Yesterday, I posted an entry about SB 1062 in Arizona. The post was a critique of larger social trends rather than analysis of the bill. Frankly, the bill is was a shitty one and Brewer was right to veto it. I said to a friend later that my default policy position was, “do it right or don't do anything at all.” For the love of god, can we please stop with the “we've got to do something” train of thought? “Anything is better than nothing.” No, actually, it's not. Sometimes you're better off living with a problem that trying to fix it incompetently.
Which brings us to SB 1062. What was the right thing to do? Why did my post seem to support the idea of the bill, or, at least, criticize those who were protesting? It's easier to just answer by using a hypothetical. Suppose we have a society where there is simply a broad-strokes law stating that it is illegal for any business to deny service based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation.... (blah, blah, blah, list every other human – or thing – classification you can think of here) etc. Suppose further that there is a bill before the rulers that would abolish this law.
Here's where things get tricky and where I lose people. I have no problem with such a bill. If I'm walking down the street and I see a business with a sign that reads “Open to the Public 9 am – 10 pm. No Blacks. No Gays.”, I don't give a shit. What is that to me? I'm not stubbornly going out of my way to sound like an asshole (“just being one,” you say), but I do not care. It could say “No Whites” and still nothing. I'm not going to applaud the owner for doing what he wants to do and sticking it to the gov'ment but I'm probably not going to picket. I just don't care. And since I don't care, I don't think I should say he can't do it. I don't think anyone should. If that makes me a son of a bitch, then fine. Go ahead and judge me.
(Excuse me while I make a chickenshit appeal to your sensibilities. I don't think I should have to and that this post stands on its own, but this is kind of obligatory in today's world when discussing controversial topics. That's actually what makes me want to avoid it. Avoid putting on the “hero hat” as Adam Carolla calls it. But here goes. This is completely true, and to be honest, it feels good to say: I would abhor such bigoted behavior as described above. The thought of patronizing an establishment with a sign like I wrote above disgusts me. Mentally disgusts me. Maybe saying this now makes me a hypocrite, but I think it's akin to the “I don't agree with what you say, but I support your right to say it.” Maybe not. I guess I do care somewhere in my black heart about what people think about me.)
A friend of mine tried making some distinction between a boutique and a business that is “open to the public.” I had never heard of such a thing. Maybe I'm ignorant, but I don't think when one goes down to the business permits section at the local government shopping center there are separate shelves for “open to the public” businesses and “not open to the public” businesses.
Anyway, my friend seemed to think that if you are open to the public, then you must accept whatever the public is. He said things like “this is America” and “here you can't discriminate” and “it's what's right.” (He also did that condescending thing we all do in arguments when we make it personal by unnecessarily repeating the person's name to whom we are speaking despite the fact that there is no one else present – as if that somehow makes our argument more clear or will shake our opponent out of his stupor.) I admit, I was not sure how I felt about it in the moment. Of course, that's how I always am when I get new information, I need time to process it and work through it mentally before arriving at what I think is a solid opinion. Maybe it just means I'm a dimwit. But if I accept that premiss I might as well just kill myself now.
But the point was taken. An open-to-the-public business is, in this theory, part of the public sector, enjoys advertising indiscriminately, uses the same roads as the rest of us, the same power grids, the same military, etc. What right do they have to participate in society as a business of this type and then deny service to anyone that has equal rights in the same society? I think I'm characterizing his argument well and I don't think it's a bad argument. (But we are wandering dangerously close to the “you didn't build that” frame of mind. Of course, you may like it that way.) As always, it comes down to personal values. And based on what I wrote above, you get an idea of my personal values.
As a society, we have decided that such behavior is unacceptable. Such a bill as the one I proposed above would make the peasants so unruly it would simply be foolish to pass it. Worded another way, in a more democratic context, the majority of the people would oppose the bill. Additionally, there is no discernible economic advantage to be gained and any gains in personal freedom (which may not be a net gain depending on who you ask) would be negligible in the face of the mass unrest from the general opposition. In these regards, even given my hypothetical efficient and unambiguous bill, it would be wise to leave it unpassed. This is especially true in the case of SB 1062, since it was, according to the conservative and liberal blogs I read (take from them what you will), as well as twitter, written by idiots and bigots.
So I guess another crisis was adverted thanks to the efforts of our modern thinking. And so I say again: fight on, forward-thinkers. Forward until dawn.
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