Negligence (NOT doing something, as you say) has innumerable degrees of culpability. At times it is rather innocent; and at times it amounts to criminality.
Generally not doing something isn't criminal and isn't called negligence.
So the question is not whether not doing something to help someone or whether impeding the ability of someone to purchase essential goods and services is potentially a criminal offense
Maybe impeding someone else from purchasing goods and services should be a criminal offense but if refusing to sell to someone is not impeding someone from buying goods or services and should not be a criminal offense.
But the question is WHEN does discrimination against others reach criminality rather than mere inconvenience, and how ought laws be enacted to fairly draw that distinction.
Generally a way to fairly draw the distinction is to start with the presumption that person X is not obligated to sell to, rent to, buy from, rent from, hire, fire, date, marry, hang out with, provide a service to, accept a service from, say nice things about, or pay attention to, person Y. It would be a refutable rather then an absolute presumption. There may be a reason why person X is so obligated, for example parents are obligated to care for their children, and people with contract are obligated to fulfill their contract, and professionals face obligations under their processional code of ethics; but the general assumption should be that there is no such obligation.
State laws - probably constitutional in most cases"
Then I guess human rights legislation by State Governments doesn't violate your Constitutional rights.
It would depend on exactly what the legislation says and does but anti-discrimination laws passed by states would probably not be unconstitutional.
"It doesn't say anything about protecting these rights"
Saying they may not be denied or disparaged is about as protective as one can get.
It does not say they shall not be denied or disparaged. It says "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." If I deny or disparage the idea that you have a constitutional right to insist the people hire you even if they don't like people with your hair color, that denial or disparaging of this supposed rights doesn't violate anything in the 9th amendment. The reasons it does not 1 - You have no such right constitutional or natural, so I would not be denying a right, and 2 - My denial is not an example of "the enumeration...of certain rights..." being "construed to deny or disparage" other rights.
I am really sorry if my words were so clumsy as to lead you to the sincere conviction that I was in some way suggesting that slavery was abolished by the ninth amendment.
I didn't get the impression that you thought slavery was abolished by the 9th amendment but I did get the impression that you thought that the 9th amendment was relevant to slavery or the abolition of slavery in some important way.
And what I meant was that before the 13th amendment the right for Blacks to be exempt from slavery was NOT enumerated. So people DID have rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution.
People have natural rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution. They do not have constitutional rights that are not so enumerated. Before the 13th amendment black people (and everyone else) had a natural right not to be enslaved but they did not have a constitutional right not to be enslaved. If the 13th amendment had not passed, and the 14th amendment had not passed either (the 14th allowed for the courts and the federal government to insist on a range of rights for individuals against states), then slavery would still be constitutionally legal. The 9th amendment would not have made it illegal even though there is now almost universal acceptance of the idea that slavery is a violation of individual natural rights.
"Most anti-discrimination/anti-racism laws don't affect the essential capacity of people to be citizens under the constitution"
Out of millions of people at risk of discriminatory treatment...not a single one of them would agree with you.
Nonsense. Everyone is at risk at discriminatory treatment, and your "essential capacity to be a citizen" has to do with voting and other political activity, combined with being recognized by the government as a citizen and having the government treat you as a citizen. It has nothing to do with some store letting you buy socks, or being able to work at a specific location.
Tim |
