Your example is specifically barred by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as decided in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), and Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948), as well as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, codified at 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619, aka "The Fair Housing Act"
Because it used to happen.
We are all aware that the law has various (mostly arbitrary) limits. The question being asked is what consistent limit should be applied in general?
You can describe them as erroneous or ineffective --- the way you could describe virtually any regulation --- but you can't make that argument about them.
Since this distinction seems pretty obvious, I have to wonder why you'd pretend not to see it.
You can add to it various pretexts as erroneous and ineffective justification, e.g. "black people are more likely to be dangerous criminals than non-blacks, we don't want passengers getting robbed", if that makes the question clearer.
I'm also confused by your last line. Why do you believe I'm "pretending" something? I'm simply pointing out what the core philosophical question is.
I know how I justify my moral positions - my opposition to protectionism (either pro-white or pro-medallion owner) is driven by my opposition to violence. But when you give up opposition to violence - which you must do if it's acceptable to protect medallion owners with violence - I don't know how to oppose pro-white protectionism. What makes non-whites deserving of protection from bad laws but non-medallion owners undeserving?
I get the impression you have a different moral conclusion, but I have no idea how you reach it in a logically consistent manner. I take it you refuse to state your principles?
There's not much of a reason to let this subthread get any deeper, is there?
In the United States, this question is answered by Federal Laws which define Protected Classes [0].
Non-medallion owners are not a protected class (yet) according to US Federal Law.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
EDIT: provide link
To quote myself a couple of lines up: "We are all aware that the law has various (mostly arbitrary) limits. The question being asked is what consistent limit should be applied in general?"
I.e. the question is "aught", you are merely reiterating what "is" (which no one disagrees with).
A quick visit to the link I provided in my earlier comment shows a diverse range of peoples grouped together as protected classes
• Race
• Color
• Religion
• Nationality
• Age
• Sex
• Pregnancy
• Citizenship
• Familial status
• Veteran status
• Genetic information
These groups are not identified by any "consistent limit" but by a wide range of legislation and case law. Protected classes are defined by the judicious and careful application of expert legal opinion among practitioners of jurisprudence and writers of US Federal legislation, practitioners who include but are not limited to Senators, members of Congress, scholars, historians, judges, attorneys, and expert witnesses.
In other words, there is no way to apply a rigid set of parameters ("consistent limit") to find what group of people should constitute a protected class.
Additionally, there are many considerations in establishing a protected class, some of those being whether membership in such a class is voluntary as well as whether members of a proposed protected class have historically, culturally, and socioeconomically been subject to unjust discrimination.
Now, whether non-medallion owning contractors ought to be a protected class I cannot say, but I can say that such a designation will not come from facile calls for consistency in determining members of a protected class.
EDIT: grammar, formatting, augmentation of series
Now, whether non-medallion owning contractors ought to be a protected class I cannot say, but I can say that such a designation will not come from facile calls for consistency in determining members of a protected class.
You are quite right that moral philosophy and other rational processes are not a way to appeal to the mob. Cheap slogans ("make America great again"), tribalism, flattery, shared sense of danger an shared enemies are far more effective. That's one thing (actually the only thing) I like about Trump - he isn't even pretending that there is any substance to politics. Definitely shines a light on the fallacy of democracy.
I remember once enjoying your comments. This recent turn you've taken towards subtly or not-so-subtly relitigating discrimination seems like it must be new. Did something happen? It's an unfortunate change.
I said the only thing I like about Trump is that he's shining a light on the flawed decisionmaking process that is democracy. The specific flaw is not that various anti-discrimination laws exist, but that laws exist due to a sequence of emotional reactions of the mob and historical accident rather than due to reasoning from a core set of principles.
I don't know what you think changed - I've always favored reason over religion and moral philosophy over doing what feels good. Consider various comments of mine on moral philosophy over the years, on a wide variety of topics (free speech, public access to beaches, corporate forms, internet shaming):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7068509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4230649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8365554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7068509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9901225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9126192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6819575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818871
I also truly don't understand why you are so offended by the idea that I consider anti-racism a consequence of my anti-violence position, rather than a core principle. Why is it so offensive that I oppose what you oppose, but I oppose it with different ideas?
Isn't it good that multiple chains of reasoning lead to the same conclusion? To me that suggests robustness in the conclusions. If you were willing to actually advance a logical argument in favor of these conclusions, I'd certainly be happy that something I believe is robust and not just a weird quirk of one set of axioms. Similarly, if a mathematical fact has multiple disparate proofs, I'm far more convinced that it's actually true.
Or is this simply religious hatred of an atheist who happens to live according to the principles of Christ cause they seem like a good idea?
So I've noticed that this isn't so much a consequence of some philosophical alignment of yours, which demands that any position or belief be defensible on the spot by the kind of first-order logic that an SAT solver could evaluate.
Rather: you seem to relish into coming as close as possible to the line of openly supporting racial and gender discrimination, and then retreating behind a smokescreen of "wrongthink" and "status hierarchy" when challenged.
You're better at this than Moldbug, but you seem to be playing the same game. And, like I said: my sense of it is that you've picked up this game pretty recently. Why?
You pretty explicitly refused to challenge me which is why I assumed you were seeking status rather than intellectual discussion. That's still the belief I hold. If you want to challenge my reasoning or axioms, please do! That's far more interesting.
I also have no idea why you think I'm somehow advocating discrimination or even coming close. Let me reiterate: "I know how I justify my moral positions - my opposition to protectionism (either pro-white or ..." "I'm pretty explicitly stating that I consider racism to be extrinsically bad..."
I suppose the fact that I've engaged in similar philosophical nerdery for years was just great planning - I've been secretly white supremacist for years and was just laying a deep internet cover? Of course if I had that kind of foresight and such strong pro-white feelings, don't you think I would have arranged my life slightly differently?
Consider the possibility that Lutherans don't secretly worship Satan, in spite of having slightly different pro-Jesus arguments than Catholics.
In any case, I also just realized why you've become so much more aggressively anti-intellectual. I doubt that your attempts to signal virtue to the enemies of meritocracy will work, but I do hope you guys survive their inevitable attacks when they figure out that stockfighter is basically a g-test. <- Notice the attempt to raise my own status, rather than engage in intellectual discourse?
For instance, your principle seems to allow discrimination against Jews/Muslims/people who engage in homosexual acts/promiscuous women/etc. And it seems to bar discrimination against, e.g., the short and ugly (at least if being ugly is not caused by being fat).
Do you endorse these conclusions? If not, then this clearly can't be your motivating principle.
Generally speaking, I reject discrimination against people based on any attributes, within or without their control, except those attributes which directly pertain to the subject in question. So, for example, in a job situation, ideally, the only attributes we should be using to discriminate between candidates are their experience, knowledge, and ability to fulfill the duties of the position. If the job requires lifting heavy weights, discriminating upon your ability to lift heavy weights is fine. Discriminating based on sex (maybe justified because statistically most women are not strong enough to perform the duties) is not fine, because it is an indirect attribute. If this women meets the requirements it is irrelevant what other women can or cannot do.
In this case with Uber and Lyft the city/state has the right (one could argue duty) to take steps to ensure the trustworthiness/safety of drivers operating commercial transportation services within its jurisdiction. Race does not say anything about the trustworthiness or criminal nature of a specific person. Even if, hypothetically, you assume that statistically one race is more prone to violence than another that does not speak directly about this candidate. It is an indirect measure like the example of sex above. An accurate background check, however, can shed light on facts in a person's past that are directly relevant to that question.
I made no such assumption. I merely pointed out that your principle doesn't prohibit such things.
In this case with Uber and Lyft the city/state has the right (one could argue duty) to take steps to ensure the trustworthiness/safety of drivers...Even if, hypothetically, you assume that statistically one race is more prone to violence than another that does not speak directly about this candidate.
Neither does past criminal history. Some criminals are reformed and will not commit crimes. Both past criminal history and race are statistical predictors of future criminal behavior. So are various things under one's control like the neighborhood they live in, their friends, etc.
It's a fact, and one I haven't fully come to grips with philosophically, that base rates matter. I.e., you'll do a better job predicting violence if you take race into account [1]. Actually using it makes me uncomfortable, but not using it is also burying our heads in the sand. From a moral philosophy perspective I'm simply confused.
I disagree that the limits in this domain in existing law are arbitrary; the Constitutional, statute, and case law rules have fairly clear motivation and rationale.