@Unionhawk yeh but the queen does this every year

not sure about the other guy though

@Wipqozn I guess what it comes down to is I just think that saying 'sorry, I don't want to do art for this, maybe go see someone who does' should be allowed

I agree those people should try to change their views though

Me?

Not trolling man, just here to discuss like everyone else

Plus I don't think 'discrimination' should be legal, I just think maybe sometimes the line of what constitutes discrimination is not so clear

or fair? I guess

@BunsGlazing in this case i think it's drawn between just telling them no and telling them no but suggesting someone else who could help them

Though again they're not refusing anyone because they're merely suing under the assumption they might one day do so and want a free pass ahead of time

Ah, v cool

(Japan is withdrawing from the international "stop whaling" thing)

Can't imagine where they got the idea to #yolo their way out of agreements from

Yeah, they will stop whaling in international waters it seems but intend to whale the hell out of their territorial zone

@TimStone for all that tasty research

i think gastronomy comes under a science in Japan

It seems they've given up that guise and are just openly doing it for economic reasons now

@TimStone i mean they've been sorta violating it from the beginning

@Unionhawk but was it price gouging or another sign of how fucked up their economy has gotten

> They stand accused by Sundde of "commiting a scam against the state" by hoarding the toys to artificially inflate their worth, while claiming the goods were being stockpiled because "children don't like these models."

@Unionhawk yeh that sounds like a dick thing to do

@Unionhawk I really wouldn't trust any statement from the government of Venezuela

Also hoarding physical goods makes sense when the rate of inflation is over one million percent. Literally anything keeps value better than money

It's a hole the government has dug itself into, and its solution is only making things worse

I mean, the primary factor there is more along "they rely on oil a lot and the price of oil has gone down over the last 6 or so years" lines

capital flight certainly exacerbates the issue

it is a land of contrasts

in conclusion

@Unionhawk The economic policies were unsound. Falling oil prices merely made it harder for the government to prop itself up.

Oh wow weird who could have seen this coming

searches room for McKinsey Ah, right

@TimStone i'm getting word that McKinsey has been hired into the trump administration. corporations are people, after all

I strongly suggest that everyone avoids making the discussions in here personal, that usually won't end well

I just call it like I see it. And what I see is a "discussion" that has been going on for about three whole days. Nobody else is interested in debating whether or not it is acceptable in any circumstance to tell people "we don't serve your kind". It's not. Is it ok to tapdance around to precisely that same point with "buhh, we don't want to promote Your Lifestyle bc of our religion or something"? Also no.

Is preemptively trying your case again in the courts to get a broader decision good faith behavior? Also no.

Can anyone explain why those messages were deleted I am sorry if I offended anyone I was just defending myself after being called a troll

@Unionhawk if you don't think it's okay, protest them. Write them a letter. Try to change their perspective

Don't just make the law say "hey, sorry, we know your religious beliefs conflict with this but we're forcing you to create content for it anyway"

Christianity is a pretty outdated concept at this time but that doesn't mean we should force them to abandon their beliefs by law

I mean what if they think they'll go to hell if they make the art? That's fucked

I'm sure lots of other artists wouldn't have any issue doing it

As a secondary, when I was doing freelance animation work I was free to accept or decline clients for any reason I chose, I feel like this is pretty common in creative industry

Would you feel the same way if someone refused service to somebody with beliefs you disagree with I remember you cheering the people who chased Milo whatsisname out of that bar

Obviously he's an ass but I don't think that's legally relevant

(nor should it be)

Although I suppose that was bystanders and not the bar management come to think of it

I think?

You of all people should understsnd my concern with giving the government more control over people and small business

I strongly believe everyone should be free to do business as they see fit. If somebody is being a bigot or otherwise piece of shit, communities should be diligent, take their business elsewhere, and eventually they will go under

The thing is, the US tried that and it doesn't work. The Civil Rights Acts of the 60s exist because "let the free market sort it out, the bigoted businesses will go under" is a fantasy.

This is especially a problem in rural areas where there might be only one business of any given type in range -- people can't "take their business elsewhere", it's buy from Bigot McHateface or go without.

I am actually sympathetic to the position that creatives should be able to decline commissions no questions asked; I think there's a difference-in-kind there from commodity work where everyone buys from the same menu, as it were, so any discrimination is necessarily about who the customers are, not what they want you to do.

But now we have two principles in conflict -- artists shouldn't have to make art they disagree with vs. people shouldn't be discriminated against because of their orientation

Because in practice no gay couple is going to ask for straight wedding art (or vice versa), so "I won't make gay art" is functionally indistinguishable from "I won't serve gay people"

@ToxicFrog this is a really good point I hadn't considered

@Unionhawk thank you for your input, as always

Your answer is that double standards are okay?

@ToxicFrog I suppose in practice this is true. Definitely.

I dunno where the distinction is for me I guess I would take issue with a restaurant refusing service but not a creative

Maybe that comes from my animation and design history, personally

I know what is involved in the work and that art comes from a different place internally than service work

I think I have also just grown to be very libertarian over the years

@ToxicFrog thanks for the civil and informative argument

I'd have to look this up again to verify, but I believe the specifics of the previous case pointed more to cake as a product not as an expression. ("well can we do this instead?" "also no")

Hm. Maybe.

In this case there happen to be no specifics because, again, this is a hypothetical they cooked up

@ToxicFrog we are in agreement here at least, I think this is the crux of my initial position

I really hadn't thought about the rural thing

That's a lot of population too

@BunsGlazing yeah, the issue there is twofold -- if you're the target of the bigotry you're completely SOL, your only option is "go without", which is disappointing if it's cake and potentially life-threating if it's, say, pharmacy services.

I guess what it comes down to is weighing the right of the individual to refuse and the right of the other individual to receive

And if you aren't, you still can't take a principled stand and not support the bigoted business unless you have the option of going without yourself

@ToxicFrog pharmaceuticals and life and death services I absolutely believe should be subject to law

I don't believe somebody should die because of religion or other held beliefs

Greater good and all that

I'll have to think about it some more I guess... Anyway I should probably get back to work

Also, it's worth reiterating that for this specific situation, the business in question was not even asked to make something that they find objectionable, they are pre-emptively seeking a court decision saying that, legally, they don't have to touch Teh Gay™

Which is just shitheadery

Work on boxing day? Ouch.

@ToxicFrog to be completely honest I kinda skimmed it I just wanted to discuss my position on that topic I guess.

@ToxicFrog Baker in a grocery store

Here at six am 😅

@ToxicFrog agree

Well, at least you're doing an important job i.e. providing people with fresh baked goods

I think I saw a headline on a conservative reporter who claimed they were creatives making art. My bad. Have to watch that from now on

@ToxicFrog It's not a public holiday everywhere

I get extra pay for working today

@BunsGlazing AIUI, they are creatives; they do bespoke wedding art. But no-one has at any point asked them to make art they disagree with, they've started a legal fight with a strawman on their own initiative.

(not to be confused with the earlier case involving cake-makers)

Right I remember that one

@ToxicFrog okay yeah that's what I thought. They are just trying to have laws changed before they get in trouble?

Got it

Okay really time for work now

Basically, yeah. IIRC, Phoenix passed an anti-discrimination law adding gender identity & sexual orientation to the list of protected classes, and this business immediately sued the city.

Their argument, as best I can follow, is (1) endorsing gay marriage is against their religion; (2) making custom wedding invitations for a gay couple counts as endorsing the marriage; (3) this is equivalent to denying them service because they're gay, and thus would violate the law, so (4) the law needs to be changed.

Kagan's concurrence (lol that that was a concur) and Ginburg's dissent in Masterpiece Cake make a number of distinctions (there is a difference between "I would never make that for anybody" and "I am not going to make a thing that I normally make for others for you", they also refused other types of requests including wedding cupcakes to another couple)

It's really pretty easy to understand how this is different than, for example, also from that case, not making something that says like "👬🚫 its a sin" or whatever (I forgot how buckwild that case was)

Which is why it was cool when 4 justices couldn't

I can't wait for this to get denied cert probably because why the hell would the court bother with giving out a permission slip for their dumb hypothetical

m.soundcloud.com/micdicta/…

I forget how long that first segment goes on but it's not the whole 90 (maybe 30)

@ToxicFrog Incidentally, this is part of why the Sears catalog took off in the first place.

There was no brick-and-mortar place that black families could buy appliances because racism.

@Ash Really, it's puzzling that Sears decided to double-down on brick-and-mortar stores when that emphatically wasn't their route to success.

The original Amazon everyone gets mad at me

jfc :/

Really not sure what the point of the police state is if it can't figure out it should arrest the convicted sexual predator for behaving very in line with things a sexual predator might have been convicted for

I mean that's not really a break given that it was obvious he was lying, but still

Also Jared, who was supposedly critical to a shutdown deal when he appeared on the Hill last week is now vacationing in Florida 🤷‍♂️

...I see IDF is out here with the #ThingsImNotApologizingFor hashtag, and whew :|

@TimStone I'm a bit surprised they managed to convince Trump that he has to stay in the White House. It's probably pissing him off enormously that he doesn't get to go to Mar a Lago

Yeah, I'm a bit surprised too

@TimStone sounds quite plausible as it would provide for some distraction from everything else

lol why, why even tell this lie!

That's extreme dumb guy mindset

"check it out, I ran a 4 second 40 back in 1976 no shit" I mean, in order, who cares, and no you didn't

@TimStone how else is he gonna get a job in the trump admin without a fake resume?

I guess the bad lie is its own qualification criteria

@TimStone exactly

And if you thought trump was against forever wars, well...

> surprise visit to Iraq reaction to someone pointing out that he's the first president since 2002 to not visit troops serving in the Forever Wars

FTFY

@TimStone lol yeah cbs just broke in with a special report about it

This apparently can not wait for evening news

@GodEmperorDune wait, so he's pulling out of Syria saying that ISIS is defeated when they aren't, but he isn't pulling out of Iraq?

@Memor-X seems that way

ISIS is defeated when convenient and still a threat when convenient

thus-by-a-constant-shifting-of-rhetorical-focus.txt

Whew