nhaler

On institutionalized anti-discrimination

Famine says: People have the right to be assholes. People can discriminate against whomever they wish - but government must not.

Agreed. (Technically.)

Famine says: Okay, let’s invoke the physical violence that hambone conjured up from somewhere.

Laws say you can’t just go around beating people up (rights do too, but we’re talking about laws here). If you then add the clause “even black people”* to the law, to create “hate crime”, you’ve created discrimination in legislation - black people* suddenly aren’t the same as the rest of people in the eyes of the law and need special laws just for them.

This is not the context in which I’m arguing for a declared protection of people ‘x’ or ‘y’. Indeed, in cases of assault, or some other such civil offense, there shouldn’t be any qualifier of who you are in addition to being the victim or offender. Hate crime, though, isn’t insignificant.

Famine says: We don’t need laws that give special recognition to ethnic, racial, sexual, religious or any other group, because that discriminates against both everyone in that group (they have special laws because they aren’t “we the people”) and everyone not in that group (they don’t get the special treatment that group gets).

That “special recognition” (A) is not special treatment (B). What [my argument] actually represents is an acknowledgement of existing “special recognition”—or, more specifically, “special denial” (C) on the basis of that difference (X).

The intended effect of (A) would be to negate (C) so that it is an offense to discriminate against (X). This does not invoke exceptionalism (B), nor is that what I’m propounding.

There has been a tenuous history of this sort of thing in America, where it was actually legislated that blacks were not equal to white people; in order to correct that, [the state] couldn’t simply remove the legislation—an active condemnation of it was required (ie not “equal-but-separate”), at least until such point as the prevailing social conditions were in unison with the legislation’s view that black people are equal in every way; only when that point is reached, is it essentially unnecessary to politically stipulate or advance that ideal.

Philosophy and ratiocination ≠ applicability to human social standards.

Famine says: Since government represents everyone equally (in theory), it may not discriminate against - or for - anyone, and introducing special laws to account for divisions of people is discrimination which perpetuates those divisions at the highest level.

The concept of this thought is secure, but I place the terms in question: It would be true that, as you say, someone would not be “equal” if there was a special law created to account specifically for them.

However, the existing problem in laws prohibiting discrimination do not have umbrella terminology as applied to all; they have terminology catering to sex, race, religious beliefs etc and overlook sexual-orientation as a factor of persecution. It’s a foundation requiring endless addendums to account for future problems.

If there is a flaw in my argument, it’s not that I’m advocating something which inherently divides people, it would be that in implementing my proposal, there lies the potential for incompetent execution of it in an already-flawed system which already divides.