This stupid bullshit will continue until Women decide to make it stop.

[nykid]

I guess you don't own a bakery. Living in NYC seems to give people the impression that they know more than they actually do.

So... asking someone to bake a cake, in exchange for payment? That's shoving one's ideals and lifestyle choices down someone's throat?

And I don't currently live in NYC. I live in Los Angeles, home of the "Hollywood LGBT" community you seem to know all about. Or does living in Texas give people the impression they know more than they actually do?

Yes, it's okay to refuse to service anybody if you are not their slave.

You leave out the REASON for the refusal of service, which is what's at issue. Is it okay to refuse service to a customer based on the color of their skin? The Supreme Court says it is not, under the Constitution, in fact okay. You think this ruling was a mistake?

I can't decide if you are bad at being coy or just really dense.



Then you either have no opinions that you value or you are a most oblivious person.

You retreat immediately to ad hominem with no attempt to engage with the content of my post - you'll be ignored from now on.

[Mark Rippetoe]

So... asking someone to bake a cake, in exchange for payment? That's shoving one's ideals and lifestyle choices down someone's throat?

If I decide not to, for whatever reason I may have, and you use the government or a lawyer or a gun to compel me to work for you, then you are most definitely shoving your wishes and desires down my throat. You have not asked -- you have compelled, and that's what actually happened. Are you so seriously painted into your NYC/LA corner that you cannot see this simple fact?

You leave out the REASON for the refusal of service, which is what's at issue. Is it okay to refuse service to a customer based on the color of their skin? The Supreme Court says it is not, under the Constitution, in fact okay. You think this ruling was a mistake?

You agree with every ruling issued by the Supreme Court? I'm relieved to hear that you agree with Heller and MacDonald. And if you're trying to get me to "admit" that I think it's okay to discriminate against customers on the basis of race, religion, color, or creed, I'll go ahead and say that if a private citizen wants to refuse a customer's money based on ANY criterion the private citizen chooses, that's his right as long as he's a private citizen, no matter how foolish and short-sighted I may think this is. Even if it's a Muslim-owned bakery asked to bake a cake for the same gay wedding.

If you want to abolish private property rights and personal freedom, let's start with you. I think you should be required to bake a wedding cake for a couple who wish to have their ceremony officiated by the Exalted Grand Wizard of the Alabama State chapter of the Royal Order of the Ku Klux Klan, and that you must then serve it to the guests at the reception while wearing bed sheets and a white conical hood. See how this works? Both ways? Depending on who holds the gun or the government?

If a Muslim bakery in the US refused to bake a cake for my wedding, I'm sure we'd all now be calling them out on their backwards culture and "anti-American" ways. But when others do it, it's freedumb.

You don't understand that this has happened.

[Eric K]

That's a devastating refutation, as posts which include "I would say..." and "... seems more reasonable..." always are.

It obviously wasn't a refutation of anything, Mark. I'm applying your analogy and it introduces a pretty obvious question, which I asked.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Is there any case of gender dysmorphia that goes immediately to full on genital amputation and hormone therapy? I would say the same standard applies, and trying to figure out what's going on seems more reasonable than simply dismissing it as "factually untrue."

Okay, Eric. I don't know that it has occurred, and you don't know that it has not occurred.

[Eric K]

Okay, Eric. I don't know that it has occurred, and you don't know that it has not occurred.

True. I think we agree on most of this, despite the fact that my writing style is apparently annoying as shit.

[nykid]

If I decide not to, for whatever reason I may have, and you use the government or a lawyer or a gun to compel me to work for you, then you are most definitely shoving your wishes and desires down my throat. You have not asked -- you have compelled, and that's what actually happened. Are you so seriously painted into your NYC/LA corner that you cannot see this simple fact?

If you want to reduce this issue to a single event - some instance in which an individual baker was compelled to bake a cake for someone - okay, I don't really disagree with you. I don't support vindictiveness in general or frivolous lawsuits or the use of force to compel people to doing things they don't want to do, in nearly all cases.

But you are essentially changing the topic, focusing only on the second of TWO events that take place in this hypothetical. 1) The baker refuses service, based on *identity politics* 2) the customer takes some action to compel the baker to serve him.

I was talking about 1). I really made no reference at all to 2), so it's interesting that you went straight there and assumed you knew my position on it.

Anyway, I would argue that there have been throughout history MANY cases in which 1) occurs and 2) does not.

Furthermore, I'd argue that when it comes to the actual evidence, the actual harm in society, the total numbers of people affected, 2) is not really a problem. On principle, it might offend you, but I would argue that there are not large amounts of righteous bakers (or anything) being compelled to bake. I.e. that while it might be problematic or offensive in principle, that doesn't mean it's a PROBLEM in society, as measured by actual total concrete HARM that is occurring, and requiring correction.

You agree with every ruling issued by the Supreme Court? I'm relieved to hear that you agree with Heller and MacDonald. And if you're trying to get me to "admit" that I think it's okay to discriminate against customers on the basis of race, religion, color, or creed, I'll go ahead and say that if a private citizen wants to refuse a customer's money based on ANY criterion the private citizen chooses, that's his right as long as he's a private citizen, no matter how foolish and short-sighted I may think this is. Even if it's a Muslim-owned bakery asked to bake a cake for the same gay wedding.

If you want to abolish private property rights and personal freedom, let's start with you. I think you should be required to bake a wedding cake for a couple who wish to have their ceremony officiated by the Exalted Grand Wizard of the Alabama State chapter of the Royal Order of the Ku Klux Klan, and that you must then serve it to the guests at the reception while wearing bed sheets and a white conical hood. See how this works? Both ways? Depending on who holds the gun or the government?

Again you're focusing on the injustice of the baker forced to bake a cake, and not on the injustice of the customer refused service. That's fine, I just don't think - as stated above - that there are in practice very many bakers forced to bake cakes for trans people or the Ku Klux Klan or anyone. You have a feeling about the principle of it (and I happen to agree with you), but the problem is that large social forces are not adequately explained via hypothetical examples relating to individual choice/action.

These individual choices, while perhaps understandable and even justifiable taken individually, when taken together can amount to a LARGE DEGREE of SOCIAL HARM. Segregation being the obvious example. E.g., a black WW2 veteran who can't order a piece of pie in a diner in Texas because he is black and "no coloreds" were served at that diner. That is an injustice, in my mind. This happened, all over the country. What did NOT happen, was that each individual diner owner was COMPELLED by force to serve that individual customer. Instead, laws were changed -- society as a whole decided that this sort of injustice was not protected by the constitution.

Essentially, we have two competing injustices - the customer refused service on the basis on his identity, and the baker compelled to serve someone he doesn't like. For reasons given above, I tend to think the former is the more pressing.

That is the crux of the issue, and why most reasonable Americans today think the Civil Rights movement was a positive change in society, and that gay people should be allowed to marry, etc. Do you actually think the Civil Rights movement was a bad thing? That if bakers want to hang up signs in their windows today in 2017, "no coloreds served" that that should be permitted? I'm not trying to get you to *admit* something, I'm trying to determine what you believe, so that I can better respond.


Also, I feel the need to point out that your focus on the baker being compelled has reframed the discussion, from what George originally posted. Because let's be frank - when people talk about "ideals and lifestyles" being "shoved down their throats," they usually aren't talking about getting sued or being otherwise compelled to a certain course of action. (That's WHY I asked my clarifying question of George, to see what he really meant, but it was ignored). What they mean is they don't actually want to see/hear/experience these "ideals and lifestyles" at all. They're complaining about all the unpleasant IDEAS they're being subjected to, and it strikes me as the most whiny, cowardly, self-absorbed bullshit I can imagine. Isn't this what you mock, in the college-aged left? Special snowflakes with their trigger warnings?

Yet George can get up-in-arms about his poor feelings because transgender people are shoving their lifestyles down his throat? It's laughable to me... MAN UP, George. Have you been sued by a transgender person? They stuck a gun in your face? No? Then STFU and go on with your life -- look away. You don't have to party w/ them, all you have to do is tolerate their presence for a few short seconds before turning the corner or switching the channel. Straight white men in the USA have more personal freedom than 99.99999% of all humanity throughout history. Yet George finds reason to complain - his liberty is infringed by a tiny group of marginalized people. Give me a break.

[Brodie Butland]

I am not pulling anything out of my ass, Butland.

Very amusing, and highly original. Were you at the Apollo last weekend?

So the answer is no...you in fact do not personally know anyone who is transgender. Got it.

The wording "sex change" or "sex reassignment" does in no way reflect the end result. A cure is an effective treatment for an illness. Sexual dysmorphia is a mental illness. That sexual reassignment is not a cure for this illness in too many cases is evidenced by several studies reference was made to numerous times in this thread.

(1) You realize here that you're making a circular argument, right? Gay men who are out of the closet still suffer from higher rates of depression and suicide than the non-gay population. Therefore, gay men who decide to bang dudes clearly didn't cure their "affliction" because they still disproportionately suffer from depression and suicide...we just need to give them better psychological treatment (like conversion therapy) so that they'll be happy again. What's wrong with my argument here?

(2) No, those studies showed that people who are transgender suffer from higher rates of depression, suicide, and the like. It doesn't say anything about why. Which the authors of the studies actually are careful to state upfront, but the commentators on the studies seem to deliberately omit. (In fact, in many studies examining mental illness among transgender persons, such as the Swedish studies in the 2000s or the British study in 2004, the authors expressly note that gender conforming surgery is generally effective.)

The most obvious confounding factor is that transgender people are generally not accepted in society, especially after transitioning. Which would pretty expectedly lead to higher rates of depression, suicide, and social anxiety. I still have yet to hear how this has been normalized/accounted for in those studies.

Reasons surgery not a being an effective cure are: the lack of acceptance by the person's environment of her new status post-surgery,

Ah, so transgender people may still remain depressed and suicidal post-op because of a "lack of acceptance" afterwards. That's a very good point, and one that I wished someone else would have made earlier in this thread.


[QUOTE]and other mental disorders apart from sexual dysmorphia which weren't addressed by the surgery or even because of the surgery, because they were seen as a result of the sexual dysmorphia while they are not.

You got me. If someone suffers from a mental illness completely unrelated to sexual dysmorphia, a sex change operation will not cure that mental illness. In other news, Ritalin does not effectively treat bipolar disorder.

I do share your worry that other mental disorders are frequently confused with sexual dysmorphia. Unfortunately as you know, sexual reassignment surgery is very inexpensive, and very easy to get--there's practically, like, no psychological evaluation or required courses of treatment before it's approved. It's practically like getting medical marijuana in California.

Lastly, I wouldn't count on a person's critical thinking or reasonable decision making capabilities who suffers from a mental illness which makes her feel miserable to an extent that she contemplates suicide.

Yeah, we should just make decisions for them and tell them how they should feel. After all, if someone suffers from depression, you can't trust their judgment on anything.

[George Christiansen]

I'd love to see the reaction when some average Joe, very white, very Christian, relatively heterosexual, is refused his cake because of his fairytale collection or his minimal pigmentation. We're gonna party Christian genocide like it's 1923 or would that be another systematic war against the white "race" ?

If a Muslim bakery in the US refused to bake a cake for my wedding, I'm sure we'd all now be calling them out on their backwards culture and "anti-American" ways. But when others do it, it's freedumb.

Believe it or not, unlike leftist assholes like yourself, not everyone filters their beliefs throughidentity politics. Some of us actually try to be morally consistent.

Nobody is saying that people refusing service to people are not assholes. Some of us are just saying that even assholes have the right to their own labor.

Do I have to bake a cake for the Klan meeting or the Black Panther meeting too?

Just like refusing to bake a cake for the gay wedding might make you an asshole; not refusing to bake it for those two groups might also do the same thing.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You say, as a libertarian, that you and anybody else have the right to refuse business. And while that is true, I say, also as (and because of me being) a libertarian, that I am not going to refuse business or friendship because of beliefs or practices which don't hurt a third party.

And as a libertarian, I say that is your choice. It may not be the choice of other libertarians, or other Orthodoxies.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Essentially, we have two competing injustices - the customer refused service on the basis on his identity, and the baker compelled to serve someone he doesn't like. For reasons given above, I tend to think the former is the more pressing.

No, we have an inconvenience and an injustice. There are other bakeries. And then there are legal expenses and bankruptcy.