sessions to create laws governing which business deals you are forced to accept? If you trust all of those politicians to create policy dictating how all businesses in the US operate, then you should continue to vote for and campaign for strong authoritarian leadership!
Where does this leave gay couples?
“Okay, Alu, so you’re saying that gay couples are doomed to never enjoy the same bland concoctions of wheat and sugar at their weddings that straight couples do?”
Not at all. The overwhelming majority of bakeries will always do business with gay people. In fact, almost every business will enter into a good business deal with anyone if they feel that it benefits them financially.
Additionally, even those who actually do hate gays (bigots are a tiny and decreasing population, thankfully) would still serve gay customers. As we all witnessed a few months ago, one unpopular act by a business can turn into a PR nightmare, which can easily destroy a company. This is why companies work so hard to never offend anyone and to serve everyone and to never discriminate. The PR storm is simply not worth it.
If you still believe that the government should control the economy, congratulations: You are a true communist. You should probably move to North Korea.
Can courts really make a difference?
The U.S. 10th circuit court of appeals upheld the Colorado court of appeals’ ruling that Mr. Philips was legally obligated to design and bake a cake for this gay couple’s wedding. The order says the cake-maker must “cease and desist from discriminating” against gay couples. It is likely to be heard by the US Supreme Court in the near future. This court ruling is an example of a ruling that cannot have any practical application in the real world. Would you want to eat a cake that was designed and baked by a person who did not want to make it and only did so under threat of a court ruling? Would you be confident that the baker would make it look good, taste good, and not be unhealthy/harmful? I would certainly not eat a cake baked by someone whom I knew hated what I stood for and resented me for suing him. It is important to reiterate that this case is nothing but another opportunity for the far left to virtue signal and try to gain popularity by ‘standing up for gay rights’. Unfortunately for the Democrats, I’ve already proven that the Left protects minorities and gays far less than the other two parties. They are also the only party that supports governments taking 45% of income from homosexuals by force.
Do not allow yourself to be manipulated into supporting increased government regulation of our economy for what propagandists claim is ‘equality’ or ‘anti-discrimination’. Beware any idea that is used as impetus to increase the power of government.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Liberty Block or any of its members. We welcome all forms of serious feedback and debate.
