re: #511 Cerran

Not confused at all actually, and in fact there really are no “civil rights” there are only individual rights. The only legitimate function of government is to protect the rights of individuals.

You can assert that, but the history of legislation in this country says otherwise.

Equal rights of access to public business does not equal a right to have goods and services either. Business owners are free to not transact based on many criteria, including inability of the buyer to pay enough money. However, we as a nation have decided that they are not free to refuse service on some criteria. Indeed, we’ve decided that to do so violates the rights of the denied individual. And since you feel that’s the only role of government, one would think you’d be for it.

It’s interesting, almost cute, that you consider public utilities and services to be ‘forced’ on the public without their consent. One might argue that the willingness of the public to elect government that provides these services implies consent. Or one might say that if you feel the government imposes services and rights on you by force, it seems totally contradictory to suggest that the government solely exists to protect the individual, since one would think that your own, individual rights are absolutely the province of the individual to protect.

But ultimately you are free to believe whatever anarcho-libertarian ideals you wish. The vast majority of people in this country believe otherwise, and have believed otherwise for a long time. It’s a shame that you consider any form of regulation or rule on a market to make that market no longer free, because the greatest economic minds of history have always shown otherwise. And it’s a shame that you consider the rights of the individual to be somehow paramount over the rights of other individuals. I would ask by what criteria you want to pick the individuals who have rights over other individuals’ rights, but I don’t think I want to know.

Fortunately, reasonable people have voted and governed otherwise.