Thread by @EveKeneinan

America went badly wrong—for good intentions—when we shifted our discourse from “civil liberties” to “civil rights.” A civil liberty is a civil right, a right not to be impeded in doing something, e.g. voting. It is a liberty right, because you are free to do it.

But we allowed the general heading “civil rights” to encompass not just liberty rights—which is what ‘civil rights’ meant up till around 1960—but also some CLAIM RIGHTS, which require not merely noninterference, but obligate OTHERS TO DO THINGS FOR YOU.

The specific zone of interest I have here is the distinction between COERCIVE DISCRIMINATION and PEACEFUL DISCRIMINATION.

Coercive discrimination involves the use or threat of force. Peaceful discrimination involves neither. It usually involves NONACTION.

For example, if mixed-race dating is prohibited by law, that is coercive discrimination.

On the other hand, just not dating someone from another race/gender/whatever is PEACEFUL DISCRIMINATION, and is not a wrong.

When these are CONFUSED, you see people like Riley Dennis saying that “not dating trans people is ‘discriminatory’.”

And it is. It is also discriminatory to date only one sex.

So by this line of reasoning, it is morally obligatory for e.g. lesbians to date ‘trans women’ just as Riley Dennis, and to have sex with them, and to pleasure their ‘female penises.’

We wouldn’t want to ‘discriminate’ now would we?

It is also morally obligatory for all persons of any ‘sexual orientation’ to be bi- or pan- sexual — anything less is discrimination.

I trust you see the problem.

And this is of course a flashpoint of modern ‘rights’ discourse: more and more groups claiming more and more rights that others MUST DO such-and-such, e.g. “bake the cake!”

Let’s look at the Civil Rights Act of 1866, immediately post Civil War, aimed at ensure black Americans had the same rights as white Americans. It basically says that there should not be any inequality before the law. Anything a white citizen can do, a black citizen can do.

The idea is simple: all citizens have the same liberties to do the same things, are subject to the same laws, etc.

Of course things got compromised by Jim Crow Laws etc. but this was the IDEA of the post Civil War Civil Rights Act.

The Civil Rights movement was necessary and morally right. Jim Crow and segregation needed to be undone. But in one area the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went too far. And in law, as in arguments, a small mistake in the beginning will have catastrophic snowballing consequences later.

The problem occurs in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For the first time, NON-COERCIVE DISCRIMINATION was made criminal. Let’s take a look:

Also speaking of the Law of Unintended Consequences:

“Sex” was never supposed to be in the Civil Rights Act. Congressman Howard W. Smith added it as an Amendment, with the intention of SINKING THE BILL.

This failed.

So instead of a bill specifically about the correction of racial inequity, suddenly the Civil Rights Act—in one stroke—became an “equal entitlement” Law for any group that could get their name on the protected list.

Back to the point at hand. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 tells private employers that they may not hire who they wish to hire. This is, as it were, the origin of “mandatory diversity hiring.”

Title 1: Equal voting rights. PUBLIC
Title 2: Equal PUBLIC accommodation. Private institutions specifically exempted
Title 3: Equal access to PUBLIC facilities
Title 4: Equal access to PUBLIC education
Title 5: Rights commission
Title 6: Equal access to PUBLIC government programs

Title 7: Equal access to … PRIVATE COMPANIES. Uh oh.

Here’s where we run aground.

Morally, I think in most cases it would be wrong to racially discriminate in hiring—but always? And should it be ILLEGAL? WHY would it be WRONG to have, e.g. a Chinese restaurant with only ethnically Chinese employees? Is that wrong?

So two things occur together:

1 DISCRIMINATION AS SUCH is criminalized as EVIL

2 The distinction between COERCIVE and NON-COERCIVE DISCRIMINATION is not made.

Again, I return to sexual and dating preferences.

Is it or is it not morally wrong to DISCRIMINATE in one’s sexual/dating preferences?

If it is EVIL, why shouldn’t the law get involved in your sex/dating life?

In any case, 1964 saw a RADICAL SHIFT in law. Up until then, ALL Civil Rights Laws only require non-interference with some else’s exercise of a liberty. NOW, at least in some cases, one person’s right could compel POSITIVE ACTIVE PERFORMANCE on the part of another person.

It is frequently said today that “The right to free speech is not the same as a right to be given a platform.”

But why not?

The right to run for office or take a job is not the same as the right to “representation”—e.g. California mandating that boards of directors need a certain percentage of women, as they recently implemented.

Consider a the Parable of Jesus in Matthew 20. A land-owner gave equal pay for unequal work. Those who worked all day complained of the “injustice” of getting paid the wage they agreed to, since others who worked less got the same:

Let’s look at that more closely.

Very obviously, the landowner is “discriminating,” but he also says—or Jesus reports him as saying in the parable—that he is doing no injustice.

In sum: the case against coercive discrimination is not a case, moral or legal, against non-coercive peaceful discrimination, but US law since 1964 has failed to make this critical distinction.

More and more “social justice” is demanding peaceful discrimination be criminalized.

"Social justice” as it is construed today holds that there are “social states of affairs” that are “simply unjust” without there being anyone who committed any concrete injustice, and likewise an ideal state of affairs and social arrangements that would be eo ipso “just.”

This is why “social justice” is rightly described as “Marxist.” It conceives justice not as the virtue of human interaction, where concrete persons deal fairly with one another, but an abstract state of social affairs, that may be arrived out by any means necessary.

And once you add the fatal principle, accepted by utilitarians, Marxists, social justice believers and others that “the end justifies the means”—i.e. the EVIL PRINCIPLE of Machiavelli—you can do ANY AMOUNT OF EVIL AND INJUSTICE … in the name of “reaching social justice.”

This is what all talk about “systemic racism” or “systemic misogyny (!)” comes down to.

STATES OF AFFAIRS rather than concrete persons or actions are regarded as “unjust.” But this is NOT AT ALL what “justice” means, in any traditional way.

In a traditional concept of JUSTICE, there cannot be INJUSTICE without some moral agent having ACTED UNJUSTLY.

There cannot be “injustice” that is “no one’s fault.”

But in “social justice” there can be.