Seriously trying to understand the US-American concept of freedom

Open Forum in English
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This is a serious question. I’m not trying to denigrate anybody or making fun of people.

I’ve had several discussions on this forum with people from the US where freedom of speech and other similar rights granted by the US constitution were at the centre of sometimes heated discussions. And, just for the record, I don’t hate the US (not even jokingly, spatterson ;-))

I have realized that most US Americans I have met so far have a different understanding of what people should be “free to do and/or to say”.

This morning I read an article in an Austrian paper which seemed so unbelievable that I thought it was a joke. So I googled the headline and, unfortunately, it seems to be true.

You can replace the word “gay” here with women, divorced people, Jews, Christians, Muslims, whatever.

I don’t intend to discuss homosexuality per se here.

I just wonder what makes people think that it is their constitutional right to refuse service to others based on their colour of skin, origin, etc. (as I said, just replace the word “gay” with any of the afore-mentioned words, because the line of argumentation brought forward by the supporters of that bill could easily be applied to any other group of people).

I don’t know the US constitution but could such a law really be constitutional?

Based on this article I wonder if it would be legal for business owners in the US to deny service to immigrants, women etc.

I thought there were anti-discrimination laws in the US but obviously I am wrong.

If a school is run as a private school, thus basically operating as a private business, would it be possible in the US for a school to say that it does not allow any Jews or Muslims?

People might say, if a business does not want your money, just go somewhere else, where is the problem?

I understand that you can’t make people like or even accept others, but I wonder to what extent a society should legally support discrimination. Besides, you might actually end up trying to buy medication from someone who refuses to sell it to you and I’m not sure if drug stores/pharmacies abound in rural areas in Arizona.

It’s different from just being denied a slice of pizza (the attitude is the same but the outcome is a different one).

I know for certain that a similarly discriminatory law “based on religious beliefs” would never hold up in Austria, but I wonder if there are other countries, except for the US, where such a law would actually stand a chance of being passed.

If we allow such things in our societies, the question is how different we are from countries that deny women the right to drive a car based on religious dogmas.

Are we observing an increasing divide in our societies, is this a bigger trend or just the occasional attempt of some radical splinter group to turn back the wheel of time?

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Here is a combined reading of the Establishment and Free-Exercise clauses:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
My guess is that the Supreme Court will find the law to be unconstitutional. The Arizona law plainly violates the establishment clause while over-interpreting the free-exercise clause. They are not allowing for the free exercise of the beliefs of other peoples.

"If a school is run as a private school, thus basically operating as a private business, would it be possible in the US for a school to say that it does not allow any Jews or Muslims? "
No.

“Are we observing an increasing divide in our societies, is this a bigger trend or just the occasional attempt of some radical splinter group to turn back the wheel of time?”
It’s just a last attempt from the radical right. Arizona is a very particular case. You cannot ignore the progress over the last decade. I’ve heard predicted that, with changes in demographics over the next twenty years, there is not too much more to worry about.

I’m not a constiutional scholar, and I have not read all of the court cases, but I’m remaining confident.

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ad david: (…) …I’m not a constiutional scholar, and I have not read all of the court cases, but I’m remaining confident. (…)

Dein Wort in Gottes Ohr :wink:
(This saying simply means “may you be right”; it is kind of a pun here though because it literally means “your word in God’s ear”).

I wonder how this is going to end.

In any case, thank you for your input. I’ll have a look at the constitutional clauses you referred to above.

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It strikes me that this law is entirely theoretical and is thus a waste of legislative time. Are people in stores, restaurants, etc really going to be quizzed about their personal lives before being served? The idea of this happening is obviously absurd.

Let me be clear: if I were serving customers in a store I would not want to discriminate against people on any grounds - I can’t see how doing so would make sense from any angle. And this is surely how most people would instinctively and naturally view the matter?

Nevertheless I do wonder whether there isn’t an issue of principle here? Just how far can a government go, in a free country, to tell individual citizens how to behave? If a person can be forced to allow all people into, for example, his or her restaurant, then why wouldn’t the state equally require him or her to allow all people into the home?

I don’t know where the line should be drawn, but I am instinctively in favour of allowing people personal freedom - perhaps even if this means a tiny number of business owners are going to behave in an unpleasant or eccentric way towards customers.

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ad jay: (…) …in an unpleasant or eccentric way towards customers. (…)

So, if you needed medication and you entered a drug store/pharmacy in your town, you think it would be just an “unpleasant” or “eccentric” character trait of the shop owner if he refused to sell you a pain killer on grounds of your sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic origin?

(…) …If a person can be forced to allow all people into, for example, his or her restaurant, then why wouldn’t the state equally require him or her to allow all people into the home? (…)

With all due respect, Jay, you are totally missing the point here. Nobody is forced to let ALL people in. Austrian shop owners are allowed to prevent anybody causing disturbance or posing a threat to others from entering their premises.

And THERE IS a difference between me sitting at home and me running a business which in some cases also offers public services. You honestly think a doctor should be allowed to refuse treating a patient because he thinks if he is “forced” to treat “anybody” this would actually mean he could also be forced to let anybody enter his home? You can’t be serious here…

(…)…I don’t know where the line should be drawn, but I am instinctively in favour of allowing people personal freedom - perhaps even if this means a tiny number of business owners are going to behave in an unpleasant or eccentric way towards customers. (…)

Well, I can tell you where I draw my line: when people try to enforce their bigotry on others to encroach upon their most basic civil rights.

It is not the number of people who do something which makes their acts deplorable, it is the act itself. Just because it may be “a tiny number” this does not make their actions any less wrong.

If you want to run a business, any business, you have to abide by certain rules. You don’t pay your taxes, you’ll be taken out of business.

I think we should give treating people with respect and dignity priority over money matters. I think that in a free country we need a certain legal framework too.

Otherwise, why not just forget about laws altogether? Let’s all of us make our own rules.

The problem with that, however, at least to my mind, is that a society can never work that way.

Unless you want to spend the rest of your life alone, you need to find a way to compromise. My question here was if that compromise should include legally sanctioned discrimination. My answer is a clear “no”, yours seems to be “it depends”.

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@Robert: “…And THERE IS a difference between me sitting at home and me running a business which in some cases also offers public services. You honestly think a doctor should be allowed to refuse treating a patient because he thinks if he is “forced” to treat “anybody” this would actually mean he could also be forced to let anybody enter his home?..”

I wouldn’t necessarily conflate a doctor (or other persons offering emergency help) with businesses offering general goods and services. There is, I suppose, a distinction between refusing to give someone potentially life-saving treatment and refusing to sell someone a beer?

My real concern here is with the underlying principle: I think governments should be as small and as non-intrusive as they possibly can be. Maybe it is right to tell restaurant owners who they can or cannot serve? Okay, but it is, in my opinion, quite a small step from here to telling people whether they can refuse to have person X or person Y into the home or other private space. I just don’t want the government in people’s hair at all - that’s just my world view, I’m afraid.

(Note, though, that I did NOT say that I personally would ever want to discriminate against any people.)

@Robert McEnroe: “…You can’t be serious here…”

That ball was IN :slight_smile:

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For starters, I am a huge believe in the freedom of speech. Having freedom of speech isn’t just about being able to say nice things. It is also the ability to say controversial things. To be able to protest and support something such as gay marriage is very controversial, but not so much now. Opposing this is the freedom of speech refute this idea. Through the voicing of opposing views people can make up their mind although heated, peacefully alter society.

In regards to businesses. There is a difference between public property and private property. A business can’t say I will only service white people, etc. I think they should have that right. I think a business is stupid to do such a thing, but they should have that right. They are not causing any harm to anyone except themselves. If people want to discriminate against others, at least let them at least bear the cost of their hateful thoughts lol. I don’t think the government should force a business to sell their product to someone just as they don’t force a person to buy the product (now excluding healthcare lol)

I would suggest you look up a man called “Milton Friedman” He is a Nobel Prize winning economist that was a big supporter of having a free market. He had a television series, gave many speeches, etc. and I can’t find much fault in most of his arguments. He covers a lot of topics such a schools, healthcare, business, etc. What I find most humorous is that the issues he was talking about around the 1980s are the same issues we are talking about right now. Personally, support most of his views.

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@ST: “…I think a business is stupid to do such a thing, but they should have that right. They are not causing any harm to anyone except themselves. If people want to discriminate against others, at least let them at least bear the cost of their hateful thoughts lol. I don’t think the government should force a business to sell their product to someone just as they don’t force a person to buy the product…”

Yes, that’s the way I would tend to see this issue too: if people want to be dumb and lose customers, then maybe they should have that right?

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Since I am on the iPad, I won’t write anything subsantial at the moment. This issue did come up in Britain in the last few years after the owners of a B&B refused to allow two gay men to share a double room.

If I remember correctly the owners would have let the two men stay in different rooms, but I am not sure.

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ad Stephen: (…) … Having freedom of speech isn’t just about being able to say nice things. (…)

I totally agree with you. But there is a difference between not being nice and spreading hatred or inciting to violence for example. So, I guess there is a limit to free speech as well, at least I wish there was and in most countries there is relevant legislation in place, I think.

The article I was linking to was not about inciting anybody to attack anybody, I know, but I just wanted to make clear where I think the line needs to be drawn when we talk about freedom of speech.

(…) To be able to protest and support something such as gay marriage is very controversial, but not so much now. (…)

By all means, people should and must be allowed to protest. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I’m very much in favour of gay rights (including gay marriage) but I would never want the government to prevent people from protesting against it. It all depends on what they do. If they say they think it is a sin or whatever, fine. Let them think whatever they want. If they were to protest against gay people working as teachers…let them do that too. I think it is stupid, but they might think it is right.

But it is one thing to allow protests and another to act upon certain requests. Personally, I would not want to live in a place where the government passes laws like the one suggested in the newspaper article.

(…) …A business can’t say I will only service white people, etc. I think they should have that right. (…)

So, if a company monopolized public means of transport, let’s say similar to the way Microsoft dominates the software market in certain areas, do you really think that company should be allowed to say “White people only” to its passengers? Especially in countries where the state increasingly reduces its service offers and the resulting void is filled by private companies, your logic could open the door to massive discrimination and this would certainly hurt a lot of people.

To me the question is not so much if it is a clever idea to discriminate (I guess you can still make a good living and be a bigot as long as there are enough people out there supporting your ideas or simply not caring about what you say) but if the government should support such behaviour by legally sanctioning it.

(…)…now excluding healthcare (…)

Why would you exclude only healthcare? What about other “public services”? That law, as far as I understood it based on the article I read, would also allow “individuals to act upon the moral principles of their belief”. That would include firemen, policemen. The supporters of that bill try to make it look as if it was just about someone trying to buy an ice-cream or a pair of jeans, or a gay couple who wants their pictures to be taken etc.

I think the actual intention behind it is far more threatening to a free society than it may appear at first glance. If they refer to their religious beliefs and want the legislator to base laws on their beliefs, then this is nothing short of a western-style sharia. Religious beliefs dictating civil law.

And in most western countries (at least until now) we have a clear separation between religion and the state.

Once you institutionalize discrimination there is little you can do to stop it from spreading. If private businesses should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of their rights of freedom, why would such freedom not be applicable to people working in the public service?

If it is morally and legally not wrong to discriminate against someone on the basis of his sexual orientation in a private store, why should it be morally and legally wrong to discriminate against that same person in a public place (in a hospital, at a police station, before the court)?

I think it would be counter-productive for a society to send out such mixed signals.

In most constitutions, I don’t know the US constitution, people are granted the same rights irrespective of their sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, social background etc.

The legal system of a country should work as a guarantor that such rights are protected. I don’t think a society will work if these rights are only guaranteed between the state and its citizen (as in the public sector) and not in the relationships between its citizens.

(…) I would suggest you look up a man called “Milton Friedman” (…)

Thank you for the tip. I will certainly look him up.

I think that as a society we would be ill-advised to take discrimination lightly. Aside from all practical and legal aspects, I am convinced that it is never a pleasant experience to be targeted on the basis of your skin colour, sexual orientation or any other arbitrarily chosen feature.

And if you are left without the legal means to fight such discrimination you are actually victimized twice.

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@Colin

True story: I know someone who was in London for the day with a female colleague; they (accidentally!) went into a gay bar for a drink, and were apparently practically forced out of there! I think it was perhaps by other customers rather than the folks serving, but still…

Can you imagine what would happen if a couple of gay guys were treated like that in a regular pub? :-0

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ad Jay: (…) …Can you imagine what would happen if a couple of gay guys were treated like that in a regular pub? :-0 (…)

Ah, the typical “look at them, they are just as bad as we are” story. So, it is all jolly fine, after all there are idiots on both sides - is that the message you are trying to get across here, Jay?

It appears as if your logic was something like: What are they complaining about if they are doing it themselves? Right?

The problem with this reasoning is that their is never a clear “they” and “us”. Just because some stupid guys in that gay bar (if the story is true) did what you said, it doesn’t mean that this makes what that law is asking for any less stupid.

(…) …Can you imagine what would happen if a couple of gay guys were treated like that in a regular pub? :-0 (…)

I guess you are suggesting that the oh so terribly liberal press would depict the owners of the pub as monsters while they were only exercising some of their basic rights. And, of course, the same liberal press would deliberately suppress all those incidents where straight people are discriminated against by hardcore gays.

Oh, my, we sometimes really live in different worlds :wink:

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@Robert: “…It appears as if your logic was something like: What are they complaining about if they are doing it themselves? Right?..”

I think people on all sides can sometimes have a tendency to apply a different standard to other folks than they apply to themselves. This probably goes for all people - gay, hetro, black, white, Jewish, etc, etc…

For my part I would afford the same rights and freedoms to everyone.

@Robert: “…if the story is true…”

Die Geschichte ist wahr. Ich bin zwar ein Arsch aber kein Lügner :slight_smile:

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ad Jay: (…) Die Geschichte ist wahr. Ich bin zwar ein Arsch aber kein Lügner :slight_smile: (…)

I’m sure you are neither of them :slight_smile:

Actually, I think you are a “jolly good fellow” :slight_smile:

I was not suggesting that you were lying (if I sounded as if I had done that, I’m sorry) but you never know if the people you heard the story from told the truth or if they heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else…

I’m not denying that these things happen, though. I know gay people who are just as narrow-minded as those they complain about. Your sexual orientation does neither make you a bigot nor an open-minded person. It doesn’t do anything to you, as a matter of fact.

P.S. Now that I come to think of it, one of my best female friends had a similar experience at the beginning of the 90ies. Those were the times when most gay bars in Austria were still run as “clubs” where you had to be a member (laws were different then and clubs were the only way people could even open a gay bar).

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Lovelanguages:

There are a few limits to free speech. I can’t threaten to kill someone and expect there to be no consequences. But between that and expressing views, things aren’t so black and white. There is a gray area of what should be accepted and not. This is the tough aspect. For me, once it becomes more of a “threat” and less of a “putdown” it should not be allowed. There is a lovely misquote from a French guy years ago (I think), I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. I don’t know if I would defend to the death lol, but I have a tremendous about of respect to the ability to say things.

There are different types of freedom such as political freedom, economic freedom, etc. Without government assistance I don’t really know of any companies that have a monopoly. The freer the market, the more competitive it becomes. It hurts larger companies and helps smaller companies. I, being from the USA have not been in a situation where I can only buy a product/service from one company. There is always an option to go somewhere else. For a company to have a monopoly, as is shown through history needs government assistance. A company that discriminates against customers generally is going to lose business, so please let them be hateful, go out of business, and someone else can take their place. A large company cannot afford to discriminate. A small business or store, might find a niche in a local market who share the same ideals, but they really wouldn’t be able to grow.

I excluded healthcare because it is now mandatory to buy healthcare. If you do not purchase healthcare you will be fined in the US…or at least coming soon. There are few things that are mandatory to purchase in the USA, Healthcare is now one of them. I understand needing to protect third parties, but I don’t agree with the government making laws forcing me to protect myself.
Private property is different because as the owner I am allowing them to come onto my property, they don’t have to be there, and don’t have a “right” to be there. As a business owner I may not want people to answer their cellphone in the store, bring their kids in, wear hats, smoke, etc. leading to extreme rules. These choices I will make depending on my customers. If I make the right choices my business will do well, if I make the wrong choices my business will fail. Public property on the other hand isn’t owned by me, it is owned by the people. They have a right to be there, in a healthy environment.

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ad Stephen: Thank you for your comment. I think we probably agree on most things and where we might slightly disagree it certainly is interesting to hear your point of view.

(…) …As a business owner I may not want people to answer their cellphone in the store, bring their kids in, wear hats, smoke, etc. leading to extreme rules. (…)

I know what you mean. But while I can take off my hat, tell my kids to be silent or refrain from using my cellphone, I can’t change my sexual orientation.

(…) …Public property on the other hand isn’t owned by me, it is owned by the people. They have a right to be there, in a healthy environment.
(…)

Fair and valid answer to my question : -) Thanks.

Btw, do you live in Taiwan now? I went to Taiwan twice, attending a language course in Taipei. I loved both Taipei and Taiwan as a whole.

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@Robert: “…I was not suggesting that you were lying (if I sounded as if I had done that, I’m sorry)…”

It’s cool - don’t worry about it :wink:

@Robert: “…you never know if the people you heard the story from told the truth or if they heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else…”

Actually one of the people in question used to work with my sister, so I’m pretty sure that it really happened. (However I didn’t actually witness it myself, of course.)

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“True story: I know someone who was in London for the day with a female colleague; they (accidentally!) went into a gay bar for a drink, and were apparently practically forced out of there!”

The same thing happened to me, actually. We weren´t forced to leave though, we decided to leave after an hour because the gays were annoying the hell out of me and my girlfriend. A friend of mine was thrown out of a bakery in Berlin though, because he didn´t make his order in Turkish…

Antipathy is not a one-way street, I guess.

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(…) The same thing happened to me, actually. We weren´t forced to leave though, we decided to leave after an hour because the gays were annoying the hell out of me and my girlfriend. (…)

People can be really annoying.

The last time I went to one of these bars was years ago and I did not like the place either (others were nice though). My friends and I then went to a “regular bar” just around the corner and felt very comfortable and welcome. It is all about the people and not the place.

(…) A friend of mine was thrown out of a bakery in Berlin though, because he didn´t make his order in Turkish…(…)

Wow, that is really incredible.

People can be so ignorant. It is really sad. Personally, I would never spend my money in any place where people act like that whether it is a bar, a store etc. I don’t intend to fund bigotry.

I wonder if the same people who are in favour of that bill in Arizona would refuse to be operated on by a gay doctor if he/she were the only one to be able to save their life.

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“A friend of mine was thrown out of a bakery in Berlin though, because he didn´t make his order in Turkish…”

??? Did I understand it correct? 8-()
Is German not an official language in Berlin?
Soll ich Turkisch lernen um Berlin zu besuchen? :slight_smile: