On Progressives and Libertarians, and Why "Property is Impossible"

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Blending of the Public and Private Sectors
3. Responsibly Reducing Businesses' Burdens
4. “Property is Impossible” (-P.J. Proudhon)
5. Boycotts and Discrimination

Content

1. Introduction

     I am glad to see progressive Democrats increasingly consider radical and even libertarian ideas, as well as systems like socialism and democratic socialism, in the last several years.

     While I may not always agree with them, I welcome the representation of these views, because that representation widens the range of acceptable debate, which is necessary to create a safe environment for free speech to flourish, and for people to become aware of many different ways of living.

     I am glad to see that more Democrats are getting fed up with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her refusal to consider impeaching George W. Bush, and then Donald Trump, have made her someone I could never support. Her refusal to impeach Bush in 2006 is probably what made me stop supporting the Democratic Party. I had supported for Kerry in 2004, but also admired Nader more at the time, but I wasn't eligible to vote, so that's beside the point.

     I appreciate that more and more progressive and left-leaning media sources are calling attention to the neoliberal establishment of the Democratic Party's support of crony capitalism. I especially admire Jimmy Dore, a Chicago-born, L.A.-based comedian turned political commentator and podcaster, who has been putting out progressive content with a lot of potential crossover appeal to libertarians. Dore has admitted on his show to admiring Senator Rand Paul's foreign policy, but not so much his domestic policy.

     I wrote the following article as an email to Mr. Dore about what progressives and libertarians have in common, but also about what they both get wrong about private property. Namely, how private property is protected, what happens when property owners invite the state to help protect their property, and whether most “private property” in America today is truly as private as people think it is.

     Another goal of this piece was to explain how to criticize right-libertarians (that is, staunchly pro- private property libertarians; or propertarians), but also what to criticize them about, and what arguments they are right about. I intend this advice as a way to potentially moderate right-libertarians, and encourage them to consider aligning, even if only temporarily, with radical progressives and socialists, in order to create a united front against the fascists in charge.

     This piece also contains advice about how radical progressives can successfully caution other progressives about the risks associated with having the federal government – or any government – have too much power; to be too large in size and scope, that it interferes with the economy, and with people's personal lives (especially in regard to property, enterprise, and income).

     The above has been a summary of my introduction to that email.

     What follows – in Sections #2 through #5 of this article – is the main body of the email, which concerns itself with libertarian and progressive views on property, as well as my own views, which are guided by the principles of radical libertarianism, market-anarchism, and mutualist-anarchism.

I have expanded on some points, where necessary to further clarify my points,

2. The Blending of the Public and Private Sectors

     I think Libertarians are correct to point out (although they don't do it nearly often enough) that the billionaires and large corporations that are lobbying for favorable legislation, got all of their privileges and protections from the government in the first place. Amazon and Facebook, for example, both have CIA contracts. It might even be fair to argue, also, that high taxes drive the desire for high profits (to offset the cost of taxes).

     However, that doesn't mean the government is the source of all things evil about the business world. After all, our government was bought-out by private business interests a whole century ago; the same interests that promote wars, and whose propaganda is taught in "public" schools. We don't have a government that's subservient to the people; they're subservient to "private" banks.

     But remember, a bank – or any company, for that matter – isn't really "private" unless it receives zero taxpayer subsidies, zero government assistance of any kind. No patents, no trade subsidies, no tariffs or professional licensing regulation that hurts competitors, no discounts on public utilities, no police protection of physical property, no bank account insurance, no L.L.C. status to confer legal and financial protections, zero. Glass-Steagall is OK, but why bring back Glass-Steagall, when we could simply stop insuring deposits at taxpayer expense altogether?

     For that matter, if "public" schools are supposed to be truly public, then they should obviously stop teaching propaganda that was written by for-profit private companies.

     "Public sector vs. private sector" is all we talk about these days. Few people ever mention non-profits (and the "non-profit third sector", or "voluntary sector"), or cooperatives, or club goods, or "the commons" as economic sectors, or forms of ownership, unto themselves. That's why I think all the focus is on the "public" government (which masquerades as, and steals from, the commons) or the "private" corporations (which receive public assistance, but pretend to care about privacy, personal ownership, and individual rights).

3. Responsibly Reducing Businesses' Burdens

     If Libertarians want a company to be truly "private" – that is, to have a lower taxation and regulatory burden as a result of that privacy, and that lower degree of association with the government – then the company should simply give up all of those cronyist privileges. Private owners and for-profit firms must realize that a sizeable segment of the public will simply refuse to do business with minimally-regulated firms, because they believe them to be irresponsible.

     But then again, the government also needs to give companies the chance to survive without those privileges. Like by leaving them to pave their own roads leading to their properties (instead of getting the taxpayers to pay for the roads, and then getting some of those taxpayers build them as well). And by allowing businesses to develop their own alternative energy sources, or collect solar power on-site, so that they don't have to depend on the public energy grid – nor on discounts therefore, nor on discounts for internet service – in order to balance their budgets.

     Therefore, fortunately, there is a way to allow private owners and for-profit firms to take risks, without it risking harm to the public, or to non-consenting people, and without destroying the free market: Don't let the state protect property, don't let the state protect rights to profit nor to trade, and don't let the state make taxpayers responsible for insuring the deposits of any firms whatsoever!

     If a business wants to pay lower taxes, then there are already ways to do that: stop using a for-profit model that yields the kind of gains that the government would want to tax in the first place. Businesses should be given a choice between 1) giving up their profits, 2) re-investing them into their company (such that there are no profits, after all is said and done), and/or 3) operating as a non-profit or not-for-profit, or a cooperative, or a mutual firm.

     If we can eliminate all forms of privilege for businesses – and take steps to recoup our legally stolen losses from the Wall Street bailouts (and all the other bailouts over the years) and give them back to the people – then we can let individuals develop non-profit, de-politicized alternatives to politicized public institutions, through voluntary association and voluntary exchange, rather than through government direction.

     And that will bring development, and growth of businesses, in a way that helps employees and consumers, rather than simply doing whatever a corrupt government agrees with a set of corrupt businessmen they should do, while taxpayers foot the bill.

     As a Libertarian, and as an admirer of the Constitution and the ideals of a free market and voluntary exchange, I think that if government simply didn't have the power to bail companies out (and to offer them other forms of government assistance) in the first place, then we would not have nearly as many people sucking up to the cults of money and big business.

     Most importantly (at least as far as the topic of property is concerned), we would not have as many people sucking up to the existing set of enforced property claims, which embodies a massive disparity in ownership of physical wealth.

     In a stateless market system, or if the government's authority to intervene in matters of economy and property were much more strictly limited, we would have a market that is truly based on meritocracy. We are told that our current system does reward merit, but the number of people incarcerated for victimless crimes, and the number of people arrested for intellectual property theft, show that government often has nonsensical rules about what forms of economic activity are legal and respectable.

4. “Property is Impossible” (-P.J. Proudhon)

     Right-libertarians often need to be reminded that when "private" businesses expect police assistance, or favorable legislation (as in Jim Crow Laws) to help them "protect their property" – i.e., enforce their right to discriminate against whomever they please – they are really relying on a form of public assistance, and that fact renders the company not “private” at all. Which renders moot any claim that the companies are independent, or self-sustaining, or should be allowed to do whatever they want on "their own" property.

     Also, taking public assistance renders companies subject to the law. Most importantly, federal laws regarding keeping interstate commerce "regulated" or "regular"; that is, free from obstructions and interferences, like states protecting and favoring their own domestic products and labor over those of other states.

     Maybe if Libertarians understood that very little property is actually private, then it would become clear to them that property ownership is enforced, determined, limited, and conditioned by the approval of society. Unanimous societal approval is the only thing, besides the state, which will ever be effective when it comes to acknowledging and respecting a person's property claim.

     In a free society, even one or two people challenging the value or validity of someone's property claim, would have to be heard. Just as in a free market, each market actor has some say in influencing prices, only unanimity, or near unanimity, would guarantee the protection of property claims, without necessitating a domineering state to, well... frankly, get rid of those one or two dissenters, and scare everyone into forgetting about their disappearance.

     No homestead, and no piece of property bought from the government and registered by one of its agencies, can ever be said to be truly private, unless the government (if it exists) agrees to be neutral on property, and agrees to place the burden of protecting the claim on the claimant himself (who might try to outsource this responsibility to others, through employing security guards, mercenaries, etc.). And that outsourcing of responsibility is a negative externality, which free market supporters ought to be against.

     If right-libertarians can be made to understand these things, then there is a chance that they will stop demanding that struggling poor individuals lose their government assistance as a precondition of businesses losing theirs. I agree with Rand Paul that we should not cut one dime from the social safety net until we get rid of corporate welfare, and I think that if the Libertarian Party cannot get on board with that, then it is positioning itself to the right of the Republican Party, which I think sends a message to voters that we are unsympathetic and unelectable.

     Republicans are already trying to limit what S.N.A.P. (Food Stamps) recipients can buy – from subsidized food companies, mind you – so why elect Libertarians when they might do the very same thing? Do you want the government to coerce you into a state of dependence by stealing your money and giving it to its friends, and then deciding what you can and can't buy with the Food Stamps card they bought for you with your own stolen money? That doesn't sound like freedom to me.

     If Libertarians cannot recognize that most recipients of government assistance were pressured into accepting assistance – through having to conform to the law, and the monetary and hourly wage labor systems established through that law – then they might as well admit that they have fallen for the idea that the state can legalize its own coercion, and that coercion by businesses (including lobbying) is harmless. One simply cannot believe that and call oneself a libertarian.

5. Boycotts and Discrimination

     If a business takes assistance (like L.L.C. status, S.B.A. loans, F.D.I.C. insurance, trademarks, etc.), and stays open to customers from other states, then it should rightfully be subject to federal laws against discrimination in interstate commerce and public accommodations.

     If this idea became formally codified in law – instead of just sloppily inferred from the outcome of the Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S. decision – then it would become clear to Libertarians and Republicans that if a company accepts public assistance and is involved in interstate commerce, then it is undeniably in the business of "public accommodations", and therefore should not be allowed to discriminate against the public.

     Radical progressives will probably not like what I am about to suggest, because it gives so much wiggle room to the pro-property idea. But perhaps it's time to give property owners an ultimatum.

     If they want to discriminate, or reserve the full right to kick anybody off of their property that they want for any reason (and without giving a reason), then they should have to give up all of the benefits that they're getting from the government.

     No business should be free to discriminate against – or boycott (depending on how you look at it) – a customer, who is unable to discriminate against, and boycott, that business.

     Granted, no particular recipient of government assistance is specifically coerced into depending on any one particular subsidized firm, but the only firms that exist are subsidized or protected in one way or another, so welfare recipients are coerced into dependence upon one subsidized business or another.

     Moreover, businesses that sell to welfare recipients have the option to give up subsidies and monopoly privileges, and cease reaping profit, as a way to avoid submitting to so much regulation and taxation. So businesses cannot rightfully argue that they are in any way obligated to serve people who are on government assistance. And certainly not any more than the people on assistance are being obligated to serve some set of those subsidized firms (from among which they have a limited ability to choose, because of coercive state intervention in business and in property protection).

     Additionally, individuals are simply not eligible for anywhere near as many government contracts, favors, protections, subsidies, loans, titles, tax credits, and monopoly privileges as businesses are. The idea that a person considering requesting government assistance, has as much ability to oppress a business as a business does to oppress him, is ludicrous.

     Libertarians can say all they want that both the social safety net and corporate welfare need to be eliminated, and they're correct. But now is not the time to pretend that, if we were faced with a choice between abolishing the military-industrial complex or abolishing the Food Stamps program, we should simply flip a coin.

     Libertarians who are ambivalent in this manner look insane to the average voter, and to the average progressive. And they don't look too intelligent to myself as a Libertarian Party member.

Introduction Written on January 26^th, 2019

Original Email Written on January 24^th, 2019

Originally Published on January 26^th, 2019




Originally Published Under the Title
"What Neither Radical Progressives Nor Right-Libertarians

Understand About Legal Recognition of Property Rights"

Title Changed on February 7th, 2019

Meme created in January 2018
and added on September 7th, 2021

Revised Position on Discrimination and Interstate Commerce

      Private businesses should be free to do whatever they want on their own property, free to refuse service and job offers to anyone they please, and free to charge any price they want for the goods and services they provide.
      ...As long as they aren't involved in interstate commerce, and their state says it's okay; and as long as they don't receive any taxpayer funding (to support subsidies, small business loans, intellectual property protections, trade promotions, corporate liability limitations, bailouts, police and military protections, professional licensing considerations favorable to already existing businesses, and other privileges granted by the public).
      We can only have full private property rights, and a real free market (with easy entry into competition and trade) when businesses give up all of these artificial privileges and protections (which are funded, in part, through the extortion of taxpayers' earnings)
      Until companies are willing to give up all of these privileges and protections, we should regard at least 99% of these businesses as our property; that is, public property. Until they give up their mercantilist protections – constitutional though they may be – they should do whatever we tell them to do.
      Since we, the public, fund the Secretary of States' offices that grant these companies their charters, and their corporate status (with the limited liability protections which come with that) in the first place, these businesses should hire and serve whomever we tell them to hire and serve. If they want exemptions, the public has every right to condition the terms of those contracts.
      If the public tells its property – the businesses – to give away the goods they sell, they should comply. At the very least, they should refrain from getting in the way of people who are attempting to obtain, access, or use these goods themselves.
      Consider this patria potestas (“I brought you into this world, I can take you out”) applied to the relationship between government and enterprise. We the People created the government, so it is our right to alter or abolish it if and when it ceases to serve the purpose for which we created it. Moreover, it is our duty to abolish government that becomes destructive of these ends.
      Likewise, We the People created the government, which in turn created the businesses (through charters). Therefore, it is the right of the people – through their property, the government – to revoke companies' privileges (if and when they abuse those privileges). When companies form business alliances - which impersonate government Departments of Commerce - to steal from taxpayers to subsidize them and bail them out, it is the people's duty to revoke their charters, or even to abolish the Secretary of States' offices, so that no new corporations (and no new corporate privileges) can be created.

In Defense of Dr. David Duke

In Defense of Dr. David Duke

Originally Written on May 9^th, 2011

Edited on January 17^th, 2016

            I would like to go on-record and state that I do not have much of a problem with Dr. David Duke, the former Louisiana State Representative, the former National Director (a/k/a Grand Wizard) of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.K.), and the former unsuccessful candidate for Governor and State Senator of Louisiana.

            My personal religious and ethical views do not always line up with those of Dr. Duke; in fact, the vast majority of the time, they don’t. However, I am fully willing – at great personal risk to myself, and to my credibility – to publicly admit and defend my positions on him, and on his legal and political views.

            David Duke may be a white-separatist Christian, a pro-life homophobe, and a blatant anti-Semite, but in a free society, he has – and, rightfully, should continue to have – the legal right to hold, and to express, these non-violent views, without fear of either prosecution, persecution, or continued threats of violence against himself and his family. That is, unless and until he says something which poses a credible, specific, direct, clear, present, and immediate risk of danger and/or harm to someone’s safety.

            Regardless of his views, Dr. Duke is a principled individual whom has real intellectual integrity and courage which is unlike almost any other prominent person in the public spotlight today. Dr. Duke says what he believes, has consistently done so for the past thirty years, and is completely rational and reasonable on the vast majority of the legal and political issues about which he speaks.

            Although he has been accused of “inciting racial hatred”, Dr. Duke does not wish to change the law in order to impose his religious or ethical views upon anybody, and he has never encouraged nor condoned the use of violence against members of any racial and ethnic groups with whom he does not personally choose to associate.

            Dr. David Duke is willing to go to great lengths, as well as to put himself and his family at great personal risk, to expose the State of Israel’s practice of institutional racism and discrimination against Palestinians, which is a lot more than you can say about most politicians in America today. He also doesn’t buy into the sensationalist incitement of the American people against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

            Dr. Duke supports neither corporate welfare, nor the nationalization or bailouts of big banks on Wall Street. Like Ross Perot, Ron Paul, and myself, Dr. Duke opposes N.A.F.T.A. (the North Atlantic Free Trade Association)’s “free trade” agenda, which contributes to the outsourcing of American jobs, and which does nothing to combat the human rights abuses of laborers which are permitted and excused by foreign countries such as China. Duke cares about protecting American entrepreneurship and local and small businesses, and wants to impose modest and fair tariffs in order to promote American products.

            As I stated previously, I do not share Dr. Duke’s personal moral nor religious views, although our political and legal views are very much in-line with one another. I believe that he should continue to exercise his freedom to express his non-violent opinions, without fear of either being sued, being prohibited from speaking, or having violence threatened against him and his family.

            I would invite you to visit his YouTube channel “drdduke”, and to watch his videos, especially those on Zionism and Iran. I believe that you will find him to be an ardent opponent of institutional racism, of any and all forms of legal discrimination, the incitement of racial and ethnic violence, and the Israeli and Zionist domination of American foreign and military policy.

Civil Rights and Interstate Commerce

Originally Written on August 23^rd, 2015

Edited and Expanded between December 7^th and 12^th, 2015

      In September 2012, I called in to Sam Seder's show “The Majority Report”, a liberal talk radio broadcast. I was calling to take Seder up on his invitation for libertarians to debate him. Seder and I discussed taxation, private militaries, and public utilities such as phone and internet. The video of the conversation was later posted on YouTube as “Libertarian Oblivious to 'Who Built That'” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc9lEjbYiuU).

      Seder described what I wanted as “feudalism”, and told me that what I want sounded more like something out of the show Game of Thrones than something in the real world. I didn't know what Game of Thrones was at the time, but after having seen the show, I can say now that I would rather live under “feudalism” - if that is what the show depicts – than the system that we have now (which, arguably, is a form of feudalism).

      In the aftermath of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina in August 2015, I planned on calling Seder's show in order to discuss civil rights, and address a conversation between Seder and a person who called his show in May 2014. That conversation involved discussions about currency, principles, property rights, and civil rights legislation. It was posted to YouTube as “Another Episode of Libertarians Gone Crazy! With Sam Seder” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmmcTzeOK1Q) and “Libertarian Caller: I Oppose the Civil Rights Act... on Principle” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ0syDgMJ7k).

      The following is an edited and expanded version of what I planned to discuss with Seder.

      In the aftermath of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, this is no time to stoke the flames of racial hatred. However, I oppose Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For those who don't know, that was the provision of the Civil Rights Act that prohibited discrimination and segregation in “places of public accommodation”. Unfortunately, nowhere in the legislation were the terms “public” nor “private” defined, nor differentiated.

      The man who called in May 2014 said that he was opposed to that same provision, asserting that private businesses are, more or less, the same as regular people's private property, for example, their homes. He added that the freedom of association protects our right to keep people out of our homes and off of our business properties.

      I argue that, for the most part, this should stand regardless of whether such businesses supposedly serve “the public”, which is to say, individual members of the public who have the right to choose whether to attempt to become customers or patrons of such businesses. I and other opponents of Title II contend that the freedom of association includes the freedom from association; the right to be left alone.

      The Fifth Amendment protects our right to be free from unjust takings; it states that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.” Essentially, it states that none of our property, nor any of its use-value, shall be taken away, unless and until we are charged with, and convicted of, a crime. The use-value of a business property includes the “right to refuse service to anyone”, and as the man who called in to the Majority Report in May 2014 pointed out, signs bearing those words are hanging on the walls of businesses all over the country.

      Therefore, Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 presents an encroachment upon the Fifth Amendment, but it also – through its omission of definitions and distinctions – blurs the line between what is public property and what is private property. Additionally, and most importantly, Title II presents a problem when it comes to the interstate Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the federal government the authority “to regulate commerce … among the several states”.

      Suppose that I live in Montana, and I make and sell firearms. Suppose that the bullets come from one part of the state, and the shells come from another part of the state, and I manufacture the scopes in a factory that I own on my own private property. Since I only conduct commerce within the state of Montana, I am engaged in intrastate, or in-state, commerce, but not in interstate commerce. So only Montana state statutes and local ordinances apply to me, because, under the traditional interpretation of the Commerce Clause, this commercial activity would be none of the federal government's business.

      Assume that I own a restaurant, and that it only has one location, or that it has several locations, but they are all located in the same state. As with gun manufacturing, only state and local laws get to say whether I have the right to refuse service to anyone. It is only when I am engaged in interstate commerce – commercial activity that crosses state borders – that the federal government shall have constitutional authority to get involved.

      Returning to the topic of gun manufacturing in Montana, the state statute Montana Firearms Freedoms Act, according to Wikipedia, “sought to exempt firearms manufactured in Montana from federal regulation under the interstate commerce and supremacy clauses” of the Constitution. The law was challenged, and the plaintiffs in the case wanted gun manufacturers to comply with federal laws, but their suit was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in 2010 “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim”. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs in the case did have standing, but still dismissed the case due to the plaintiffs' failure to state a claim, concluding that the “creation and circulation of such firearms could reasonably be expected to impact the market for firearms nationally”.

      It is this “reasonable expectation” of intrastate commerce having an impact on the national market, which was the gist of the Civil Rights Act of 1964's standard – and the standard set by a subsequent lawsuit regarding the act - regarding when federal intervention is appropriate. In the case of Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Heart of Atlanta Motel and Pickrick restaurant – the businesses owned by plaintiffs Moreton Rolleston and Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, respectively - substantially affected interstate commerce.

      The opinion of the court majority in that case was that, since the majority of Heart of Atlanta's clientele came from out-of-state, and since it was strategically located near two interstate highways and two state highways, the business clearly affected interstate commerce, and so, the federal government had the authority to intervene in order to regulate that commerce in a way that stopped or prevented the discrimination and segregation which was occurring there.

      The effect of the court's decision in Heart of Atlanta was that substantial effect on interstate commerce rests on the opinion of the courts, regardless of the fact that the hotel and restaurant had the freedom to choose to restrict their clientele to people from within the state, and regardless of the fact that those businesses had the freedom to restrict their other commercial activities aside from their service of clientele (i.e., the sourcing of their raw materials) to within the state.

      Back to Montana. Say I own a restaurant in Montana, and I want to expand my business. However, there aren't many people in Montana, so in order to get more customers, I plan to open a new location in a neighboring state; suppose it's Idaho. I might open up that new franchise in Idaho, and post a sign on the wall that reads “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”, however, the federal government would have the authority to intervene in order to stop me.

      This is because my restaurant would operate in two states; therefore, I'd be incontrovertibly involved in, and substantially affecting interstate commerce. Furthermore, I'd be actively discriminating against people who have the freedom to travel, and the freedom to acquire property through purchasing food, and other possessions (supposing that the business is a gas station or convenience store), and renting rooms (supposing that the business is a hotel or motel). But, of course, the freedom to buy and sell is conditional upon the permission of the other seller or buyer whom is party to the transaction.

      To put things rather bluntly, my interpretation of the interstate Commerce Clause does not prohibit black people from eating chicken and waffles. Waffle House has branches in twenty-five states, so clearly, it is involved in interstate commerce, which means that the commerce in which it is engaged is subject to regulation by the federal government. This stands even under the interpretation of the word “regulate” which holds the word to mean “keep regular”, i.e., free from undue inhibitions, including the kind of inhibitions imposed through keeping minorities off of the premises.

      Now, suppose that Barry Goldwater, who criticized the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for Title II and Title VII (the title which prohibits discrimination in employment), had defeated Lyndon B. Johnson to become president in 1964. Or simply suppose that Title II had been removed, amended, or clarified, to fit the Commerce Clause's original purpose (i.e., to keep the federal government out of the states' internal business affairs, and to prevent states from passing laws to favor their own commerce over that of other states), or suppose that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Heart of Atlanta, to find portions or the whole of the 1964 C.R.A. unconstitutional.

      Also, suppose that I own a convenience store in Indiana, near the border with Illinois. Suppose that I segregate or discriminate, that I refuse to allow black people to become patrons and/or employees. Suppose I segregate and discriminate against atheists, or communists. Suppose the target of my discrimination is not a minority, suppose I want to keep Christian gun owners out of my store. Suppose I don't want police officers, or veterans, or British royalty, or the Pope, or Rahm Emanuel, coming in, taking my snacks, and trying to draft me into their army.

      Suppose I don't want to let federal agents onto my property, because they're trying to ensure that I am compliant with the Real I.D. Act.; trying to force me to make sure that my employees are in the country legally, and trying to make me card undocumented workers for trying to buy a six-pack of beer after a hard shift of day-labor. Say I don't care whether they're here legally, and they and I are both just trying to pay our bills and get money to our families.

      Say I'm this business owner in Indiana. Everybody hates Indiana, right? They sure do! (Note: I choose Indiana because liberals recently considered boycotting the state over its opposition to gay marriage.) I own this gas station, or convenience store. Say I don't want to allow Democrats inside, because I think they're lazy and shiftless.

      Anyway, long story short, say I want to open up another store and start expanding across the nearby border into Illinois, and I want to retain my legal right to discriminate against anyone, for any reason, without being obligated to give a reason. Here's where things get absurd.

      Then you would see half of the country getting up in arms against me – not because I'm discriminating – but in order to demand that the federal government allow me to expand into Illinois. The initial left-liberal reaction to this would be something like “Why do you want this racist business owner to expand? So he can discriminate in Illinois, in addition to Indiana!?”

      And those who support my expansion would respond, “No, we want him to expand into Illinois so that his business would be unquestionably engaged in interstate commerce, putting the business under federal jurisdiction, enabling the federal government to regulate the business, in order to stop the discrimination or segregation!”

      Then, business owners who want to segregate and/or discriminate would be faced with a difficult choice: keep their business in one state, risking that it stay small, but retain their rights to discriminate, or expand their business into other states, in order to expand their market reaches, but, in so doing, lose their right to discriminate.

      Then, business owners might finally capitulate to what the federal government intended to accomplish in crafting Title II; they might simply reason that they can expand their businesses by resolving to stop segregating and/or discriminating – that is, to agree to serve anyone and everyone who comes onto their property with the intent of patronizing their businesses – instead of trying to grow their clientele by expanding into other states, and having to comply with additional federal regulations in the process.

      Finally, suppose that the U.S. Supreme Court had found Title II, or the entire Civil Rights Act of 1964, unconstitutional. Then, it would be up to each state, and each community, whether to allow discrimination and segregation on private commercial property. Then, it would be clearly and widely known which businesses, and which state and local governments, allow or support discrimination and segregation.

      In such a situation, people would be free to boycott such businesses - depriving them of the money they would earn through transactions – and also free to boycott, and stay clear of, entire states and communities (however, they would not be able to boycott the federal government).

      But now, the opposite is the case; business owners who want to discriminate and segregate are required to serve anyone and everyone who comes onto their property. So now, people can freely wander onto commercial properties, and become their patrons, without having any clue as to whether its employees and/or owners are dangerous racists, sexists, xenophobes, or political extremists, who may want to see those patrons fall victim of violence.

      Even if we could tell which business owners are racists (et cetera) and which are not, and wanted to boycott them, we would still have to fight the Internal Revenue Service and the state and local tax agencies, and the various departments and chambers of commerce, in order to stop our tax money from being spent in order to subsidize, and bail-out, and grant limited liability and intellectual property protections to, such discriminatory businesses.