Arkansas Gun Range Owner Bans Certain People of a Certain Religion

[GodFearinGunTotin]

With this kind of rationale, you could justify any and all forms of government coercion and control over all aspects of business.

Mandated hours. Mandated wages. Mandated prices. Mandated products. Mandated anything. "If you don't like it, go away and do business elsewhere..."

Its a system based on coercion and force -- the antithesis of a free market.

Agreed. The "free market" is not: "if you do everything the government thinks you should, you get to run a business." That is the very definition of a centrally controlled "statist" government.

Having the "right" to close your business if the government requires something you don't like is kind of like having the freedom of speech to praise the government all you want and the right to shut up when you disagree. It is not a right. It is the absence ​of a right.

Agreed. (With both).

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

And here we see the classic Libertarian dilemma: To be intellectually honest about it - you have to be even handed in your approach. You have to grant that the rights apply to EVERYONE. Even bakery owners in COlorado. If a gun range owner has the right to refuse service to whomever they please, then so does a restaurant owner , and a bakery owner doesn't have to make wedding cakes for anyone that walks in the door.


This is why being a libertarian is hard. You have to grant the liberty EVEN WHEN YOU DISAGREE with what people are going to do with it.

The alternative - government getting in selective people's face over it - is generally worse in my opinion. I'll err on the side of liberty.

 

[HoughMade]

I would submit that respecting the property rights of others equally whether you agree or disagree, is not exclusively a libertarian value.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

I would submit that respecting the property rights of others equally whether you agree or disagree, is not exclusively a libertarian value.

I don't disagree with you here. That said, it is an illustration of a dilemma most commonly faced by libertarians, and is why intellectually honest ones are hard to find. It winds up boiling down to this question: would you give up YOUR favorite government program/restriction/intrusion on liberty if it meant that government would get rid of all of the ones that you'd like to be rid of? Most typical republicans are not willing to give up the restriction on marijuana in order to get the government out of their gun safe, for a cheesy example.

Another example - a good number of republicans would decry the welfare handout, but would shriek and howl if the farm subsidy went away. That's not an intellectually honest position.

Democrats are even worse in this department. So please don't think I've gone all mrjarrell or anything... just using convenient examples.

I would agree that more and more folks are coming around and are getting closer to being willing to do this - but few are intellectually honest enough to go all the way there.

 

[AA&E]

At the risk of the banhammer... I will point out that no two groups of adherents to ANY of the major religions (or even atheists for that matter) are the same. There is ALWAYS a spectrum. Some are more militant in their beliefs than others. If you lined up a million "martians" (for a quick example), there will be a militant group at one end and a peaceful group at the other end of the spectrum. Where one falls on that spectrum is arguably going to place you in the "greater vs lesser" threat category, as opposed to which major religion you are from. Some major religions/belief systems have more issues than others, but there is a militant/in-your-face bunch in all of them. And a peaceful, pretty cool, live and let live bunch at the other end of their specifications spectrum. Based on that - I choose not to discriminate based on the major religion that one might (or might not) belong to , and evaluate folks on an individual basis.

I have met people of all major religions (atheist included), whose sense of honor and decency would do any of us proud. And I have met some of all stripes who would I would be ashamed to be around any longer than I absolutely was required to.

Valid points. I too know an atheist that is one of the finest people I've ever known. I'd feel better about the muslim/islam thing if I saw the non extremists of the crowd stand up in opposition of the violence we see. Until that becomes the norm, I just cant feel like profiling them as all potenital threats is a bad move. I've seen FBI reports estimate as many as 30% of islamic followers have extremist tendances. Three of ten islamic followers believe killing infidels is appropriate in the eyes of Allah. Consider that, and ask yourself if the stance this woman has taken that unreasonable? I personally can't fault her for her way of thinking. Any other group, extremism runs into low single digit percentiles. Perhaps these people would get a pass... islam for now will stay suspect until I see them conduct themselves differently.