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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (3176)	1/16/2006 5:10:40 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Yes they are but not when they are being used to keep a black family out of a motel in SC or out of a chicken restarant in Georgia or infringment on the right of a group of people to vote. I would separate those two issues. If adult citizen non-felons of one or more ethnic or racial groups are not allowed to vote than they are not being treated equally under the law. That violates an important part of our legal tradition and more importantly their constitutional rights, and not some "emanations of the penumbra" of the constitution but directly and clearly stated constitutional rights. OTOH people don't have a constitutional right to demand someone else rent a room to them or sell them chicken. Refusing to do business with people just because of their skin color is reprehensible, but I also think it is a violation of individual rights for the government to force people to do business with people they don't want to do business with. And even if you (like the majority of people) disagree about the existence of such an individual right certainly you can recognize that discrimination by law, or by the government is of a very different nature than the discrimination of private individuals choosing who they want to associate with. But much of the discrimination by private businesses was required by law. As such it was unequal treatment under the law and thus a violation of those who where discriminated against AND a violation of those forced to discriminate. Tim