I’ve seen talk on Pirate Party forums for dismantling 18c before. It’s a matter of free speech, and it’s not really necessary to have 18c. Anything which would be considered “too far” would already be illegal under other laws anyway.
18C is very specific to RACE related discrimination, but we have seen a downfall in all kinds of Discrimination, not just Race.
edit: Dammit @alexjago beat me by a second
Fair point. Is that to do with access to goods and services? No. It’s to do with expressing an opinion.
Doesn’t change my opposition to any further watering down of discrimination laws. Minorities need protection from systemic racism and sexism and have done better under the protection of those laws.
Libertarian Left means for both freedom and equality.
What you are arguing for here is giving up equality for more freedom. That would be libertarian right.
You seem to be operating with a remarkably narrow interpretation of my words. I don’t know why you’re choosing to do that.
I don’t think those groups are opposing specific legislation like that. The progressive side of politics has been ramping up social change for decades, and a good think it is, but change is hard and more so for groups that are concurrently being economically screwed. There comes a point where they push back. I think we’re there.
We could line up with the likes of antifa, but maybe as a political party there are better solutions.
And now you’re just putting words in my mouth. Straw-man much?
There are more subtle solutions to the world’s problems than taking sides and applying force.
I am not suggesting giving up equality.
I re-read what you wrote and think my response was correct. What exactly are you arguing for? Just around the specific issue of providing services to gay marriage? Or the wider debate around discrimination laws?
I accepted your point about professionals, but at some point we are talking about carving out a very broad exception for people getting same sex married, where anyone could refuse a couple services or abolishing other anti-discrimination laws. I don’t care much about professionals refusing services of ceremonies etc they don’t like, but when it comes to basics like buying stuff from shop displays (cake was the example I used, but it could be the local bottle shop), I start to think it gets a bit too discriminatory for my liking.
Yeah, that I would agree with, but what is the solution? I would argue abandoning neo-liberal policies, creating opportunities for education and work (our education policy, UBI and maybe job guarantee?) would be the best solution, not enabling their bigotry by abolishing laws that ended legal racial segregation.
Actually, I think you got that backwards.
My position was that Licensed Professionals can/should be held to a higher standard, but it got conflated with people like celebrants who are licensed, but not what I’d call professionals as such.
“abolishing” - nuh.
Just trying out an idea here, but it seems like there’s a definable boundary condition.
The law is such a blunt instrument. As we’ve previously agreed, all law is backed by government sponsored violence. I think the corollary to that is that we should only encode law where we can justify the use of that violence. So, I ask myself what kind of discrimination justifies the use of government sponsored violence, and the main answer I get is
“anything to do with denial of essential products or services”.
This would mean any discrimination that leads even in part to denial of access to generally available food, drink, ablutions, housing, power, government services, health services, education, work, internet, banking, transport … etc. Typically, the professionals thing comes into this.
What sits outside of that?
Basically culture and free association, because this is what we need to move forward as a culture.
Choosing not to privately associate with someone should not be unlawful discrimination.
Choosing not to perform a creative work for someone should not be unlawful discrimination.
Choosing not to license my creative work to someone should not be unlawful discrimination.
Choosing not to provide a religious service to someone should not be unlawful discrimination.
Choosing not to have my name/reputation associated with a group should not be unlawful discrimination.
Critique or parody should be fair game (US Copyright even has a Fair Use exemption for that).
And the cake thing. Blessed are the cake makers.
I was counting the baker as a professional. It requires 4 years of training, but I suppose is more accurately a trade. But fair enough. >.>
How would that work for public social events?
Bars, restaurants etc are basically public places for socialising. Socialising is important for mental health and should be open to all, clubs and bars should be public spaces with the usual exceptions under the law for dress code etc. Can’t have people in suits wandering in to the BDSM club after all. Discretion for entertainment venues is pretty broad generally though and should be kept that way, keeping with the status quo.
Sport would be another issue, but it is fine as it is now too.
The rest of it is fair enough. IMO.
Getting over to a slightly different topic. I participated on reddit.com/r/australia to get 200,000 flyers printed and I’m proud to say that I helped steer the direction early on and keeping it focused on law was my idea
Good job everyone. I hope that we made a small difference to this great outcome.