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> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. Um, think you've

> But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service on political grounds.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nahtnam 6y ago
What about anti-discrimnation laws? Where do you stand on the issue with the baker refusing to bake a cake for the gay couple?
- nvahalik 6y ago
  Would also love to hear the answer to this question. You can’t have it both ways.
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    Of course you can. One rule for me another for you because I think these two things are different is easily understood by two year olds. Lawyers are perfectly capable of coming up with justifications for anything they like and if the judges feel sympathetic the power of the state will enforce it.
- Klinky 6y ago
  Sexuality is getting closer and closer to being a fully-protected class, so they are going to have to suck it up, just like the bakers who didn't want to serve black people decades ago. They can deny service to anyone, so long as it does not run afoul of discrimination laws. ICE is not a protected class.
- PascLeRasc 6y ago
  No one is born an ICE employee.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Whether you are "born gay" is up for debate as well. There are many instances of people "changing their minds" on their sexuality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Spacey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Spacey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Dodson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Dodson
    - afiori 6y ago
      I vouched for this comment for a very specific reason: Civil rights of for the LGBT should not predicated on "being born that way", they should be predicated on the fact that it is an acceptable and dignified way to be human.
    - rdgthree 6y ago
      I think this comment is reasonable if they're simply saying that it's plausibly true that not everyone who is gay is born gay - some choose to live their life that way, others are born that way. I think this is a fair read on sexuality especially given the "spectrum" understanding of sexual preferences. If you're born 50% interested in men and 50% interested in women, you can very well choose to live your life (and identify) as a straight person or a gay person (or a bisexual person!). That doesn't mean that others aren't born with a 0/100 ratio (one way or the other), though.
- jobeirne 6y ago
  In societies that have full respect for private property, I should be able to refuse to do business with you for any reason, including the color of your shoes, the kind of music you listen to, or your marital preferences. Whether it is wise or rationally self-interested to do so is a different question.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    You are carefully tiptoeing around race & gender here.
    - jobeirne 6y ago
      Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. Otherwise you're permitting the government to forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things (murder, threaten, steal, etc.) - see the concept of "negative rights."
      - VBprogrammer 6y ago
        I mean this in the nicest possible way; have you ever faced discrimination based on the colour of your skin, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities or anything else which is protected by law in most civilised countries? If, like a significant portion of the HN audience, you are straight, white, middle class and male it's probably easier for you to dismiss the right to fair treatment than it might be for individuals in those categories.
        kuzimoto 6y ago
        I don't agree with discrimination, and would never seek to engage in that myself. With that being said, in the private sector, there really is no "right to fair treatment" with exceptions for anything required by law for affirmative action. By forcing fairness (where a business must provide service to someone it doesn't want to), you are simultaneously removing the freedom of association [0]. [0] While not explicitly stated in the US constitution is argued to be a fundamental human right.
- woodruffw 6y ago
  Being an immigration cop is not a protected class, and shouldn't be.
- gruez 6y ago
  Simple: anti-discrimination laws only apply if you're being discriminated on the basis of being in a protected class. being gay is a protected class. Being ICE isn't.
  - empthought 6y ago
    In some jurisdictions being gay is a protected class, in others it is not. Even the USSC ruling today doesn’t create a new protected class; it simply (and correctly) determines that discrimination based on gender nonconformity (whether sexual orientation, gender identity, or other) is discrimination based on sex, which is already a protected class.
marpstar 6y ago
GP didn't say they should be required to work with certain entities, only that it could jeopardize their stance with other, less controversial, entities.
- elicash 6y ago
  > could jeopardize their stance with other, less controversial, entities That would, of course, be a terrible and illegal abuse of power and essentially be the government policing political speech by private individuals. What an indictment of our government (and I don't mean a single person, but of the system itself) that this seems to be an uncontroversial statement. Because I agree, it's true, and it's the mark of terrible corruption.
  - alonmower 6y ago
    I’m not sure it needs to even be as nefarious as that. If I’m in charge of deciding what technology to use for another, less controversial, arm of the government and I see that one of the companies I’m considering has decided to stop doing business with another I might feel less confident in deciding whether or not to use them. What if they decide they don’t want to do business with me at some point in the future? That might be overly naive and I agree that there’s great potential for corruption here as well.
    - iguy 6y ago
      Or not even an arm of the government. The same reasoning would be applied by other companies buying services. Vendors with a reputation for stopping service to clients because of bad news coverage are a risker bet.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        That doesn't seem to affect Google much, and we all know how big G loves killing off products.
        6y ago
dnissley 6y ago
By this logic, businesses would be able to turn away customers based on their race.
- johns 6y ago
  People are not agencies. Protected classes exist to protect people from discrimination, not to protect agencies/companies/organizations.
- hobofan 6y ago
  Isn't that what the status quo in the US is? AFAIK outside of discrimination in a few specific industries (e.g. insurance rates), there is very little discrimination protection for customers.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    You're asking if the status quo is that private companies can discriminate based on race? No, it is not.
- drocer88 6y ago
  And a business could refuse to cater a communist or fascist gathering.
- mbesto 6y ago
  People don't choose the color of their skin. ICE (or any other company/org for that matter) actually has a choice in how it behaves. Do you see the difference?
rattray 6y ago
That is true – businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to anyone (apart from protected classes like race or political affiliation, but that probably does not apply here). It's an important right, and probably many businesses would be more profitable and happy if they exercised that right more often. It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust (as well as some allies, though they may be the type to just ask for more, as others on this post have mentioned).
- tssva 6y ago
  In the US at least political affiliation is not usually a protected class.
  - jasonmp85 6y ago
    Seconded. I'm not sure whether the person upthread was earnestly posting that, or surreptitiously doing so as a stalking horse for something else. Either way: not a protected class, and it should stay that way.
  - mikedilger 6y ago
    Except in Washington D.C.
- 49531 6y ago
  I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.
  - mc32 6y ago
    What if developers find it morally wrong to automate away jobs? Do they get a say? Is it within their moral rights for backhoe operators demand manual ditch digging too because that will benefit their friends who lost jobs to powered equipment?
awinter-py 6y ago
not exactly comparable, but business denial of service was the cause of action in masterpiece cakeshop, a colorado civil rights case that appealed up to scotus conscientious objection is a different case where you can fulfill your legal obligations in a way that's compatible with your religious or moral obligations -- if we created legislation requiring businesses to serve government agencies, there might be an implied right moral objection where use of force is concerned
mschuster91 6y ago
> Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?) Actually that one is illegal in many jurisdictions, e.g. when it's a store refusing service to gays and lesbians.
brabel 6y ago
I am strongly against a private business being able to refuse service to a person/organization on political grounds, even when the "victim" may seem to be performing evil actions, as long as it is not breaking any laws. One should not discriminate on the basis of race, political orientation, gender, origin or religion. Refusing service is clearly a form of discrimination. When you aim that towards your own Government, it may look like a heroic action to your supporters, but to those who are not, you're performing discrimination on the grounds of political affiliation against an organization that is following, as it is obliged to, the law of the Land. If you think the ICE is doing terrible things, you should lob the Government to take action and bring them to justice, but given the Government is, as I understand it, actually mandating such terrible things, you're aiming your fury at the wrong place. You should be protesting against the Government who is mandating these terrible things. Imagine for a moment that things change completely, and the ICE starts refusing to follow the orders of the Government - but now the Government is leaning towards the far-left, and wants the ICE to open borders to all. The ICE would no doubt have a lot of supporters, but disobeying the Government in such case would ALSO be wrong because in a democracy, the Government represents the people - by not following the orders of the Government, you're basically advancing anarchy. In both cases, the correct attitude is to fight for a Government change. It's not democratic for a Government organization to take its own stance on a topic despite the Government's policies.
- alex_young 6y ago
  By that same logic corporations should be forced to do business with parts of the government doing things completely in contrition to their mission right? A peace advocacy group would be expected to allow contracts with the military or a right wing think tank would have to sell its services to the Peace Corp?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Craighead 6y ago
  What on earth are you talking about?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
no-s 6y ago
Well, I don't know. Freedom of speech is also a principle. Public accommodation and non-discrimination are also principled. We don't need laws to see these as a public good. We shouldn't parse these ideas into orthogonal pretzels just because wokeness.
- frewsxcv 6y ago
  > We don't need laws to see these as a public good. Yes, actually you do.
- kelnos 6y ago
  > We don't need laws to see [freedom of speech] as a public good. I think it's very easy to refute this statement by looking at any country where freedom of speech isn't guaranteed by law. The most populous country in the world is a glaring example.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    You got it backwards. The fact that unfree nations are seen as human rights violations shows that free speech is a public good even when illegal.
    - djrogers 6y ago
      Why don’t you peruse the elected members of the UN Human Rights Council and get back to us on who is seen as ‘human rights violations’.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I'm not sure what the argument is, then? Either we need or don't need laws in place to ensure freedom of speech (clearly we do). If that's not what we're talking about, what is a law "recognizing free speech as a public good"? That... isn't a thing?
  - no-s 6y ago
    I mean to imply the principle transcends law, that the law does not provide the justification for the moral principle. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
austincheney 6y ago
> (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?) In most casts that results in discriminatory civil suits. Imagine a restaurant, who has even greater leverage to test the for whatever reason mentality, asking a black family to leave without stating a reason. In most places in the US restaurants have the legal right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  OP should have said "for whatever lawful reason" Race is a protected class, occupation is not.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    The reason is only lawful if you can prove that discrimination is not solely due to that protected class. In the case where a group can refuse service for any reason and is not required to provide that reason this is impossible to prove even if clearly obvious.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  This is a wholly invalid comparison. Ethnicity is a protected class of citizen and is illegal to refuse service based on it. Federal agencies are not protected classes of citizens. In fact it is quite literally illegal to force a company to do business with the government if it doesn't want to.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nahtnam 6y ago

What about anti-discrimnation laws? Where do you stand on the issue with the baker refusing to bake a cake for the gay couple?

nvahalik 6y ago
Would also love to hear the answer to this question. You can’t have it both ways.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Of course you can. One rule for me another for you because I think these two things are different is easily understood by two year olds. Lawyers are perfectly capable of coming up with justifications for anything they like and if the judges feel sympathetic the power of the state will enforce it.
Klinky 6y ago
Sexuality is getting closer and closer to being a fully-protected class, so they are going to have to suck it up, just like the bakers who didn't want to serve black people decades ago. They can deny service to anyone, so long as it does not run afoul of discrimination laws. ICE is not a protected class.
PascLeRasc 6y ago
No one is born an ICE employee.
- umvi 6y ago
  Whether you are "born gay" is up for debate as well. There are many instances of people "changing their minds" on their sexuality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Spacey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Spacey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Dodson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Dodson
  - afiori 6y ago
    I vouched for this comment for a very specific reason: Civil rights of for the LGBT should not predicated on "being born that way", they should be predicated on the fact that it is an acceptable and dignified way to be human.
  - rdgthree 6y ago
    I think this comment is reasonable if they're simply saying that it's plausibly true that not everyone who is gay is born gay - some choose to live their life that way, others are born that way. I think this is a fair read on sexuality especially given the "spectrum" understanding of sexual preferences. If you're born 50% interested in men and 50% interested in women, you can very well choose to live your life (and identify) as a straight person or a gay person (or a bisexual person!). That doesn't mean that others aren't born with a 0/100 ratio (one way or the other), though.
jobeirne 6y ago
In societies that have full respect for private property, I should be able to refuse to do business with you for any reason, including the color of your shoes, the kind of music you listen to, or your marital preferences. Whether it is wise or rationally self-interested to do so is a different question.
- the-dude 6y ago
  You are carefully tiptoeing around race & gender here.
  - jobeirne 6y ago
    Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. Otherwise you're permitting the government to forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things (murder, threaten, steal, etc.) - see the concept of "negative rights."
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      I mean this in the nicest possible way; have you ever faced discrimination based on the colour of your skin, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities or anything else which is protected by law in most civilised countries? If, like a significant portion of the HN audience, you are straight, white, middle class and male it's probably easier for you to dismiss the right to fair treatment than it might be for individuals in those categories.
      - kuzimoto 6y ago
        I don't agree with discrimination, and would never seek to engage in that myself. With that being said, in the private sector, there really is no "right to fair treatment" with exceptions for anything required by law for affirmative action. By forcing fairness (where a business must provide service to someone it doesn't want to), you are simultaneously removing the freedom of association [0]. [0] While not explicitly stated in the US constitution is argued to be a fundamental human right.
woodruffw 6y ago
Being an immigration cop is not a protected class, and shouldn't be.
gruez 6y ago
Simple: anti-discrimination laws only apply if you're being discriminated on the basis of being in a protected class. being gay is a protected class. Being ICE isn't.
- empthought 6y ago
  In some jurisdictions being gay is a protected class, in others it is not. Even the USSC ruling today doesn’t create a new protected class; it simply (and correctly) determines that discrimination based on gender nonconformity (whether sexual orientation, gender identity, or other) is discrimination based on sex, which is already a protected class.

marpstar 6y ago

GP didn't say they should be required to work with certain entities, only that it could jeopardize their stance with other, less controversial, entities.

elicash 6y ago
> could jeopardize their stance with other, less controversial, entities That would, of course, be a terrible and illegal abuse of power and essentially be the government policing political speech by private individuals. What an indictment of our government (and I don't mean a single person, but of the system itself) that this seems to be an uncontroversial statement. Because I agree, it's true, and it's the mark of terrible corruption.
- alonmower 6y ago
  I’m not sure it needs to even be as nefarious as that. If I’m in charge of deciding what technology to use for another, less controversial, arm of the government and I see that one of the companies I’m considering has decided to stop doing business with another I might feel less confident in deciding whether or not to use them. What if they decide they don’t want to do business with me at some point in the future? That might be overly naive and I agree that there’s great potential for corruption here as well.
  - iguy 6y ago
    Or not even an arm of the government. The same reasoning would be applied by other companies buying services. Vendors with a reputation for stopping service to clients because of bad news coverage are a risker bet.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      That doesn't seem to affect Google much, and we all know how big G loves killing off products.
      - 6y ago

dnissley 6y ago

By this logic, businesses would be able to turn away customers based on their race.

johns 6y ago
People are not agencies. Protected classes exist to protect people from discrimination, not to protect agencies/companies/organizations.
hobofan 6y ago
Isn't that what the status quo in the US is? AFAIK outside of discrimination in a few specific industries (e.g. insurance rates), there is very little discrimination protection for customers.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  You're asking if the status quo is that private companies can discriminate based on race? No, it is not.
drocer88 6y ago
And a business could refuse to cater a communist or fascist gathering.
mbesto 6y ago
People don't choose the color of their skin. ICE (or any other company/org for that matter) actually has a choice in how it behaves. Do you see the difference?

rattray 6y ago

That is true – businesses are legally allowed to refuse service to anyone (apart from protected classes like race or political affiliation, but that probably does not apply here). It's an important right, and probably many businesses would be more profitable and happy if they exercised that right more often. It's still politically dangerous, and would earn a company a lot of enemies and mistrust (as well as some allies, though they may be the type to just ask for more, as others on this post have mentioned).

tssva 6y ago
In the US at least political affiliation is not usually a protected class.
- jasonmp85 6y ago
  Seconded. I'm not sure whether the person upthread was earnestly posting that, or surreptitiously doing so as a stalking horse for something else. Either way: not a protected class, and it should stay that way.
- mikedilger 6y ago
  Except in Washington D.C.
49531 6y ago
I think a better way to look at it is that workers should be able to protest working on a machine they find morally wrong. The world might be a better place if people directing resources were required to stop and think "Are the workers going to willingly do this?" before making decisions.
- mc32 6y ago
  What if developers find it morally wrong to automate away jobs? Do they get a say? Is it within their moral rights for backhoe operators demand manual ditch digging too because that will benefit their friends who lost jobs to powered equipment?

awinter-py 6y ago

not exactly comparable, but business denial of service was the cause of action in masterpiece cakeshop, a colorado civil rights case that appealed up to scotus conscientious objection is a different case where you can fulfill your legal obligations in a way that's compatible with your religious or moral obligations -- if we created legislation requiring businesses to serve government agencies, there might be an implied right moral objection where use of force is concerned

mschuster91 6y ago

> Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?) Actually that one is illegal in many jurisdictions, e.g. when it's a store refusing service to gays and lesbians.

brabel 6y ago

I am strongly against a private business being able to refuse service to a person/organization on political grounds, even when the "victim" may seem to be performing evil actions, as long as it is not breaking any laws. One should not discriminate on the basis of race, political orientation, gender, origin or religion. Refusing service is clearly a form of discrimination. When you aim that towards your own Government, it may look like a heroic action to your supporters, but to those who are not, you're performing discrimination on the grounds of political affiliation against an organization that is following, as it is obliged to, the law of the Land. If you think the ICE is doing terrible things, you should lob the Government to take action and bring them to justice, but given the Government is, as I understand it, actually mandating such terrible things, you're aiming your fury at the wrong place. You should be protesting against the Government who is mandating these terrible things. Imagine for a moment that things change completely, and the ICE starts refusing to follow the orders of the Government - but now the Government is leaning towards the far-left, and wants the ICE to open borders to all. The ICE would no doubt have a lot of supporters, but disobeying the Government in such case would ALSO be wrong because in a democracy, the Government represents the people - by not following the orders of the Government, you're basically advancing anarchy. In both cases, the correct attitude is to fight for a Government change. It's not democratic for a Government organization to take its own stance on a topic despite the Government's policies.

alex_young 6y ago
By that same logic corporations should be forced to do business with parts of the government doing things completely in contrition to their mission right? A peace advocacy group would be expected to allow contracts with the military or a right wing think tank would have to sell its services to the Peace Corp?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Craighead 6y ago
What on earth are you talking about?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

no-s 6y ago

Well, I don't know. Freedom of speech is also a principle. Public accommodation and non-discrimination are also principled. We don't need laws to see these as a public good. We shouldn't parse these ideas into orthogonal pretzels just because wokeness.

frewsxcv 6y ago
> We don't need laws to see these as a public good. Yes, actually you do.
kelnos 6y ago
> We don't need laws to see [freedom of speech] as a public good. I think it's very easy to refute this statement by looking at any country where freedom of speech isn't guaranteed by law. The most populous country in the world is a glaring example.
- sukilot 6y ago
  You got it backwards. The fact that unfree nations are seen as human rights violations shows that free speech is a public good even when illegal.
  - djrogers 6y ago
    Why don’t you peruse the elected members of the UN Human Rights Council and get back to us on who is seen as ‘human rights violations’.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I'm not sure what the argument is, then? Either we need or don't need laws in place to ensure freedom of speech (clearly we do). If that's not what we're talking about, what is a law "recognizing free speech as a public good"? That... isn't a thing?
- no-s 6y ago
  I mean to imply the principle transcends law, that the law does not provide the justification for the moral principle. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

austincheney 6y ago

> (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?) In most casts that results in discriminatory civil suits. Imagine a restaurant, who has even greater leverage to test the for whatever reason mentality, asking a black family to leave without stating a reason. In most places in the US restaurants have the legal right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

tehwebguy 6y ago
OP should have said "for whatever lawful reason" Race is a protected class, occupation is not.
- austincheney 6y ago
  The reason is only lawful if you can prove that discrimination is not solely due to that protected class. In the case where a group can refuse service for any reason and is not required to provide that reason this is impossible to prove even if clearly obvious.
bananabreakfast 6y ago
This is a wholly invalid comparison. Ethnicity is a protected class of citizen and is illegal to refuse service based on it. Federal agencies are not protected classes of citizens. In fact it is quite literally illegal to force a company to do business with the government if it doesn't want to.