Posted in libertarianism, tagged canada, cartoons, danish, discrimination, ezra levant, fee speech, freedom of speech, hate speech, islam, laws, liberty, offended feelings, rights on June 1, 2008 | No Comments »
OMG, this is so awesome!
But a little bit of background first. Ezra Levant is the publisher of Western Standard, a right-wing Canadian magazine. I quote from Glenn Greenwald’s post on Salon, where I first came across the video that appears next.
In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group’s imam to file a complaint against Levant [...]
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Posted in education, libertarianism, people, tagged absurd, anti-discrimination, civil rights, college, course, dartmouth, discrimination, education, freedom of speech, funny, harassment, laws, lawsuit, offended feelings, priya venkatesan, professor, studies, title vii on April 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
This case is so absurd that it is difficult to take it seriously. Priya Venkatesan, who taught writing this year at Dartmouth College, is threatening to sue former students under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for criticizing her in course feedbacks. This report has the details along with snippets of Ms Venkatesan’s own [...]
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Posted in news and links, people, politics, tagged atheism, atheist, belief, discrimination, freedom, harassment, iraq, jeremy hall, military, religious freedom, soldier on April 26, 2008 | 4 Comments »
From a CNN news story:
Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.
But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging he’s been harassed and his constitutional rights have been [...]
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Posted in India, education, libertarianism, tagged freedom, liberty, indian laws, caste, discrimination, laws, affirmative action, quotas, arjun singh, education, equality, reservations, private institutions on April 25, 2008 | No Comments »
Buoyed by its Supreme Court success on the reservation issue, the Indian government now wants to introduce quotas in private educational institutions as well.
I quote from the report in the Telegraph (emphasis mine) :
The Centre plans to table a bill to introduce quotas and control fees in private higher education institutes in the monsoon session [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged anti-discrimination, anti-discrimination laws, artistic freedom, discrimination, elane, first amendment, freedom, freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, laws, new mexico, photography, sexual orientation on April 15, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I posted earlier about the Elane Photography case. The New Mexico Human Rights commission issued its opinion today, holding Elane Photography guilty of discrimination. As Eugene Volokh discusses here, the breadth of the decision is astounding and ostensibly covers other businesses of a similar nature. For instance, freelance writers — by the same logic employed by the [...]
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Posted in India, libertarianism, tagged affirmative action, arjun singh, caste, discrimination, education, equality, freedom, iim, iit, India, indian constitution, laws, market, obc, quota, reservation, supreme court, supreme court of india on April 10, 2008 | No Comments »
The Supreme Court judgement on the OBC reservation issue should not surprise anyone. After all, the Supreme Court’s job isn’t to make laws but merely to ascertain whether existing laws were broken. And in the present case, the Supreme Court decided that nothing in the Indian Constitution prevents Arjun Singh from adding a 27% quota [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged anti-discrimination, civil liberties, discrimination, first amendment, free speech, freedom, freedom of expression, laws, race, volokh on April 10, 2008 | No Comments »
Eugene Volokh writes about a hypothetical scenario involving a mixed-race couple in the photography incident:
The desire to prevent race discrimination should no more dissolve your right to be free from being compelled to speak (here, to create an artistic work) than it should dissolve the right to express bigoted views, to choose members of a racist [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged anti-discrimination, anti-discrimination laws, civil liberties, civil rights, discrimination, first amendment, freedom, freedom of expression, laws, photography, right to associate, volokh on April 9, 2008 | No Comments »
In America, you have freedom of expression and freedom of association, except when you don’t. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, one does not really have the right to decide who one hires, or rents out one’s apartment to, allows inside one’s restaurant, or does business with. If you refuse to deal with someone commercially because [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, news and links, tagged anti-discrimination, civil liberties, civil rights, discrimination, freedom, gays, jason dixon, liberty, offended feelings on February 3, 2008 | No Comments »
I stumbled upon this excellent article by Jason Dixon on anti-discrimination laws which parallel my thoughts on the subject. While Jason’s article focusses on sexual-orientation, it could apply equally well to any other protected characteristic such as race, gender or age.
It is not a comfortable position to defend the rights of bigots who do not [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, politics, tagged anti-discrimination, civil liberties, civil rights, civil rights act, david bernstein, discrimination, fair housing act, freedom, liberty, offended feelings, property rights, right to associate, ron paul, volokh on December 17, 2007 | 6 Comments »
Rights and “Rights”
John and Terry Hoffius own an apartment building in Jackson, Michigan. In the summer of 1993, they had a vacancy and advertised it. They were contacted by a couple, Kristal McCready and Keith Kerr, who expressed interest in renting it. When asked if they were married, McCready and Kerr replied in the negative. [...]
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