Actually the racism-in-America thing is a particularly bad example of what you're trying to assert. Assuming you're talking about the Civil Rights Act, it was enacted at least in part to override southern Jim Crow laws which codified discrimination. In other words, in at least some states the law actually *prevented* employers, service providers, restaurants, etc from treating blacks equally regardless of what companies wanted to do, be it good or be it bad... didn't it? In those cases, it was just one law overriding another law, not a case of the government freeing us from the (presumed) tyranny of the free market. Just sayin'. On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com<mbmiller%2Bl at gmail.com> > wrote: > On Thu, 19 Aug 2010, J.A. Simmons V wrote: > > > When you sign a contract with your ISP, what do you expect in return? I > > expect a "tube" to the internet. I do not want a content provider like > > cable TV. I want a connection to what ever destination I want, like a > > freeway. Some people would rather have a content provider, and that is > > fine. Without regulations, both business models can exist through the > > free market. > > Not necessarily. With a free market, you get what you get. There are no > guarantees. > > For example, people used to say that a free market would solve the problem > of racism because companies that refused to hire people just because they > were black would not compete as effectively as companies that based hiring > decisions on ability alone. It did not work that way. Companies avoided > hiring high-ability black workers for a number of reasons (e.g., most of > our customers are probably racists who won't want to work with a black > sales rep). It was necessary for the government to force companies to > eliminate racial bias in hiring. Government regulation was able to fix > what a free market could not fix. > > Yes, the regulation was a restriction on freedom -- the freedom of > companies to hire an all-white work force, or the freedom of white workers > not to associate with black people -- but the same regulation enhanced the > freedom and opportunity of the black workers. > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100820/45aa26cf/attachment-0001.htm