Hypothetically, as an employer, I feel it would be an infringement upon my right of picking and choosing my employees, i.e. people willing to sell their labour to Me!!!

Only in a semantic sense.
"Well if you think "taking a life" and "not hiring someone" are either ethically or categorically equivalent," is more than enough to show that you find them very different and because we're talking about what's legal or not it's implied that the illegal one is more severe.

But if you don't think it's more severe then what about murder makes it ok to pass laws against it? Oh- looks like you actually got to that in the next bit.


That's a rather dodgy way of defining things. If everyone in town decided to not sell food to the negros and not provide them with transportation would they be taking a life or just keeping goods and services?

With the way our society is set up it's clearly visible that it's both of those things. By not allowing certain groups access to pay for whatever position you're taking a lot away from them. Abra has been calling me overly materialistic lately but the way you've just described the difference seems to genuinely have that problem.

But really, why would anyone object to discrimination if it didn't take anything away from people?

It's always puzzling why some people raise the issue of discrimination -- especially at the time of economic downturn, when the jobs are scarce???

I would think a time when more people are competing for the jobs would be PRIME opportunity for discrimination. It may be different if jobs were plentiful and difficult to fill.

Exactly!
...The fiarce competition!!!

So, why blame the discrimination? ? ?

well, I havent,, but I dont believe it all goes away regardless of the economy. There will be instances where employers are bigots and exclude applicants,,,and need to be contested.

Honestly, I doubt any reasonable employer would discriminate against an amazing employee -- marvelous skills, thorough knowledge, etc. -- who can multiply the employer's profits 10-fold!!!

A candidate would have to be hired before an employee could really determine those things. There are those with the bigotry to deny some the chance to ever show how 'marvelous' they are.

Leviticus and women being unclean longer for having birthed a girl chld versus a boy child.

From my own personal experience I would say that there are a lot of unreasonable employers out there.

The key problem with this whole discrinination concept is "where does one draw the line?"

Should discrimination against a candidate because they have too much experience be legal?

What if you, as an employer, don't like their hair color? Should you be allowed to discrininate against that? And what if it's pink with purple and green stripes?

Shouldn't "the public image of the company" be a valid criteria for evaluation of a candidate? Which then leads to the obvious question "What sort of image should be allowed for the company, if any, and what sort of image should the employer be allowed to reject a candidate for?



The whole problem to me is the creeping intrusion of group think being forced on the everyday life and activities of individuals. The reductio ad absurdum of this is everyone thinking and acting the same.

("Resistance is futile.")

ahh,, sometimes those lines are hard to draw, but still need to be drawn all the same

I think a good rule of thumb would be(and I think is) if you are at all subsidized by government money(taxpayers) or participate in paying taxes that the whole community pays,, your business should be making a REASONABLE attempt to represent those taxpayers who are helping you exist(either directly or indirectly), particularly in those areas where people have no option such as race and gender.

Well, that's a valid point for sure.

But then (playing devil's advaocate again here) supposing you own the largest company (measured in number of employees) in a rural southern community where racial discrimination is the norm. The combined takes paid by you, your company and your employees represents the majority of the taxes paid in the entire community. And if you and all the employees are racists, then racism would be representataive of those taxpayers who are helping you exist. So by not being racist, you would fact not be representing those taxpayers.

actually that happens already. If said community are in fact so predominately racist so that all of them are one race, that would pretty much be self fulfilling when it came to employment. However, if even ONE of those in the community are a different race, and paying taxes in that community,, they should not be excluded from the employment opportunities.

In las vegas, we have mormon businesses in which all employees must be SPONSORED by a mormon,,,but that is because the business itself is mostly funded by their congregation and even then, they dont exclude non mormons, they just require that they become involved somehow or be referred by someone who is.

That's why candidates bring their resumes and letters of referrence -- making it easy for an employer making her/his mind up!

The public image is of paramount importance for companies that deal with the public! Thus, if a candidate for a bank job arrives for the interview wearing jeans, an employer has every right to reject that particular candidate!

I agree about image as far as things that people can do something about,, like dress , make up, hair,,etc,,,,but not about race or gender

resumes and letters of reference are still not proof until that candidate is in the position, they give an idea of what that person has studied and where that person has worked, but that still does not tell an employer if the employee will be a productive worker or not for THEIR business, especially if its not a highly technical field.

That's happening in my home country, Hungary as well. Women get 3/4 of their regular salary tax-free for three years after each child birth.

The birth rate is still negative.

The country is trying to do its best to increase the birthrate with the extreme financial help. The government is bending over backward, but they're missing the point: they should bend the women over forward, and bang, problem solved.

So, WHY DON'T THEY??? Don't they understand such policy would increase the female Immigration from all over the world? ? ?

How could an employer even tell if one of the candidates was like that?

In my experience it's more of an attitude that they don't think certain races will even get them 1-fold profit. I read this one article where the people hiring for some low pay work said that there just weren't any black people working in the industry because they showed up two days after the hiring opened but an asian guy they hired recommended a black guy for a position who had already been turned down the starting day, was told there were no openings when he came by on recommendation, and the asian guy heard that they still had room the next day.

So it happens for no good reason and unless that's the only black guy that ever showed up on time you can tell it happens a lot.

When we say discrimination we're clearly talking about the race/gender variety. When being female makes you not fit the image they want it's gone a bit far.

That's not how representation works at all. Even if you didn't vote for the senator that covers your area s/he's still supposed to take your interests into account.

But why should businesses represent the citizens? I thought we had politicians for that and businesses most exploited the living crap out of people right up to the point where protesters and such could draw enough attention to it to make people not want to buy the product/service.