10:11 – The Winston-Salem restaurant that had been giving a 15% discount for praying publicly has discontinued doing so. Apparently the owner got a nastygram from a national atheist group pointing out that it was a violation of federal civil rights laws to charge atheists more than religious people. So the owner stopped giving the discount, fearing that she’d be sued if she continued doing so.
I think the whole thing is stupid. Businesses and individuals should be free to discriminate in favor of or against anyone they please. It’s government that must be completely neutral.
Speaking of overbearing gummint, Oz is going down the tubes real fast now…
http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/heres-the-dumbest-thing-youll-hear-all-week-14832/
Thoughts, Oz denizens?
Over at Jerry Coyne’s site this was the subject of one of his rants, and his fanboys and fangirls all chimed in their support. He’s so hypersensitive to criticism that I decided not to stir the pot by saying that I saw nothing wrong with the discount, and if atheists don’t like it they can vote with their feet.
If a restaurant has poor service, poor food, is noisy or whatever I’ll just go elsewhere. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of restaurants. But the Freedom From Religion Foundation had to stick its nose in with a lawyer’s letter to them. If you don’t like it (and I’m a believer who doesn’t – I don’t even say grace at home) then just go elsewhere.
If a business wants to give discounts to people who pray, or to women (nightclubs often charge men to enter, but women are free) or heterosexual couples where the lady dines topless, or naked, then that’s their business. In Australia hotels have a hard time employing topless barmaids because it discriminates against men and older women who naturally aren’t wanted for such roles.
Yeah Dave, it’s nuts. I don’t see what’s wrong with Aussies joining the Movement to Free the Lovely Ladies of Alabama from Northern Oppression, for example. There should be no sanctions when they return. But if an Aussie goes and fights for the Islamic State or Taliban they should be outlawed, literally.
The government is claiming now that they are only collecting data about who I communicate with and when, not the content. That may be true initially (or it may not) but I am sure they will find a reason to record everything. Welcome to the nanny state.
Agreed fully with Dr. Bob’s and Mr. Greg’s comments in regard to restaurant discounts, or any private biz; that’s one libertarian notion I can get behind.
“Welcome to the nanny state.”
No kidding; we’ve got our own here, of course, as you know, but in many ways the countries of the former British Commonwealth of Nations are charting new waters for us all and we shall be observing closely. As the internet memes that FaceCrack users keep posting, our own TSA has had thieves, liars and perverts working for them, mostly at the airports and had its employees arrested to the tune of several hundred thus far but has not caught one terrorist. Meanwhile they’ve put countless air travelers through the wringer and made air travel a nightmarish ordeal for ordinary citizens. They could have even learned from the Israelis how to do this gig with much less fuss and muss and lots more accuracy, on the front lines, so to speak, but they do not.
Speaking of Homeland Insecurity, I just got my “Enhanced Vermont Operator’s License” in the U.S. Mail; it informs me that I can use it “…as an alternative to a passport by U.S. citizens returning home, by land or sea, from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Bermuda. The card includes RFID and barcode to aid mechanical identification of the card and thus the cardholder.”
There’s more info on how no personal info is stored on that RFID chip and how it uses a “unique” ID number “…that links to information contained in a secure Department of Homeland Security database.”
I”ll have to check with my boy Eddie Snowden on how secure that database is, haha. And I see where the gummint has allowed as how they apparently have another major leak operating who they have not caught yet. Of course this presumes that anything they tell us, whether about leaks or my driver’s license, can be taken at face value.
Welcome indeed, to Our Nanny, the Almighty State. They can monitor what color we pee and who we talk to in email and what sites we go to, but they couldn’t stop 9/11 or the current border stampede and who knows how much else that we’ll never know. (of course at this point someone chimes in with all the cases where they *did* stop a situation that they can’t tell us about, countless, of course.) We really have no way of knowing, either way; but their interest seems to be in keeping the anxiety level very high and themselves as the answer to whatever threats *they* discern.
Private business is treated as a public service under the law. Private business owners don’t have much right to operate their business as they see fit. The only way around it is to make your private business into a private club for members only and then charge something silly like 1¢ for membership. Have some “bylaws” and hold a “meeting” every once in a while. If you don’t like a certain type of person, then you don’t give them a membership. If you stop liking someone who is a member, then you revoke their membership. You can get around all sorts of laws by being a private club. Several places have done it to get around overly-restrictive liquor laws in some places or to get around smoking bans and so forth.
OFD, you might enjoy this: http://www.dethguild.com/strait-one-party-voters-are-tools-of-the-ruling-class/ . Or maybe not so much “enjoy” as “sigh while nodding in displeased agreement”.
Yep, basically reluctant agreement; he’s right. If it comes to a battle between the two main sides, those I’ve described as the people who are outraged by what has happened to this country, and the others as those who are outraged by our outrage, there can’t be much in the way of compromise eventually and it may well come to bloodshed and a second Murkan civil war. The One Percent are perfectly fine with this, of course, being globalists who won’t mind mass die-offs and a reduction in the world’s population, simply because the current billions can’t be sustained much longer and even more billions are unthinkable. Take Zimbabwe as an example; once the last white farmers have fled or been murdered, the people there will revert to Stone Age tribalism again and most will die of plague and starvation. Multiple that across much of Africa, Asia and South America. And in our own country, much of the population can no longer tie their shoes, let alone fight any kind of battles.
But of those that can, we need only look to the history this guy mentions; once roused, the Anglo-American homo sapiens sapiens is a fearsome and bloody-fanged creature who will not stop until killed dead. Look back to the Union Army’s war on the South for a previous example and then multiply that by many millions and by the technology that has come about since then.
“Speaking of overbearing gummint, Oz is going down the tubes real fast now…”
…and these are he good guys! It’s their opposition that’s the socialists.
My guess is they’ll want their very own Gitmo, just so they can can be as stupid and as unjust as the USA, even if they do come late to the party.
However ,it’s the same party, enthusiastically supported by the socialists, who invoked our move to control illegal firearm use by punishing law-abiding firearm use; so what can you expect?
Certainly not logic, or even basic mathematics. Or economics. Record every internet access? Oh, yeah! Report in detail for years? My, my! Every day, in every way? There’s quite a few economical private access plans with unlimited volumes. I think it’s a job for Spiderman!
That’s about what I thought; at least there are two Oz citizens there with common sense, good to know.
You’ll both be picked up to answer some questions soon.
Don, that the current mob are right-wingers has nothing to do with privacy. Both sides down here don’t give a damn. There are differences between them, but both sides are united on this issue. Whenever ASIO and the cops snap their fingers they immediately bow down and ask them what they want and do it. And always it’s done to protect us from druggies, scammers, terrorists and paedophiles. Usually works too, many of the sheep don’t know they’re being conned.