[aeturnum]

Simply, denying someone a service because you dislike them is a harm. It's less stark than some harms, but it's clearly along a line that ends in direct violence. If someone is starving and has money to pay for your food, but you refuse to sell to him, you share some responsibility for his death.

Obviously, we allow people to cause harms under certain circumstances. Self defense is one, situations where we have competing rights is another. The standard we've come to is that, in order to be allowed to offer services and goods in the US, you also need to agree to obey our laws, which includes the protection of certain 'protected classes' - which are generally seen as qualities a human has that are not entirely voluntary (sex, sexual orientation [in some places], race, national origin, disability, age, citizenship status and religion). Other qualities are not protected. You are allowed, for instance, to deny service to anyone who doesn't like Seinfeld, or to ugly people, or any other non-protected class.

At the end of the day, I don't think its in our interest to allow commercial activity with no rules. Everyone benefits from having some elements of their identity that cannot lead to them being denied services. It's true that sometimes you have to suck it up - but that's a drawback we all share as well.

[betwixthewires]

I can see how systematically denying someone services is harm, but refusal to engage with someone as an individual? I'm not convinced. At the end of the day you're compelling someone to perform work they don't want to do.

And I understand the "rules of our society" stuff, but I'm trying to get at it on principle. And I am not saying commerce should happen with no rules, that's a different discussion, I'm talking about this specific set of rules.

[calciphus]

This case like many others isn't about private individuals - it's about a business (even a business of one) - whereby someone receives all manner of structure supported by the institutions around them in return for abiding by the laws that bind such entities.

Declaring oneself a business comes with protections for the individual in exchange for agreeing to serve society at large. Refusing to do so is failing to uphold the obligations one agreed to.

[betwixthewires]

Every human being is a business. You don't declare yourself a business, you trade with your peers to survive and thrive. To talk about doing business like it is some privilege bestowed upon you by the state is really just rationalizing the level of control they've taken in recent years.

[todorus]

Are you wilfully ignoring that there is a legal definition of what a business is, that the issue at hand is spoken about in a legal context? Your personal semantics are irrelevant in that context.

[betwixthewires]

Yes, I am, because I'm trying to avoid the discussion being taken to a place where we argue past each other about what the law says and keep it on track, discussing the fundamentals of why things should or shouldn't be this way.

[aeturnum]

Again, we've settled on rules that allow you to deny a particular person because you don't like them. The scenario where you won't sell food to someone who is starving to death - totally legal, as long as you refuse based on personal dislike. The thing we won't allow is, again, discrimination based on the protected classes I listed. The logic is that, while we have some control over if people like us, we have no control over our membership in a protected class (and all people are members of some part of each class).

[nathanaldensr]

To extend your use of "compelling," in my opinion, the end goal of these arguments is to give the State the power to force you to perform work (State-sanctioned slavery) regardless of your personal beliefs. The specifics of who is demanding the work be done and who is doing the work are honestly irrelevant.