[misslibby]

> American firms mostly simply did not hire black people until the law forced them to (especially to skilled-labor jobs). And the evidence that this restriction was primarily based on racial prejudice is overwhelming.

Even if that was the case, which I don't think was universally true, either, it doesn't mean companies should be forced to hire people based on race. It seems more likely black people simply took a longer time to work their way up, as a lot of them started from a "lower" starting point in terms of education and resources.

You shouldn't trust your school education too much, btw. It is obvious that many schools and teachers also push an agenda.

In any case, there were laws mandating segregation (admittedly I only just learned that those Jim Crow laws were actually only in place in the South), which were eventually abandoned. Blaming free markets for that seems completely misguided.

And why do you think of companies as white run businesses that would discriminate against black people? For sure there were also black run businesses, or they gradually emerged once they became legal.

Even today we see a lot of businesses who are racist against white people, and businesses that advertise with being "black owned" - so discrimination based on skin color still seems to be pretty normal and accepted.

> Hey, you're right! Although as of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, borrowers are entitled to have their skin color ignored when they request a loan.

How would that even work? It's a bullshit law that leads to bullshit lawsuits, would be my expectation. And probably also to loans that should not have been handed out, because people fear the lawsuits.

And no, owning a business does not make you exempt from the law. But laws are debatable. Pouring toxic waste into the environment impacts other people. Your hiring decisions do not. It is not nearly in the same category of regulations. People should not be forced to hire people they don't want to hire, period. If you don't like some hiring decisions, you are free to start your own business and hire the people that you think should be hired.

[shadowgovt]

> Pouring toxic waste into the environment impacts other people. Your hiring decisions do not.

This is the crux of our disagreement. I can say nothing to this other than you are wrong and have failed to grasp American history and the effects of the law of averages.

[misslibby]

What does it have to do with the law of averages?

It certainly has nothing to do with American history. It is a fundamental principle.

[shadowgovt]

I don't think you've actually stated the fundamental principle in question.

Meanwhile, the ERA and EEA have basically everything to do with American history. We tried letting people self-organize into not being racist and misogynistic (and later, homophobic). They did not. And because denying people an opportunity to work or own property or start a business based on race (or, for that matter, gender or sexual orientation) is counter to the principles of equality America pursues, we tied the right to own a corporation to respecting those principles. America has never recognized a "right to incorporate," or a "right to be one's own boss;" it's neither enshrined in the Constitution nor mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (you could loosely lump it under "pursue happiness," but there's plenty of things in that category that aren't fundamental rights, so it' a weak justification at best).

(Law of averages: there were outlier cases of local areas where black people experienced more equitable treatment. Tulsa Oklahoma, until the white folk in town burned down the black businesses. But on average, black people could expect to be treated worse than white people in business opportunities, discriminated against taking out loans to start their own companies, and discriminated against in employment. For answers to "Why didn't they just form their own businesses / fix the situation amongst themselves," besides the notion of 'separate but equal' proving completely unworkable after several generations of trying it, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre for examples of what happened when black folks tried to self-organize to get ahead.

In short: we outlawed all that crap for a reason... A long, bloody, mutliple-generations-tried-private-solutions-it-didn't-work reason).

Other countries have different histories of racism (or misogyny or homophobia) so arrived at different conclusions. The law is path-dependent.

(TBH, you seem pretty hung up on what my country does in this regard for someone who isn't even beholden to these laws).

[misslibby]

The principle is that nobody should be forced to employ somebody they don't want to employ.

Right to be one's own boss: it is called freedom. It doesn't have to be written in the constitution with those exact words. I don't think the US is a socialist country just yet.

And your narrative of letting people self-organize seems wrong. There were laws mandating segregation. That is not self-organization, but government interference.

Obviously murdering people and burning down businesses is and should be illegal.

[shadowgovt]

> The principle is that nobody should be forced to employ somebody they don't want to employ.

Why?

> Right to be one's own boss: it is called freedom.

That has never been any kind of guaranteed right. And, I cannot stress this enough, you can do that and be compliant with all of these laws if you just work for yourself and don't have many employees. Most of these laws don't even kick in for firms under a certain size.

> There were laws mandating segregation.

So once those laws were rendered unenforceable, why do you think they then needed an Equal Rights Act in addition? Check the history.

> Obviously murdering people and burning down businesses is and should be illegal.

Of course, and it was, but if the law is unenforced it might as well not be.

That's why the federal government stepped in, because the states were not protecting the rights of citizens.