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April 27, 2010
In related news, freedom is slavery
David Cameron apparently sees no irony or contradiction in claiming that progressive voters should vote Conservative. For the most oxymoronic statement of the British election campaign, Mr Cameron wins a shiny new dictionary, from which in deference to anyone who falls for this the word “gullible” has been carefully removed.
In a particularly delicious irony, Cameron argued that “if you care about civil liberties” you should vote Conservative, apparently unaware that his shadow home secretary wants to allow B&B owners to discriminate against gay couples. Fail.
April 27, 2010 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Did you see Robin Laws' guide to voting in the UK?
The problem is.. I wouldn't trust any of them to play poker with my money.
Posted by: alasdair sinclair at Apr 27, 2010 8:43:47 PM
I didn't see that -- do you have a link?
Posted by: Ivan at Apr 27, 2010 8:49:37 PM
I can't see LJ from home for some annoying reason. His LJ address is http://robin-d-laws.livejournal.com/ and it's one of the most recent couple of entries, though he's a bit prolific, so it might have gone down the front page a bit since I was last online at Uni.
Posted by: alasdair sinclair at Apr 28, 2010 3:39:42 PM
I enjoy reading your posts. But I have a question... why can the owners of a business establishment not choose with whom they will do business?
For example, the billionaire Hindus who don't want meat eaten on the building site of the largest house in Australia (theirs), could have chosen a building company that complied with their specific predelictions.
The cafe owner in Invercargill that refuses to serve Israelis upsets liberals, but illustrates private property rights. People who don't like it are free to boycott such enterprises.
One final example, closer to your home. The Palmerston North motel that has banned anyone from Wainuiomata from staying.
So, whose civil liberties are at stake, when an accommodation provider decides that they do not want to do business with a prospective customer? The owner or the customer? Who is being wronged, if a business transaction is conducted that is not freely entered into by both parties, but is imposed by force by an outside party (some agency of the Government)?
Posted by: David White at May 1, 2010 2:06:07 PM
Why do property rights trump human rights? The owners of the hypothetical B&B *choose* to open their property to strangers, knowing the legal framework within which they operate. Nobody is forcing them to operate a B&B: anti-discrimination laws merely state that *if* you choose to offer accommodation for money, *then* you may not do so in a discriminatory way.
Posted by: Ivan at May 2, 2010 4:00:47 PM