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The United States Supreme Court continued its sterling record of upholding its Orwellian version of "freedom." In a 7-2 ruling, the most august judicial branch in this country decided it would decide what the rules of a game should be.
That's correct. No longer content with ignoring such vital issues as upholding the Constitution and its various amendments, seven of the nine men and women in black ruled that professional golfer Casey Martin should be permitted to force the Professional Golfers' Association to let him ride his golf cart as he wends away through the various courses where he competes.
Martin is afflicted with a circulatory disorder that taxes his endurance when he must walk long distances on a golf course. His leg hurts.
Poor Casey. Poor, poor Casey.
So, naturally, rather than grit his teeth and endure the pain, he whimpered and whined and sued to get his way. After all, he has a "right" to golf. As for the professional rule the PGA established long ago that requires all contestants to walk between shots, well, to heck with that. As "Justice" John Paul Stevens so quaintly put it, such a change in the conditions of play won't fundamentally alter how the game is conducted. After all, the essence of playing golf is teeing off and then putting into the hole.
Sure...
Why, let's apply that same "principle" to all sports. For example, if an NBA player develops arthritis or breaks a leg, why, provide him a motorized wheelchair so he can keep the pace up and down the court between the two baskets. After all, fundamentally, basketball is all about shooting the basketball into the hoop. All that dashing to and fro is just so much window-dressing.
The possibilities become as limitless as the physical (and mental?) limitations that a player in the various sports teams might develop during the course of his career. Heck, I bet this is a ploy of the Baby Boomer athletes so they can continue to keep up well into their nineties with those young whipper-snappers who dare compete against them.
The "justification" for all this nonsense comes from the anti-freedom "Americans with Disabilities Act" that George Bush the senior passed during his "read-my-lips" administration; a law that has actually led to a decrease in the hiring of handicapped Americans as employers avoid them like a plague lest lawsuits chase every decision to fire an unqualified disabled employee. The gloriously misnamed "Justice" Department claims the ADA applies because the public can attend the PGA's events.
No surprise there, of course. In the past forty years, seeking to have actual customers frequent your place of business has abrogated anything resembling your property rights. Forget the fact that you were the one who came up with the idea for your business; forget that you were the one who planned and organized it; forget that you were the one who assumed the financial risks, who worked your tail off with eighty-hour weeks, who swam through mountains of permits, licenses, and regulations.
None of that matters. Even when it accepts none of the financial responsibility in case your business fails, the State gets to decide how you will conduct your business. The State gets to determine whom you can have as customers. The State gets to establish the rules for what you can and cannot do.
You are the one who -- if successful in attracting a large percentage of that "public" that has deprived you of your property rights -- you will have half your income confiscated for the parasites of the world. (And don't ever forget that your tax dollars don't go solely to U.S. moochers). For that "privilege" of exercising the creative powers of your mind and the sweat of your body, you will be vilified and denounced by that self-same "public."
There's a word for this economic arrangement. It's called "fascism."
This warped view of what dealing with the "public" subjects a business-owner to has long been in vogue. This Martin travesty is merely one more extension of the fantasy that property rights are to be determined by majority vote...and the owner always loses. The anti-smoking fascists utilize the same tactics in clamping down on smokers in "public" places such as restaurants and stores. The owner himself is powerless to resist. His wishes and decisions are as meaningful to these sanctimonious despots as are those of a lamb to a wolf.
The tyranny of the minority has progressed in tandem with the abandonment of any sane principles of justice and morality. When our government was first established by the Founding Fathers in the Eighteenth Century, it was limited in its enumerated powers precisely so the minorities in this country -- those spouting unpopular ideas or living non-traditional lives -- would not be subjected to oppression and assault from their more numerous fellow citizens.
That restraint has long been inverted. Most people have little use for politics and primarily desire only to live their own day-to-day lives as they see fit. (It is to this shrinking realm that respect for "private" matters has now been relegated.) With the expansion of "public" affairs to include more than one's relationships with the apparatus of the State, the inmates are truly running the asylum.
The destruction of property rights mirrors the destruction of the right of individual citizens to discriminate peacefully against any or all other individuals or groups as they see fit.
Let me repeat that very un-PC fact: A free person has the right to discriminate.
The fraudulent trend away from that right gained considerable speed with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Congress should outlaw any discrimination on its part in how it treats its citizens. It erred with tragic consequences, however, when it subverted the proper association between government and individuals and applied that same idea to how private citizens treated one another.
Equality under the law is essential. None of the myriad laws that now single out particular groups or engage in prior restraint are proper. What we have is the worst of both worlds. Despite its righteous attitudes, the State discriminates in the rankest fashion while simultaneously condemning citizens for that expression of their moral autonomy. Only by practicing moral judgment, i.e., "discrimination," can and will people learn what is or is not proper behavior.
Even if the judgments people make are objectively wrong, they have the right to be wrong. They have the right not to associate with others of whom they disapprove ("freedom of association"). They have the right peacefully to discriminate against others in any area of their private lives and in their businesses for any reasons they choose.
They can form and attend single sex schools or clubs. They can rent or sell -- or not -- to anyone they want whether they be gays, unmarried couples, ethnic groups, people with children, liberals, conservatives, men, women, fat, tall, short, skinny. It doesn't matter. Individuals have the right to refuse to do business with others of any race, religion, lifestyle, clothing choice, or any other trait, however ludicrous.
Indeed, an individual should exercise that right. If he openly states he will not hire women, he will be forced to suffer the consequences of that mistake. (To claim not to discriminate against women while actually doing so would constitute fraud and be legally actionable.) As it is now, he can pretend to abide by the law against discrimination and escape the punishment for his hidden vice.
It's no surprise that it required State intervention to force buses in the South to discriminate against Blacks. No rational businessman voluntarily excludes or alienates potential customers. If he does, he will unlikely remain in business for long.
The PGA certainly has the right to make exceptions for handicapped players. The State, however, does not have the right -- even though it sadly possesses the power -- to force the PGA to grant such changes in the rules.
If Casey Martin truly loved the game he plays and if he truly believed in justice, he would either suck it up and play as best he could given his physical ailments and limitations or he would retire gracefully from the game and take up a desk job where walking is irrelevant.
If he did that, he would truly dazzle and astound us much more than he ever could with any hole-in-one he might one day possibly make.
