In a free society, no one would be forced to exchange with anyone else. Your property is yours, your neighbor's property is his, and exchanges would be voluntary.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a free society, but one where people seek to force others to make exchanges that they wouldn't make on their own volition. The coercive exchanges are (of course) enforced by the violent and aggressive government.
Check out how Jeb Bush dances around the issue of merchants who don't want to exchange with gay people:
“The answer to this is, if someone walks into a flower shop and says, ‘I’d like to buy flowers,’ you shouldn’t be able to discriminate against them because they are gay. But if you’re asking someone to participate in a religious ceremony or a marriage, they should have the right of conscience to be able to say, ‘I love you, but I can’t do it because it goes against my religious teachings,’”So Jeb believes that government should force all merchants to sell to gay people, unless the gay people are performing some type of ceremony. If there's a ceremony the merchants can say "I love you (???) but I don't want to make this exchange".
Leave it to a campaigning politician to utter such nonsense. Jeb, in trying to straddle the issue like a jockey, but he only ends up looking like a fool.
Of course, this conversation wouldn't be happening in a free society. A person's religious views would also be irrelevant. People could exchange with whoever they want, and reject making exchanges for any reason whatsoever.
In fact, customers do have that kind of freedom right now. Customers are free to discriminate for whatever reason they want, and against anyone that they want. A customer can see a gay merchant and walk right by the store, swearing that he'd never step foot into it. Jeb will not force the customer to buy, even though there is blatant discrimination.
Choosing against making an exchange is not an aggressive act. It may be bad for business. It may be stupid in some people's opinions. It may offend some people. But it is not aggression.
Government illogic dictates that they must use aggression to combat non-aggression.
Hence the never-ending conflict.
Chris Rossini is author of Set Money Free: What Every American Needs To Know About The Federal Reserve. Follow @chrisrossini on Twitter.
He should be able to say "I love you". Stupid like this is the Christian thing to do bull. Sure don't want someone to scream at you that you are judging someone. I can't stand politicians who are so called Christians.
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck is wrong with saying, "I hate you and don't want to help you!" Or, I find your lifestyle so abhorrent I want nothing to do with you and don't want your business?
Even Libertarians seem way to worried about being politically correct these days. Freedom of association, and more importantly, freedom of conscience, and not if you only say "no" politely, is the essence of Liberty.
Anything outside of this is tyranny.