134th Edition
Discrimination
Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal for businesses like hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other places open to the public to discriminate against customers based on race, color, religion, or national origin. There is now an ongoing debate about whether businesses should be prohibited from discriminating against customers based on political beliefs. For example, should an ice cream shop operated by liberals be able to refuse to sell an ice cream cone to a person wearing a MAGA hat? Or could a conservative restaurant owner refuse a table to a couple wearing Black Lives Matter tee shirts?
Recently, an employee at an Office Depot refused to print a poster of Charlie Kirk for a customer. That employee was apparently fired. Should employees be able to express their political beliefs by refusing to conduct business with someone who holds an opposing political view?
My sense is the Office Depot employee would have had no problem selling general office supplies to the customer. What the employee objected to was producing a poster supporting a political viewpoint he didn’t support. One argument contends that this would fall under freedom of speech laws. Creating the poster would have forced the employee to support a political cause he didn’t agree with. Certainly, the customer could have gotten the poster made at another office supply store whose employees supported the poster’s views.
But I think there is something missing within this line of reasoning. When you are an employee, you get paid to do a certain job. If doing that job requires you to perform a task that offends you, like making a poster in support of a political view you despise, then go find a different job, one that wouldn’t present such philosophical challenges. Good luck finding such a job.
Do the same rules apply to business owners? Can a business refuse to serve a person because they disagree politically? Currently there are no laws or legal precedents that would prohibit such policies. What would society look like if we had separate grocery stores, restaurants, and department stores for liberals and conservatives? It’s a silly idea to even contemplate, isn’t it? But is that where we are headed?
Political polarization has existed for quite a while, and it isn’t going away. Maybe it doesn’t need to. Maybe we can just agree to disagree and never discuss emotionally-charged issues like politics or religion. Spend our time only with people who think and look just like us. What harm would that do to our country?
The by-product of continued polarization is an unquenchable thirst for power at the highest levels of our government as well as within the private sector. Fear and distrust drive the political process and impact business decisions. Absent trust, the goal for each side becomes making sure, at all costs, that the other side doesn’t win. Finding common ground, or win-win solutions becomes a secondary consideration at best.
Under this environment, corruption, inefficiency, and underutilization of resources will rob of us of our full potential, both individually and collectively. Progress, in any form, economically or socially, will result despite, not because of, the workings of the power-obsessed leaders within both the public and private sectors. Over time, individual freedom, economic mobility, and basic civility will all suffer. Kind of like what is happening now throughout our country. We are not doomed to continue along this path of disunity. However, it will take something or someone extraordinary to redirect us.
If we remain divided how does this all end? Should our country divide into two? Have we done so already, at least practically? I hope someday I can write a blog about how our country is coming together. I hope it won’t be because World War III has started. I’ll give the last word of this blog to Albert Einstein who had an interesting comment about WW III. When he was asked what weapons might be used in WW III he responded, “I have no idea. But World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Yikes.
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Michael Kayes
*These views are my personal opinions and are not the viewpoints of any company or organization.