Should bakers be forced to make gender transition celebration cakes?

[Jarhyn]

I think the fact that anyone construes being asked to do your job --for which you registered with the community for access to commercially zoned space-- for money, as bullying, says all that needs be. The fact that someone considers it such is every reason for the community to revoke the permit for commercial zoning.

Oh, since when did an entrepreneur’s “job” constitute as do whatever a customer asks? Phillips’ “job” is to make baked goods, inter alia, custom cakes. His “job” isn’t to make whatever kind of cake requested by the customer. Just as it wasn’t the “job” of two bakers, who refused to write onto a cake an anti-gay message requested by the customer, to write such a message onto the cake.

For your edification, the CCRD determined the two bakers who refused to write an anti-gay message on the cake didn’t violate the state’s public accommodation law, because refusal was based on the message and refusal was not based on the protected “creed.”

But I love your philosophy, the Arab/Muslim baker refusing to write a message of “Land of Israel: From Euphrates to Red Sea to Mediterranean,” is failing to do their job, and the permit for commercial zoning is to be revoked.

When that entrepreneur registered with the state to do business and conducted said business in a commercial zoned area.

The conditions for him being allowed to do those things, in that way, in that place include "do this thing for the whole community, not just the people you like."

It is actively counter to people's job, and the aforementioned requirement to do it for the whole community, to make that place of business hostile to any of the whole community, including the exchange, making, and what not of a cake that will cause customers to reasonably fear for their safety for merely sharing the same room as someone who asks for a hate cake.

I couldn't care less about what hand-waving justification was used that wasn't that.

As for the other message, I can absolutely see both the proprietor and their other customers reasonably fearing for their safety in a shop where messages of hate and genocide are being bandied about. The message creates the reason, but is not explicitly the reason itself.

You keep trying to conflate threatening messages with benign ones. Stop that.

Now, if the Palestinian baker refused to bake a cake that said "Jews are great!" I would absolutely revoke their permits and registrations and tell them to pound sand.

 

[Metaphor]

Some baker made this cake.

View attachment 33663

Do we blame the baker or the person that wanted it?

What "blame"?

 

[ZiprHead]

You cannot separate the expression of the customer from the cake because the customer’s expression is the cake.

So you admit it's the customer's expression, not the baker's.

Yes, but you think this makes a difference. It doesn’t for the same reasons as before. The fact the expressive or written message originated with person X doesn’t mean person Y isn’t engaged in speech themselves when writing out the same message or creating the expressive symbol that is the expressive message.

The baker requested to write a message onto a cake at the customer’s request is enaged in speech when they write the message onto the cake. Similarly, a baker making a cake, in which the requested colors of the cake and the arrangement of those colors on the cake, are expressive of the customer as a trans female, and symbolize her transition, then the baker is enaged in expressive speech when making the expressive object, just as the baker writing a message onto the cake, regardless of the message originating with and at the request of the customer.

And the baker refusing to make the cake in a color combination he's probably made many times before because of the message expressed by the customer. Therefore he is discriminating against the customer.

 

[Bomb#20]

I will decline, since I don't think you really mean it. It seems to me that you just want to insult atheists by saying that they are religious about this, that, or the other.

I just want to insult atheists? You know I'm an atheist too, don't you?

(Sorry about being slow to answer -- real life blah blah.)

And to my response to this, you responded: "Given that I said nothing about gods, killing, or neighbors, that would be a very odd take indeed." For pete's sake, man, look at what I wrote! I said nothing about being subject to laws, needing to come to a personal agreement, or laws having minds! You just made up all that garbage and imputed it to me!

Your argument was addressing Gospel's argument about agreeing to laws of the land. It is reasonable to extend that to "being subject to laws of the land" with a bit of artistic license.

No, that isn't reasonable. Our culture has a whole cottage industry of constructing rhetoric designed to make people think those go together, full of slogans like "consent of the governed" and "social contract" that we're all supposed to internalize by osmosis without ever thinking about them critically, just like the traditional cottage industry of constructing rhetoric designed to make people equate Christianity with morality. There's a reason it's called "civic religion".

You yourself said that an agreement is a meeting of the minds. In this scenario, there can be no meeting of the minds as laws do not have minds, so it makes little sense that you would use that phrase unless you thought laws had minds.

How the heck are you getting that? The postulated agreement (if there were one, which there isn't) would be a member of the society agreeing with the legislators, the government officials, and some or all of the other current and past society members, that they have a right to impose the law on him. Those are real people with real minds.

Further, there are multiple definitions of agreement, and when one refers to a "meeting of the minds" as an agreement, to me that evokes agreements of the personal sort between two people.

Yes, that's the definition of agreement that actually involves agreeing. "Social contract" advocates are trying to get that evocation to rub off on the things they call "agreement" that don't involve agreeing. The whole ideology is an extended exercise in equivocation fallacy.

The people do not have the "crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women" mentality that you impart to them,

So you say. Got any evidence?

Yes, the fact that they have not espoused the words you attribute to them, or anything remotely similar. If you have any evidence that they have articulated such ideas, then you should probably show those actual words, rather than quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger in his role as Conan.

Come again? I didn't attribute those words to them or claim they articulated such ideas. I attributed that mentality to them. People do not articulate their entire mentalities in words.

The failure of your imagination is not an issue here. In fact, you don't even have to use your imagination, you can read Scardina's words yourself. Another poster conveniently provided them for you around the same time I made the post to which you are responding.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was expecting you'd say. Don't go down that garden path. As has been repeatedly pointed out upthread, Scardina did not want a cake; she wanted a lawsuit. Scardina's explanation of her reasons for asking for a cake is therefore not pertinent to explaining the reasons of customers who really do want one. You aren't addressing the question I asked.

nd if you have a psychological theory that's a plausible alternative to the "they want to inflict suffering on the baker" theory for explaining why people would genuinely want a cake they've given the baker a reason to spit in, feel free to share that too.

...

...

You will find my first articulation of an alternate theory on page 26. A person ordering a cake for a celebration is often excited enough to mention what the celebration is about without even thinking about it. So, Just like I might call a baker and say "I would like to order a cake for my son's birthday" a transgender might call a baker and say "I would like to order a cake for my transgender celebration party" without even thinking about it.

Well, sure, that's entirely likely; but that's not a cake she's given the baker a reason to spit in. That's a cake she's given the baker a reason not to make. The baker says he's not willing to make a cake for that sort of party, so the customer calls him a jerk, walks out, and takes her business to someone nicer. The baker doesn't have a reason to make a cake and spit in it unless the customer pulls a power play and threatens to have the bakery shut down. You're still not addressing the question I asked.

I later explained another theory that a customer, whether transgender or not, might want to do so to make sure that when transgenders do try to order a cake and accidentally reveal that they are ordering it for a transgender celebration, they are not faced with a bigoted baker discriminating against them. You might recall that I was excoriated for using words like "humiliated" and "heartbreak" when describing how that person might feel in the face of that discrimination.

Okay, that's a coherent theory. Enough people do it to him and they'd train the baker to keep his objections to himself; then in case he really is the type to spit in the cakes, he'd stop doing it once he stops objecting and the customers stop playing their government card. Seems like an awful lot of money to give to a baker you don't like, just on the speculative hope of eventually reforming him, but yes, that one's a viable alternative to my theory.

So i have not offered just one, but multiple alternate theories. This in addition to what Scardina said herself. Yet you can't get past your singular pet theory that must be true, or your entire world crashes down around you. And you are the one casting around aspersions about religious thinking.

No, you only offered one real alternative, and this is the first I've heard of it. My singular pet theory still seems more probable to me for the reason stated, but there's a chance you're right.

 

[Bomb#20]

This whole thing is about anti-transsexual bigotry and those that support it with absurd arguments about a cake being the speech of the baker as opposed to a mere product.

And it is coming from the same people that for decades have claimed burning a flag is not speech.

The reason you wrote that appears to be that you think entirely tribally. Just like most varieties of collectivists, such as racists, you only think of your ingroup as fully human. To you, people who aren't in your ingroup appear to be just interchangeable parts. We disagree with you about the baker's rights; the Christian right disagrees with you about the baker's rights; therefore we're interchangeable with the Christian right; and the Christian right claims flag-burning isn't speech. That's why you believe what you said about us, isn't it?

Which is to say, can you name even one person in this thread saying the cake is the baker's speech who has been claiming burning a flag is not speech? No, of course you can't. Of course flag-burning is speech. Duh! I'd give odds that every single person here who says the cake is speech agrees with me that burning a flag is also speech. You are trumping up a false charge against unbelievers in your faith, with reckless disregard for the truth, because your faith teaches you to hate us.

 

[Bomb#20]

Staying does not mean you agree with the laws of the land.

Staying means you have a home and family and friends that make your life meaningful.

Some people resist bad laws.

Some people try to live their lives as best they can despite laws they find abhorrent.

^^^^ This ^^^^

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm not arguing against any of those points. The baker is doing what he has a right to do, which is to put the state to the task of proving his obligation. But to say that he's being forced is to deny he has alternative options which is not the case. People not liking his options doesn't make those options nonexistent.

That's a non sequitur fallacy. Having options doesn't mean you aren't being forced. When the mob comes into your store and says you have to pay them 50% of your revenue or they'll bust up your store and break your arm, the fact that you have three choices -- paying, or getting the threats carried out, or shutting down and leaving -- does not mean you aren't being forced. Of course you're being forced. And if you agree to pay the mafia, and then you slyly try to get out of it by concealing some of your revenue from them, the fact that you broke your promise to the thugs holding your store hostage does not mean you acted unethically. The agreement to pay was under duress so not ethically binding.

(And no, before anyone goes there, that's not a claim that governments are no more ethically justified than the mob. It's just a demonstration by counterexample that Gospel's argument is formally invalid.)

The issue about force here is the exact same issue about force when pinkish toned racists were forced to serve darker toned people as well as pinkish toned people.

So what?

The force is not an issue.

The bigotry of the baker is the issue. Just as it was when darker toned people were denied service.

No, it's not the exact same issue. There are two fundamental legal differences between the two cases that make the analogy fail. The first difference is that Phillips is discriminating against a message rather than against a personal characteristic. The second difference is that the Constitution contains a provision guaranteeing people the right to discriminate against messages, but no provision guaranteeing people the right to discriminate against personal characteristics. Now I recognize that these differences are insignificant to you -- to you, no doubt, the purpose of government is not to secure people's unalienable rights but to hold down the proletariat's class enemies, and rule-of-law is one of those principles that only serve the bourgeoisie's interests. But that just means the force is not an issue that anyone should care about in your opinion. It doesn't mean it's not an issue. And it's an issue a lot of us will go on caring about in spite of your opinion. Rule-of-law is a bulwark against tyranny; the world has a great deal of experience with what sorts of societies arise when government falls into the hands of people who don't care whether government follows the law.

 

[Bomb#20]

Lying for Jesus?

Who are you accusing of lying for Jesus? Yourself? I guess that would make sense -- you're the one who tried to justify socialism by saying it's the idea that we ought love our neighbors.

If you're accusing me of lying, well, what a surprise -- you have a long history of trumping up false accusations that you have no reason whatsoever to suppose are true.

Bringing up cross-thread <expletive deleted>? If you want to talk about Jews in Palestine there's a thread for that.

Bringing up cross-thread stuff seems to me an excellent way to expose your claims for the hypocrisy they are, and you really did make an analogy between Hamas murdering Jews and a dog peeing in the neighbor's yard, Mr. "All I ask is that no human flippantly handle matters of life and death."

(And at least when I bring up cross thread stuff it's stuff that really happened in another thread, not stuff I just made up, Mr. "you yourself work to make employment compulsory to exist".)

No business owner ought allow one customer to threaten another of their customers nor make them feel uninvited in that store.

True. And the reason you bring this up is in order to falsely insinuate that in the scenario where you approved of a business owner rejecting a message only Jews would want, the Jew was threatening other customers and making them feel uninvited. He was doing no such thing. Your only reason to interpret his actions that way was your personal distaste for the message he requested on the cake.

 

[untermensche]

The first difference is that Phillips is discriminating against a message rather than against a personal characteristic.

I don't buy that argument.

It is weaseling.

The baker first does not like transsexuals and then secondarily their likely and reasonable messages.

You can't care about a message unless you already did not like a person who would reasonably make it.

 

[Gospel]

I'm not arguing against any of those points. The baker is doing what he has a right to do, which is to put the state to the task of proving his obligation. But to say that he's being forced is to deny he has alternative options which is not the case. People not liking his options doesn't make those options nonexistent.

That's a non sequitur fallacy. Having options doesn't mean you aren't being forced. When the mob comes into your store and says you have to pay them 50% of your revenue or they'll bust up your store and break your arm, the fact that you have three choices -- paying, or getting the threats carried out, or shutting down and leaving -- does not mean you aren't being forced. Of course you're being forced. And if you agree to pay the mafia, and then you slyly try to get out of it by concealing some of your revenue from them, the fact that you broke your promise to the thugs holding your store hostage does not mean you acted unethically. The agreement to pay was under duress so not ethically binding.

(And no, before anyone goes there, that's not a claim that governments are no more ethically justified than the mob. It's just a demonstration by counterexample that Gospel's argument is formally invalid.)

Ok, so I wouldn't have the option to get protection from a different Mafia? I wouldn't have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters my establishment until I die? I wouldn't have the option to pull myself up by the bootstraps and use my savings for this sort of emergency and relocate? I'd have to pay them just so my argument can be invalid right?

 

[KeepTalking]

I just want to insult atheists? You know I'm an atheist too, don't you?

Yes, and as a result you should know how insulting it is to characterize other atheists as being religious about things.

Your argument was addressing Gospel's argument about agreeing to laws of the land. It is reasonable to extend that to "being subject to laws of the land" with a bit of artistic license.

No, that isn't reasonable.

Oh it's not? Well, here is the quote to which you were responding initially:

Yes, everyone who sticks around is subject to and agrees to the laws of the land.

Seems pretty reasonable that you two were talking about being subject to the laws of the land to me.

You yourself said that an agreement is a meeting of the minds. In this scenario, there can be no meeting of the minds as laws do not have minds, so it makes little sense that you would use that phrase unless you thought laws had minds.

How the heck are you getting that? The postulated agreement (if there were one, which there isn't) would be a member of the society agreeing with the legislators, the government officials, and some or all of the other current and past society members, that they have a right to impose the law on him. Those are real people with real minds.

Further, there are multiple definitions of agreement, and when one refers to a "meeting of the minds" as an agreement, to me that evokes agreements of the personal sort between two people.

Yes, that's the definition of agreement that actually involves agreeing. "Social contract" advocates are trying to get that evocation to rub off on the things they call "agreement" that don't involve agreeing. The whole ideology is an extended exercise in equivocation fallacy.

You do get that I was making a joke, right? The whole idea was to communicate an absurd idea that I knew you were not trying to relate because your comment left several things open to interpretation and the person with whom you were conversing (Gospel) expressed some confusion over what it was you were trying to say.

The people do not have the "crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women" mentality that you impart to them,

So you say. Got any evidence?

Yes, the fact that they have not espoused the words you attribute to them, or anything remotely similar. If you have any evidence that they have articulated such ideas, then you should probably show those actual words, rather than quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger in his role as Conan.

Come again? I didn't attribute those words to them or claim they articulated such ideas. I attributed that mentality to them. People do not articulate their entire mentalities in words.

Please note that I explicitly noted that you attributed that mentality to them. So, since I didn't spell it out to you before, expecting you to have read my post for comprehension, allow me to rephrase:

Do you have any evidence that the mentality you attribute to them is anything but your own uninformed opinion?

The failure of your imagination is not an issue here. In fact, you don't even have to use your imagination, you can read Scardina's words yourself. Another poster conveniently provided them for you around the same time I made the post to which you are responding.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was expecting you'd say. Don't go down that garden path. As has been repeatedly pointed out upthread, Scardina did not want a cake; she wanted a lawsuit. Scardina's explanation of her reasons for asking for a cake is therefore not pertinent to explaining the reasons of customers who really do want one.

As I have repeatedly pointed out upthread, I don't care if Scardina actually wanted a cake or not. Phillips would have acted no differently in either situation. So what if he fell into her (not so) cleverly laid trap? If he was not violating the law, and being a bigot to his transgender customers he would not have been sued. This kind of thing happens in law enforcement all the time, where it is referred to as a "sting operation".

You aren't addressing the question I asked.

Perhaps I misunderstood the question, can you point out what question you were asking again?

nd if you have a psychological theory that's a plausible alternative to the "they want to inflict suffering on the baker" theory for explaining why people would genuinely want a cake they've given the baker a reason to spit in, feel free to share that too.

...

...

You will find my first articulation of an alternate theory on page 26. A person ordering a cake for a celebration is often excited enough to mention what the celebration is about without even thinking about it. So, Just like I might call a baker and say "I would like to order a cake for my son's birthday" a transgender might call a baker and say "I would like to order a cake for my transgender celebration party" without even thinking about it.

Well, sure, that's entirely likely; but that's not a cake she's given the baker a reason to spit in. That's a cake she's given the baker a reason not to make. The baker says he's not willing to make a cake for that sort of party, so the customer calls him a jerk, walks out, and takes her business to someone nicer. The baker doesn't have a reason to make a cake and spit in it unless the customer pulls a power play and threatens to have the bakery shut down. You're still not addressing the question I asked.

Please ask it again, as I have no idea what you are on about now. I'm not sure why you have all of the sudden decided to bring up this thing about reasons to spit in a cake versus reasons to not make a cake, when they are the same damn reasons with the added step of the baker going ahead and making the damn cake and spitting in it while doing so in the case of the former.

I later explained another theory that a customer, whether transgender or not, might want to do so to make sure that when transgenders do try to order a cake and accidentally reveal that they are ordering it for a transgender celebration, they are not faced with a bigoted baker discriminating against them. You might recall that I was excoriated for using words like "humiliated" and "heartbreak" when describing how that person might feel in the face of that discrimination.

Okay, that's a coherent theory. Enough people do it to him and they'd train the baker to keep his objections to himself; then in case he really is the type to spit in the cakes, he'd stop doing it once he stops objecting and the customers stop playing their government card. Seems like an awful lot of money to give to a baker you don't like, just on the speculative hope of eventually reforming him, but yes, that one's a viable alternative to my theory.

I don't care what tortured logic you have to put yourself through to convince yourself that it just ain't so, all that matters is that I provided alternate theories. I could really give a shit whether you find them viable or not.

So i have not offered just one, but multiple alternate theories. This in addition to what Scardina said herself. Yet you can't get past your singular pet theory that must be true, or your entire world crashes down around you. And you are the one casting around aspersions about religious thinking.

No, you only offered one real alternative, and this is the first I've heard of it.

Once again, I don't care what you think, I have offered multiple theories in this very long thread, as have others, as well as Scardina being quoted in her own words as to her thought process. You still cling to your pet theory. You still refer to other atheists as being religious in their thinking.

My singular pet theory still seems more probable to me for the reason stated, but there's a chance you're right.

Your pet theory seems the least probable to me, as it ascribes the worst motives to transgenders in situations where they have had enough of bigotry and decide to push back all the way to the courts. But at least you are willing to allow a chance of one alternative being right. That is at least a somewhat reasonable stance.

 

[Bomb#20]

The first difference is that Phillips is discriminating against a message rather than against a personal characteristic.

I don't buy that argument.

It is weaseling.

The baker first does not like transsexuals and then secondarily their likely and reasonable messages.

You can't care about a message unless you already did not like a person who would reasonably make it.

So you're backing off from your earlier claim, "The message cannot be separated from the only people that would want that message."? Now that theory only applies if it's a "reasonable" message? So back when you indicated that rejecting a message that only Jews would want was just hunky-dory, you can't have cared about the message unless you already did not like Jews? Or was the message in question a message a Jew would not reasonably make?

I take it you're going to argue that asserting that the Jews have a legitimate claim to the West Bank is a message a Jew would not reasonably make, correct? Well, here's the thing: Phillips would undoubtedly argue that asserting that men can turn into women is a message a trans person would not reasonably make. And here you are, proposing in effect that the government ought to respect your claim that a message is unreasonable, while overruling Phillips's claim that a message is unreasonable.

So on what basis do you propose that the government draw that distinction? What is it that you think would justify the government in discriminating in favor of your unreasonableness claim while discriminating against your opponent's unreasonableness claim? Should they do it because you're an aristocrat and Phillips is a peasant in our ever-evolving society's newly-minted class hierarchy? Because your view is Woke and Phillips's view is unWoke? Because you and your leftist friends won an election and installed like-minded believers in the "Civil Rights Commission", and your newly-hired commissioners made their own personal judgment that it's "reasonable" to think men turn into women and "unreasonable" to think Judea and Samaria are part of Israel? Because who the First Amendment applies to depends on who wins an election? Or will you argue that this isn't a matter of personal opinion, and there's an actual fact of the matter that the government can examine and rely on to make a justifiable ruling that one cake message is reasonable and the other isn't?

So when you claim my argument is "weaseling", whether you're right appears to come down to the following: can you, or can you not, present scientific evidence for the contention that men can turn into women and the Jews do not rightfully own the West Bank?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

This whole thing is about anti-transsexual bigotry and those that support it with absurd arguments about a cake being the speech of the baker as opposed to a mere product.

And it is coming from the same people that for decades have claimed burning a flag is not speech.

The reason you wrote that appears to be that you think entirely tribally. Just like most varieties of collectivists, such as racists, you only think of your ingroup as fully human. To you, people who aren't in your ingroup appear to be just interchangeable parts. We disagree with you about the baker's rights; the Christian right disagrees with you about the baker's rights; therefore we're interchangeable with the Christian right; and the Christian right claims flag-burning isn't speech. That's why you believe what you said about us, isn't it?

Which is to say, can you name even one person in this thread saying the cake is the baker's speech who has been claiming burning a flag is not speech? No, of course you can't. Of course flag-burning is speech. Duh! I'd give odds that every single person here who says the cake is speech agrees with me that burning a flag is also speech. You are trumping up a false charge against unbelievers in your faith, with reckless disregard for the truth, because your faith teaches you to hate us.

Just to add a bit of evidence: yes, obviously flag burning is speech, in the usual cases under consideration (though it's true someone might just be trying to make a fire using a handy piece of cloth ).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I'm not arguing against any of those points. The baker is doing what he has a right to do, which is to put the state to the task of proving his obligation. But to say that he's being forced is to deny he has alternative options which is not the case. People not liking his options doesn't make those options nonexistent.

That's a non sequitur fallacy. Having options doesn't mean you aren't being forced. When the mob comes into your store and says you have to pay them 50% of your revenue or they'll bust up your store and break your arm, the fact that you have three choices -- paying, or getting the threats carried out, or shutting down and leaving -- does not mean you aren't being forced. Of course you're being forced. And if you agree to pay the mafia, and then you slyly try to get out of it by concealing some of your revenue from them, the fact that you broke your promise to the thugs holding your store hostage does not mean you acted unethically. The agreement to pay was under duress so not ethically binding.

(And no, before anyone goes there, that's not a claim that governments are no more ethically justified than the mob. It's just a demonstration by counterexample that Gospel's argument is formally invalid.)

Ok, so I wouldn't have the option to get protection from a different Mafia? I wouldn't have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters my establishment until I die? I wouldn't have the option to pull myself up by the bootstraps and use my savings for this sort of emergency and relocate? I'd have to pay them just so my argument can be invalid right?

No, the point is that your argument is invalid, and this is shown by the obvious fact that in the mob case, the owner is being forced. Do you deny that he is being forced?

Sure, you have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters your establishment until you die, at least if you have a gun. But that does not remotely suggest you're not being forced. For that matter, a slave had the option of not obeying the master and in fact fighting him or his minions to the death. That does not mean he was not being forced.

 

[untermensche]

The first difference is that Phillips is discriminating against a message rather than against a personal characteristic.

I don't buy that argument.

It is weaseling.

The baker first does not like transsexuals and then secondarily their likely and reasonable messages.

You can't care about a message unless you already did not like a person who would reasonably make it.

So you're backing off from your earlier claim, "The message cannot be separated from the only people that would want that message."? Now that theory only applies if it's a "reasonable" message?

It was always a comment about a message a certain group would reasonably want.

If you exclude a message ONLY a specific group would want you specifically exclude that group.

No adult is fooled and thinks you only oppose the message but are not first opposed to the people.

I take it you're going to argue that asserting that the Jews have a legitimate claim to the West Bank is a message a Jew would not reasonably make, correct?

No. That is still a matter for the UN to decide.

The borders of Israel are only defined in UN Resolutions.

Resolutions Israel ignores and the US provides them cover at the UN.

 

[James Madison]

I think the fact that anyone construes being asked to do your job --for which you registered with the community for access to commercially zoned space-- for money, as bullying, says all that needs be. The fact that someone considers it such is every reason for the community to revoke the permit for commercial zoning.

Oh, since when did an entrepreneur’s “job” constitute as do whatever a customer asks? Phillips’ “job” is to make baked goods, inter alia, custom cakes. His “job” isn’t to make whatever kind of cake requested by the customer. Just as it wasn’t the “job” of two bakers, who refused to write onto a cake an anti-gay message requested by the customer, to write such a message onto the cake.

For your edification, the CCRD determined the two bakers who refused to write an anti-gay message on the cake didn’t violate the state’s public accommodation law, because refusal was based on the message and refusal was not based on the protected “creed.”

But I love your philosophy, the Arab/Muslim baker refusing to write a message of “Land of Israel: From Euphrates to Red Sea to Mediterranean,” is failing to do their job, and the permit for commercial zoning is to be revoked.

When that entrepreneur registered with the state to do business and conducted said business in a commercial zoned area.

The conditions for him being allowed to do those things, in that way, in that place include "do this thing for the whole community, not just the people you like."

It is actively counter to people's job, and the aforementioned requirement to do it for the whole community, to make that place of business hostile to any of the whole community, including the exchange, making, and what not of a cake that will cause customers to reasonably fear for their safety for merely sharing the same room as someone who asks for a hate cake.

I couldn't care less about what hand-waving justification was used that wasn't that.

As for the other message, I can absolutely see both the proprietor and their other customers reasonably fearing for their safety in a shop where messages of hate and genocide are being bandied about. The message creates the reason, but is not explicitly the reason itself.

You keep trying to conflate threatening messages with benign ones. Stop that.

Now, if the Palestinian baker refused to bake a cake that said "Jews are great!" I would absolutely revoke their permits and registrations and tell them to pound sand.

I didn’t say anything about a Palestinian baker.

There’s substantively nothing in your argument to rationally separate your benign “Jews are great” from what you personally say is threatening, the phrase of “Land of Israel: From Euphrates to Red Sea to Mediterranean.” Plausibily, the phrase “Jews are great,” while you say is benign, can be just as threatening as the phrase “ Land of Israel: From Euphrates to Red Sea to Mediterranean” based on another’s perception and belief. There’s nothing to shield the phrase “Jews are great” as a threat.

And that illuminates a problem presently with your argument, as it can result in a decide for yourself what is threatening, thereby permitting, as you say, benign but offensive messages, and a discriminatory enforcement of public accommodation law based on nothing more than the personal feelings of the commission as to what is or isn’t a threat. A working defintion of threat can protect free speech as opposed to the approach of picking and choosing what is a threatening phrase based on ostensibly nothing more than your own or anyone else’s personal senses.

Perhap a good foundation for understanding a threat is to distinguish between phrases which threaten physical harm, injury, death, destruction of personal property, and lack a context the phrase isn’t understood as a joke or not to be taken literally such that there is criminal intent or knowledge for some outcome, such as to place in fear or deter some action, from offensive or unpleasant speech. This mitigates against the use of alleging a threat based on finding the phrase offensive, distasteful, or unpalatable.

The phrase “ Land of Israel: From Euphrates to Red Sea to Mediterranean” isn’t threatening, not personally to the Arab Muslim baker, or anyone else based on the facts of my hypo, and neither is it threatening because you say so. Yes, the phrase most likely will be offensive to some Arab Muslim, but an offensive message isn’t synonymous with a threatening message. Yes, the Arab Muslim may say they felt threatened, and maybe the commission board will say to them the phrase is threatening, but the content of the phrase itself threatens no violence, harm, or physical injury to anyone. The phrase, based on content alone, isn’t threatening, and the context I provided doesn’t render the phrase threatening, despite the personal feelings of others. Rather, the phrase is merely a statement of what someone believes to be the geographical boundaries of the Land of Israel.

Which now prompts me back to the original point I made to Ziprhead with that phrase, expressive messages are speech just as written messages are speech. To protect speech, the personal belief a message is threatening isn’t sufficient, but a more objective analysis of the content of the message and the context are at least two factors in defending whether a message communicates a threat, and not a amorphous, nebulous, metaphysical threat, but the meaning of threat i espoused, which by the way is a legal understanding of a threat.

Phillips is engaged in expressive speech when making the expressive object.

The conditions for him being allowed to do those things, in that way, in that place include "do this thing for the whole community, not just the people you like."

That is fantastic. This is verifiable and falsfiable. So, provide for me the paperwork Phillips signed and included your “do this thing for the whole community, not just the people you like” phrase.

It is actively counter to people's job, and the aforementioned requirement to do it for the whole community

I’d love to possess your god like powers to declare for other people what their “job” is and their “requirements. Perhaps you can also provide evidence of language that says they are to “do it” without exception. I’m doubtful Phillips, and others, lack broader discretion than you characterize for them.

 

[KeepTalking]

The conditions for him being allowed to do those things, in that way, in that place include "do this thing for the whole community, not just the people you like."

That is fantastic. This is verifiable and falsfiable. So, provide for me the paperwork Phillips signed and included your “do this thing for the whole community, not just the people you like” phrase.

Seriously? This reads to me like you are saying that the argument he puts forward is plausible and reasonable, however, you will not accept it unless you are provided a piece of evidence that a random person on the internet could not be reasonably expected to provide. In short, you make an unreasonable request of another poster on this forum.

 

[untermensche]

When an inherent goal of your economic system is that it be free of irrational bigotry and exclusions based on those bigotries certain things are always implied.

Like all exclusions need to be justified.

Simply saying "I don't like the message" when exclusion of service is involved is not a justification any court should accept.

There has to be some reasonable problem with the message.

If you say it is against your religion you have to show where specifically your religion talks about it.

 

[Gospel]

Ok, so I wouldn't have the option to get protection from a different Mafia? I wouldn't have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters my establishment until I die? I wouldn't have the option to pull myself up by the bootstraps and use my savings for this sort of emergency and relocate? I'd have to pay them just so my argument can be invalid right?

No, the point is that your argument is invalid, and this is shown by the obvious fact that in the mob case, the owner is being forced. Do you deny that he is being forced?

Sure, you have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters your establishment until you die, at least if you have a gun. But that does not remotely suggest you're not being forced. For that matter, a slave had the option of not obeying the master and in fact fighting him or his minions to the death. That does not mean he was not being forced.

The baker situation is absolutely nothing like the slaves. And for the record, many slaves did choose death over slavery & yes slaves were being forced as they had no options while the baker has plenty. I like how you ignored the option as a business owner in the made-up mafia analogy to ya know, relocate or higher another mafia for protection. Life is full of obstacles bruh, I suppose you feel like you're being forced to breathe every second of the day right? And what is with yall and these analogies anyway? They only create make-believe la la land things to argue over and doesn't serve to improve the discussion.

Edit: FYI putting the state to task is one of the Bakers options. Slaves couldn't take shit to court.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Ok, so I wouldn't have the option to get protection from a different Mafia? I wouldn't have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters my establishment until I die? I wouldn't have the option to pull myself up by the bootstraps and use my savings for this sort of emergency and relocate? I'd have to pay them just so my argument can be invalid right?

No, the point is that your argument is invalid, and this is shown by the obvious fact that in the mob case, the owner is being forced. Do you deny that he is being forced?

Sure, you have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters your establishment until you die, at least if you have a gun. But that does not remotely suggest you're not being forced. For that matter, a slave had the option of not obeying the master and in fact fighting him or his minions to the death. That does not mean he was not being forced.

The baker situation is absolutely nothing like the slaves. And for the record, many slaves did choose death over slavery & yes slaves were being forced as they had no options while the baker has plenty. I like how you ignored the option as a business owner in the made-up mafia analogy to ya know, relocate or higher another mafia for protection. Life is full of obstacles bruh, I suppose you feel like you're being forced to breathe every second of the day right? And what is with yall and these analogies anyway? They only create make-believe la la land things to argue over and doesn't serve to improve the discussion.

Edit: FYI putting the state to task is one of the Bakers options. Slaves couldn't take shit to court.

First, I used the slaves example to show that one of the arguments you put forth to deny that the person being threatened by the mob in the example mentioned by B20 and by me, would also entail that slaves were not being forced. Do you not see that? You gave, among others, the following reasons to deny that the store owner the Mafia is threatening is being forced by the Mafia:

I wouldn't have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters my establishment until I die?

Maybe you would, or maybe you wouldn't. It would depend on factors such as whether you can actually get a gun, ammo, etc. But let us say for the sake of the argument that you would have that option. Obviously - very obviously - that would not entail that the Mafia would not be forcing you. Of course they would be forcing you. Now, if the fact that - let us say - you would have the option to gun down every single mafia member that enters your establishment until you die would make it the case that the Mafia is not forcing you to pay, then the same rationale would entail that the slave is not being forced to work, as he has the option of not obeying the master and in fact fighting him or his minions to the death.

But that is absurd, because the slave is in fact being forced. What I did was a reductio ad absurdum argument, and showed that one of the rationales you offered to defend your implication that the mob is not forcing you in that scenario, has absurd consequences. Of course, I did not need that one, because the very claim that the mob would not be forcing you is already absurd. But then again, there is nothing improper about showing absurd consequences of an absurd claim when the person making the claim is likely not to see the absurdity of their claim, but is likely to see the absurdity of the consequences. In other words, you fail to realize that the claim that the mob is not forcing you is just absurd on its face, but apparently you do realize that a claim that a slave is not being forced would be absurd - hence, you reaction "The baker situation is absolutely nothing like the slaves.", which is of course irrelevant to the matter at hand, but indicative of your realization that slaves were indeed forced to work for their masters. What you haven't realized yet, it seems, is that one of the rationales you gave (as detailed above) yields the conclusion that slaves were not being forced, and for that reason, it contradicts one of your beliefs (one that happens to be correct).

And for the record, many slaves did choose death over slavery & yes slaves were being forced as they had no options while the baker has plenty.

I did not compare the slaves to the baker. I compared the baker to the person being forced by the mob, and so did B20. Afterwards, and given your reply to B20's mob comparison, I used the slaves example for the purposes I mentioned above. That many slaves did choose death over slavery and that they were being forced also shows - as if that were necessary - than having the option of fighting to the death does not entail that you are not being forced (in fact, it does not even suggest so). One of the rationales you gave to argue that the store owner threatened by the mob is also defeated by the point you make here (as for the other rationales, well the very claim that the store owner (you or someone else) is not being forced by the mob is absurd, and I was just showing further absurdity of one of the rationales you gave).


As for the comparison slaves vs. baker - which I did not make, but let us make it since you ask -, they are both being forced but by massively different degrees. That comparison, however, is not relevant to the matter at hand.

I like how you ignored the option as a business owner in the made-up mafia analogy to ya know, relocate or higher another mafia for protection.

First, actually, I brought up that example myself, earlier in the thread, to show the absurdity of your claim about relocation in the case of moving outside the US. I was already pointing out the absurdity of that. See the following posts:

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ebration-cakes&p=902688&viewfull=1#post902688

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ebration-cakes&p=903138&viewfull=1#post903138

Second, since you failed (see the exchange above, and your insistence in this absurd claim) to realize that what you were claiming - namely, that the business owner was not being forced because he could relocate - was absurd, I thought I would show the implications of another one of your rationales, for a case where you would probably realize that a person - namely, a slave - was being forced. I was correct: you do realize slaves were being forced to work for their masters. What you haven't yet realized is that you gave a rationale in the mob case that implies that salves were not being forced, either, contradicting your own (in this case, correct) belief that slaves were being forced.

Life is full of obstacles bruh, I suppose you feel like you're being forced to breathe every second of the day right?

Yes, you suppose that. But you have no good reason to even suspect that.
I'm being forced not to leave the vicinity of my home - for example. I'm not being forced to breathe.

And what is with yall and these analogies anyway?

It depends on the case, but in this case, it's a type of argumentation known as 'reductio ad absurdum'. It shows that something you said (see above) has false - and indeed absurd - consequences, in addition to the immediate absurdity of the claim. The method uses something that you do recognize as absurd (probably, but now confirmed), in this case that slaves were not forced to work for their masters. And then shows that something you said entails the absurd result. One difficulty is that you have not understood the argument. But some readers have or will (well, at least one reader, but hopefully more than one, because it's not very effective if it will only be understood by a person who already easily sees all of this; but there is a chance someone else will see it).

They only create make-believe la la land things to argue over and doesn't serve to improve the discussion.

They do not do that. You create that, because you do not understand their purpose. Hopefully you will understand it now. But given my experience in online discussions, I do not count on it. But I'm hoping more than one reader will understand.

Edit: FYI putting the state to task is one of the Bakers options. Slaves couldn't take shit to court.

That would be complaining to a part of the government (the courts) about another part. Sure. He has an option slaves did not have. He has a gazillion options slaves did not have. But that is not relevant to my point, or the reason I used the example of the slaves. Even if the baker were the almighty God in disguise, laughing at loud at people trying to force him to do anything, my reductio argument would still show that one of the rationales you put forth entails the absurd consequence that slaves were not being forced, and so the argument works.