Non-discrimination

By Roger Scruton.

It all seemed so harmless when first introduced. Wasn’t it obvious that goods and services in a market should be offered freely to everyone, regardless of race or sex? Wasn’t it obvious that there should be legal protection against discrimination in employment, given the history of racial and religious prejudice? Without stopping to question what was happening Western systems of law began to make room for ‘non-discrimination’ clauses, not only in contracts of employment, but in all matters in which opportunities were openly offered to members of the public.

That this restricted the freedoms of employers has seldom been regarded as an objection. We live in a society in which equality trumps freedom whenever the two conflict. Nevertheless, there is a distinction between relevant and irrelevant grounds for discrimination, and discrimination on relevant grounds has until now been permitted by the law. It is acceptable to discriminate in favour of large people when offering a job as a bouncer. But maybe it is not acceptable to discriminate in favour of people from your village back in Pakistan when offering a job at the cash till.

All might have gone smoothly, with an emerging consensus as to the distinction between the relevant and the irrelevant, had not the concept of non-discrimination been captured by a political agenda. Those agitating for equal treatment for women, for gays, for transsexuals and for other groups commonly regarded as marginalised have managed to write their causes into the very idea of non-discrimination. It is always irrelevant to discriminate against someone as a woman, or a homosexual, and this is made clear in the open-ended lists attached to non-discrimination clauses, and now enforced by the European Union under the Treaties and by the European Court of Human Rights. There is no longer an argument that could be heard in a court of law. Non-discrimination has become the latest step in a process whereby the rights of the individual are extinguished by the rights of the group.

Yet surely, even if it was obvious to the majority of people that racial and religious differences are irrelevant in the workplace, it is not similarly obvious that someone offering accommodation in a family boarding house should regard the sexual practices of her guests as ‘irrelevant’ to the deal. We may disapprove of the Christian landlady who refuses to allow two men to share a bed beneath her roof, but her views in the matter are inseparable from the service she is offering, which is accommodation in an old-fashioned family boarding house. If you don’t like that kind of thing, you are free to go elsewhere. Why should we judge the landlady any differently from the owner of a temperance hotel, who refuses to allow her customers to drink in their rooms?

The recent cases show that the concept of non-discrimination, designed to protect groups from oppression, can equally be used to oppress the rest of us. ‘Non-discrimination’ thereby becomes a new and insidious kind of discrimination – discrimination against those who, because they belong to no group that has been singled out for special protection, have only their rights as individuals on which to rely.

Comments

[Annakim]

Children love to feed the ducks. To choose which duck or pigeon or sparrow merits the bread they are chucking. The best bit is watching the fight that ensues with the various birds squabble for scraps and the favoured ones outmanoeuvring the bigger aggressive ones. Governments love to feed the ducks dispensing money and rights to the poor or disenfranchised, developing righteous policies favouring the 'deserving' poor, or 'victims' whose disadvantages they can correct. And then the fun. The unintended consequences (events), the brawl over bread, the politics: The politicians preside over the reorganised spoils chucking new rights, taxpayers money, business profits at the ducks. The child's pleasure dispensing a bag of someone else's bread appears in the adult "progressive" or "radical" elites' passion for social engineering experiments.

[s macdonald]

As happens time and again, even where reforms or innovative thinking are necessary, radicals appear unable to consider the law of unintended consequences.

Consider the recent push for non-discrimination in the workplace against those with mental health problems. Who has considered what it is like to work with someone whose problem causes low-level but constant disruption (I am thinking of an actual case)? Who has considered what might happen if a surgeon or engineer with mental health problems causes damage to others?

Why is it acceptable for certain minorities to discriminate in a way that would be illegal for the majority to behave - I am thinking of the Black Police Officers Association?

[Ken Stevens]

It's not confined to anti-discrimination laws drawn up for worthy motives but then extended or reinterpreted to less worthy ends.

"Mission Creep" applies in all fields, from overseas military engagements down to such things as misuse of anti-terrorism laws to snoop on dustbins or whatever.
One could also include gold-plating of EU regulations.

[Donald Burling]

Every job interview is an exercise in discrimination - employers have to discriminate between potential employees who are suitable and those who are not. This can have unfortunate results for some who are perceived to be lacking in merit.

The remedy is positive discrimianation in favour of the disadvantaged - but our laws make even that difficult.

[s macdonald]

Donald Burling - could you give us the general benefits of positive discrimination for the disadvantaged? And how do you personally define the disadvantaged?

[adrian clarke]

anti discrimination legislation by its very nature discriminates against others,normally the majority.It has to say this particular group has special rights,by the fact that it is legislated into law.It never says, what it should ,that a particular group has equal rights,despite the particular group it is defending ,is a lifestyle choice.Once any legislation becomes law,it is then a feeding ground for greedy lawyers,aided and abetted by ECHR.

[David Organes]

As a civil rights attorney, I would advise the author of this article - and several of the above commentors - to better familiarlize themselves with anti-discrimination laws. The sentiments expressed above clearly demonstrate a lack of understanding of how they operate in practice, what is protected and what proscribed. To state that anti-discrimination laws actually result in discrimination against "the majority" is baseless rhetoric - affirmative action programs are virtually nonexistant in the current US political scheme. If someone would identify one of the supposed "special rights" alluded to above, perhaps we can have an educated discussion of its relative merits.

[Woodsy42]

I fail to see why it's in any way 'obvious' that all goods or services should be offered equally to everyone. Obviously government and essential service providers and the NHS must not discriminate but otherwise, at high street level, free ordinary trade will always ensure that all goods and services are open to everyone.
You yourself highlight the loss of individual freedom involved in the B&B senario. Exactly so, but more generally why should any private person, supplier or seller, not be entitled to choose to whom they offer their service or goods? This a normal part of 'freedom'.
Of course other 'traders' are equally free to choose to service exactly those people some
others want to avoid. Which is what would happen naturally in a free society and which would probably lead to many services becoming more specialised and more directed to their customer demographic.

[George P]

I’m a white, public school and Cambridge educated, young, hetrosexaul, male, member of the Tory Party.

I’m lucky that prejudice against every group to which I belong is basically socially and legally acceptable.

This means that when I meet someone who isn’t prejudiced against me I can be pretty certain that they aren’t prejudiced against me and it means that when I meet someone who is prejudiced against me they tend to flag up that prejudice pretty quickly.

This sometimes means that I get a chance to combat and eliminate that prejudice through my actions, sometimes I will fail in this but it will be clear that they consider me to be an exception to their prejudice, sometimes they will maintain their original prejudice but they will end up adopting some countervailing positive prejudice, and sometimes, unfortunately, their dealings with me will continue to be driven by that prejudice (but at least I can avoid them or act with awareness of that prejudice - i.e. I won’t end up toiling away for years in a job with no promotion prospects because my boss doesn’t value men).

Overall I still think people “like me” still have the better of the deal, even thought we are on the “put upon” side of the anti-discrimination fence (OK, so there are some exceptions, if I wanted to apply for a parliamentary seat at some point in the future then demographics might be a challenge). Note: I am also aware that this might not be true "lower down" the social spectrum as stupid (union reprogrammed) middle management might wish to burnish their non-xyz-ist credentials but over-promoting colleagues with respect to people like me.

*******

Clearly if the principle of anti-discrimination law is held to and rolled on and on and on then we will end up in bedlam, banning landlords who discriminate against students, banning SAGA (or club 18-30) holidays etc. etc. (and yes I do agree with Roger S that the laws hitting the bed and breakfast owners are going far too far - although arguably they would be more valid (but also largely not needed) in a hotel chain with a degree of monopolistic power - because being unable to use one of many hundreds of accommodation suppliers does not really impact a person’s life [except in so far as it offends them] but not being able to use one of two potential suppliers, or a monopoly supplier, is a bit different. On the other hand if a major near monopolistic hotel chain did choose to discriminate it would be bad for business as members of even the “prefered” group would end up either boycotting it or, at the very least, using a competitor wherever considerations of price and location made that practical)

*******

I often meet talented young (generally female) business people who think women are discriminated and underpaid in their particular line of work. Of course if this is really true (and I’m neither challenging not supporting the position) people would be able to profitably set up a specifically “female only” or “predominantly female” company or branch of a company (which might well be very successful - partly because the underlying hypothesis about female workers may be true and partly because the people in that wing of the company would end up wanting to prove themselves against the more predominately male sections). Were that wing of the company able to outperform the men it would, pretty soon, also lead to a smashing of the underlying prejudice, far more effective than any ‘affirmative action” proposal (which actually tends to have the opposite effect).

Of course this may or may not be banned in the UK (my reading of the Equality Act is unclear on this), but in so far as it is not banned it is due to a derogation from equality before the law, because it would certainly be banned to have an overt “men only” policy.

People like me will find it hard to make any serious or strong public calls for the rolling back of anti-discriminaiton law, and for reliance on public boycott and the big society to enforce fair treatment (and perhaps this is a partial justification for the seat selection bias against white, publicly schooled, men).

In the mean time we (or rather MPs) should simply refuse to allow any exception to the principle of equality before the law (and we should advocate against extension by syllogism of the the 1967 principle into more areas of life and characteristics).

Sooner or later members of ethic minorities, women etc. will start to see that anti-discrimination law can actually do them as much harm as good and they will start to support the (very) gradual abolition of those laws.

But we may well not be at that point yet, for now let’s just get people to realise the logical inconsistency (or injustice?) of the 1967 principle and try to stem the tide of more laws, the only argument for which is “if that why not this”.

[George P]

Sorry that was incredibly long.

[George P]

Oh and the new, externally imposed, banning of gender discrimination in the insurance or annuity market. Ridiculose!

[Taylor @ Window Cleaners London]

You can say that, it has been much worse day to day.

[Jiangsu Changyu Chemical Co., Ltd]

I had no feeling people could into a game so much like that. Maybe those parents almost all were ones that weren't motivated to complete the best for their kid.

[free lawyer consultation]

This is exactly what I was looking for... I needed some great information for my class and you gave some good insight thanks.

[eAaHjUQK]

eAaHjUQK
[url=http://www.Q6Is14827N21zLeTEpSie7.com/]eAaHjUQK[/url]
eAaHjUQK http://www.Q6Is14827N21zLeTEpSie7.com/

[lestPrearce]

I'm impressed, I must say. Certainly rarely do I encounter a weblog that's both educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you've got hit the nail on the head. Your concept is outstanding; the problem is some thing that not sufficient consumers are speaking intelligently about. I'm really pleased that I stumbled across this in my search for something relating to this.

christian louboutin outlet

[kexinvesk]

When I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each and every time a comment is added I get four emails using the exact same comment. Is there any way you possibly can eliminate me from that service? Thanks!

cheap jordans

[kgigpzdyql]

Talk about high tech, this vacuum comes with automatic Carpet Height adjustment.
Eurohandbag is not among those sites which believe in sacrificing the quality just to raise their own funds.
If she wears subdued colors then go for a more elegant, restrained handbag in a color like black.
Or you can request for another product in place of the one that is not currently available.
Rather than rely on the outer cover to hold the beads, a second inner bag was added.
http://lvbags0501b1.blogspot.com/2013/05/cheap-louis-vuitton-handbags-outlet-you.html
http://lvbags0501a3.blogspot.com/2013/05/cheap-louis-vuitton-handbags-outlet-it.html
http://lvbags0501b2.blogspot.com/2013/05/cheap-louis-vuitton-handbags-outlet.html
http://lvbags0501c1.blogspot.com/2013/05/dropship-handbags.html
http://lvbags0502c5.blogspot.com/2013/05/champagne-handbags-for-lemonade-prices.html
0425abbawbldvy
http://lvbags0501b1.blogspot.com/2013/05/cheap-louis-vuitton-handbags-outlet-you.html
http://lvbags0502c1.blogspot.com/2013/05/look-for-exclusive-collection-of-prada.html
http://lvbags0503c1a.blogspot.com/2013/05/bean-bags-and-relationships.html
http://lvbags0502a5.blogspot.com/2013/05/cheap-louis-vuitton-handbags-outlet_17.html
http://lvbags0501b6.blogspot.com/2013/05/brand-bags-choice-of-life.html
http://www.bulkping.com/rss-feed-generator-creator/feed/f5aa78f7fb5caf0bc56174affe1fa788.xml
There is a Hermes handbag for every occasion.
They form the best accessory for casual or business event.
One packet of this enables the set up of one gallon of milk which ultimately yields 2 pounds of this tasty cheese.
Seattle, Montreaux, Deal, New Haven, Ashford, High Gloss, Tonbridge, Diablo, City, Slazenger Active, Fair, Team, Toronto, Regent, Despatch, Fowler, Exeter, President, Jupiter, Sundridge, Cambridge, Executive, Delegate, Congressman, Economy, Target, Portland Promo and Square Seminar.
It does not have a significant weight, this bag weights in at 1 lb, the size is small with a size of 11.

[hermes outlet store]

chztwfx dyjejuvq ffzuvot layfigkgtjx Non-discrimination - ConservativeHome | Thinkers' Corner vebbjsgktc mqyiagzo fowqukvkbp hfyhiwg ovqeunqab scjuyorlmv

[isabel marant sneakers]

I know this website provides quality dependent posts and other information, is there any other web site which provides these information in quality?

[new balance m1400]

bag At some point got You Straight down? We Have The Perfect Solution

[ジューシークチュール]

Refrain from Protesting And Begin your private men Advertising campaign Alternatively

[adidas シューズ]

Carry out the following to find out about women before you're left out.

[AIR FORCE 1 '07]

Things Every single person Ought To Know Around The bag Business

[fiwkuwmc]

fiwkuwmc
[url=http://www.gwr71ql7w17075n5465d31wk9olpqeh8s.com/]fiwkuwmc[/url]
fiwkuwmc http://www.gwr71ql7w17075n5465d31wk9olpqeh8s.com/