Fox News' John Stossel: yet another bigot

[Klaatu]

Stossel calls for repeal of public accommodations section of Civil Rights Act
"Private businesses ought to get to discriminate"
May 20, 2010 2:41 pm ET

From the May 20 edition of Fox News' America Live:

KELLY: Rand Paul is a libertarian. You are a libertarian. He is getting excoriated for suggesting that the Civil Rights act -- what he said was, "Look it's got 10 parts, essentially; I favor nine. It's the last part that mandated no discrimination in places of public accommodation that I have a problem with, because you should let businesses decide for themselves whether they are going to be racist or not racist. Because once the government gets involved, it's a slippery slope." Do you agree with that?

STOSSEL: Totally. I'm in total agreement with Rand Paul. You can call it public accommodation, and it is, but it's a private business. And if a private business wants to say, "We don't want any blond anchorwomen or mustached guys," it ought to be their right. Are we going to say to the black students' association they have to take white people, or the gay softball association they have to take straight people? We should have freedom of association in America.

KELLY: OK. When you put it like that it sounds fine, right? So who cares if a blond anchorwoman and mustached anchorman can't go into the lunchroom. But as you know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came around because it was needed. Blacks weren't allowed to sit at the lunch counter with whites. They couldn't, as they traveled from state to state in this country, they couldn't go in and use a restroom. They couldn't get severed meals and so on, and therefore, unfortunately in this country a law was necessary to get them equal rights.

STOSSEL: Absolutely. But those -- Jim Crow -- those were government rules. Government was saying we have white and black drinking fountains. That's very different from saying private people can't discriminate.

KELLY: How do you know? How do you know that these private business owners, who owned restaurants and so on, would have said, "You know what? Yes. We will take blacks.

STOSSEL: Some wouldn't.

KELLY: We'll take gays. We'll take lesbians," if they hadn't been forced to do it.

STOSSEL: Because eventually they would have lost business. The free market competition would have cleaned the clocks of the people who didn't serve most customers.

KELLY: How do you know that, John?

STOSSEL: I don't. You can't know for sure.

KELLY: That then was a different time. Racism and discrimination was rampant. I'm not saying it's been eliminated. But it was rampant. It was before my time, before I was born, but obviously I've read history, and I know that there is something wrong when a person of color can't get from state to state without stopping at a public restroom or a public lunchroom to have a sandwich.

STOSSEL: But the public restroom was run by the government, and maybe at the time that was necessary.

KELLY: But that's not what Rand Paul said. Rand Paul agreed that if it's run by the government, yes intervention is fine. He took issue with the public accommodations, with private businesses being forced to pony up under the discrimination laws.

STOSSEL: And I would go further than he was willing to go, as he just issued the statement, and say it's time now to repeal that part of the law

KELLY: What?

STOSSEL: because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.
source
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005200033

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

This is absolute idiocy, but it should be addressed because obviously some racists are using this line to make their bigotry look more friendly.


Are we going to say to the black students' association they have to take white people, or the gay softball association they have to take straight people? We should have freedom of association in America.
The difference is that a business is supposed to have a public function. A client at a business is not a member of any type of organization. Private organizations are allowed to bar people from membership, you can't just associate yourself with NASA and say they're discriminating against you when they tell you "Umm, no, you're not part of NASA and you don't represent it in any way." But this is just a conservative strawman, because every Latino/Black/Multiracial/LGBT group at the schools I've been to will let anyone in, and in fact welcome allies, so John Stossel is just drumming up pure racist bullshit.

There is no "slippery slope." Either you tolerate racism or you don't.

[Klaatu]

Can we label Stossel's position as one of Capitalist Fascism?

[GreenCommunism]

more like white supremacist democracy. something interesting is that good entreprenaurs are spineless and frequently use fraud to further their profits. thus such businessman wouldn't give a shit during hitler's germany if they sold goods to jews if there was no laws. no matter how racist they were.

i hate how the libertarians answer to everything is boycott them if you don't agree.

[Robocommie]

Libertarian capitalists are idiots. So what else is new?

What I love is how, if you watch the clip at the link, she goes on to say that racism and discrimination is awful, implying it's a crime against society (it is) and Stossel responds that people discriminate all the time, with deciding what to eat, who to have as friends, who to marry.

These people always say, "Oh I agree, racism is awful, but we can't fight it by restricting people's rights." And then if you push them on it long enough, they say retarded shit like a broad defense of discrimination in general and reveal the racist mindset underneath.

[Ocean Seal]

If you have the power to stop racism in the workplace and you don't it's the same thing as mandating racial supremacy. Looking away isn't the answer.

[GreenCommunism]

that would be harassment, not discrimination of customers.

[Nwoye]

I really don't find this racist, more disastrously stupid. I think it's just Libertarianism taken to its logical conclusion.

[GreenCommunism]

i think some of them are naively not racist. but believe that there would be boycotts of such stores. and as i said. why the hell would a good businessman prevent potential customer from buying his products? though i guess some more racist town could actually go to that businessman since there are no non-whites going there.

[Jimmie Higgins]

i think some of them are naively not racist. but believe that there would be boycotts of such stores. and as i said. why the hell would a good businessman prevent potential customer from buying his products? though i guess some more racist town could actually go to that businessman since there are no non-whites going there.I don't know, ask Denneys or ask the white supremacist who founded Carl's Jr. or ask the business owners in the south that put up confederate flags, ask the liquor store chains. Ask the mortgage lenders why blacks and latinos have been given worse deals, ask the banks why they consider blacks a poor investment, ask supermarkets why they don't open stores in poor black, white, latino, or Asian neighborhoods. Before the civil rights movements many private businesses in the NORTH or cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco where jim-crow never existed as law were segregated for customers and workers alike.

We live in an racist and increasingly re-segregated society - stores cater to that too - bars, restaurants, housing development owners.

[GreenCommunism]

I don't know, ask Denneys or ask the white supremacist who founded Carl's Jr. or ask the business owners in the south that put up confederate flags, ask the liquor store chains. Ask the mortgage lenders why blacks and latinos have been given worse deals, ask the banks why they consider blacks a poor investment, ask supermarkets why they don't open stores in poor black, white, latino, or Asian neighborhoods. Before the civil rights movements many private businesses in the NORTH or cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco where jim-crow never existed as law were segregated for customers and workers alike.

We live in an racist and increasingly re-segregated society - stores cater to that too - bars, restaurants, housing development owners.

meh, you're absolutly right. libertarianism is an excuse for racism. i change my mind. i still think there's a fringe number who honestly believe they aren't racist, but i guess you are right. the founders and the majority are racist. for example there was some talk about the tea party and some pointed out there are more blacks on the stage than there are blacks in the audience.

actually when it comes to bar i can understand this, some city not so far away apparently have segregation in bars. there are periods where there is desegregation, and period where there's resegregation.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Right, I don't think a lot of rank and file libertarians consider themselves racist or are overtly racist in attitude themselves, but I think accommodating racism would be taking their ideology to its logical conclusion. I'm sure Ron and Rand Paul don't consider themselves racist, but their weird political outlook which is based in concerns of the petty bourgeois (is it me or do all these tea-party nuts all seem to be Doctors and Dentists) and doesn't really fit the reality experienced by most workers* leads them to ignore history and social realities so that their gubment=bad, business=pure and good worldview works. If they acknowledged that big companies like Denneys and Woolworths or banks and lenders had self-imposed racist policies at some time, their whole worldview comes into question. So, the ignore racism (at best) or try and argue that it's subjective or whatever.

*Thread Derailment:lol:: If tea-party people think that the IRS is the worst example of government bureaucracy, they have obviously never been at the wrong end of the court and police system (both parts of the government which are apparently fine according to tea-party people). Also if they think that government always creates waste and bureaucracy while business is efficient and good... well I'd love to take them to wait in line with me when I have a dispute with PG&E. By the way, I over-paid taxes and under-reported my refund this year and the IRS, corrected it and gave me A BIGGER REFUND than I expected. I can't in a million years imagine PG&E or my phone company voluntarily notifying me that I over-paid my electric and gas bill. Not that the IRS or taxes in the US are great since it just goes to help the rich anyway, but I think these examples show how cushoned from the facts of life in the US, these tea-partiers are (I mean there are a lot more people who are worried about healthcare or their health insurance than there are people who are afraid of death panels).

[GreenCommunism]

If tea-party people think that the IRS is the worst example of government bureaucracy, they have obviously never been at the wrong end of the court and police system

well i think ron paul wants to privatize the police system. but the tea party is something else though.

the only good point they have is that jim crow laws were from the government so business who didn't want segregation were forced to, and as society become less racist they could slowly change. but that's still bullshit. personally i think they don't understand how rude it is to be kicked out of a place based on your race or having a sign that says no blacks here. and in some ways it's purely the racist attitudes of the owners. some owner might be okay with blacks but dislike mexicans so no mexican is allowed in his business.

i hate how in the usa hate speech is protected by freedom of speech, the libertarians don't even have to argue for that.

[Ocean Seal]

More racism comes because there are those who believe that racism is a civil liberty. It is not a freedom to take away someone's economic rights under any circumstances. There goes the bullshit equal opportunity argument that the capitalists love to make.

[the last donut of the night]

one day fuckers like him will burn

[Jimmie Higgins]

More racism comes because there are those who believe that racism is a civil liberty. It is not a freedom to take away someone's economic rights under any circumstances. There goes the bullshit equal opportunity argument that the capitalists love to make.So true. This is such a twisted argument. In Oakland there is a far-right law-firm that just opened and they argue that by not firing openly gay teachers, the state is persecuting Christians (and their right to persecute homosexuals and non-right-wing Christians presumably?). The main lawyer compares attempts to maintain the separation of church and state and allow LGBT people to have rights to the NAZIs oppressing Jews.

Man the right-wing is so fucking nuts and disconnected from reality - we urgently need movements of oppressed people that will quickly shut these absurd claims of right-wing christian persecution and "racism/sexism" against white males down for good!

[RedStarOverChina]

I hear this bullshit from capitalists all the time. But it's the first time the view becomes "legitimised" on TV, as far as I know.

[ZeroNowhere]

Stossel may be silly, but that conversation hardly shows him to be bigoted.


Can we label Stossel's position as one of Capitalist Fascism?I think that 'capitalist fascism' is largely redundant.

[GreenCommunism]

The main lawyer compares attempts to maintain the separation of church and state and allow LGBT people to have rights to the NAZIs oppressing Jews.

will someone tell them nazis gassed LGBT people?

[Red Commissar]

Stossel is a nut. Particularly in the past three years his fetish for "free" markets has intensified and he tries to work it into everything that the government should have no role in the markets.

Make the claim on TV only proves he's a nut, but I guess he's following suit of Rand Paul who essentially believes the same thing.

[Klaatu]

More racism comes because there are those who believe that racism is a civil liberty. It is not a freedom to take away someone's economic rights under any circumstances. There goes the bullshit equal opportunity argument that the capitalists love to make.

Agreed. Racism is the ultimate antithesis of civil liberty. Is Rand Paul, et al,
just too dumb to see this? Or are they hiding behind a cloak of "business
owners' rights" in order to mask their rabid racism?

Who the fuck ever heard of "discrimination rights" in public venues? :cursing:

[¿Que?]

I hear this bullshit from capitalists all the time. But it's the first time the view becomes "legitimised" on TV, as far as I know.
That's something along the lines to what I was thinking. Us lefties are always talking about how to make our views more palatable to the average person, and here are some racism apologists who are taking their message mainstream. Are we losing the battle of ideas, or do they just have more resources?

[Nolan]

That's something along the lines to what I was thinking. Us lefties are always talking about how to make our views more palatable to the average person, and here are some racism apologists who are taking their message mainstream. Are we losing the battle of ideas, or do they just have more resources?

Well obviously these closet racists have bourgeois backing. That's why you hear this type of thing all the time on tv and on the internet.

[Kyrite]

Did I just hear him right in that video? Did he compare racism to not wanting to eat a certain type of sandwich? :blink: