Conservatives: Do you believe private companies and businesses should be allowed to discriminate based on Race?

No. That battle was fought in the 1960s & 70s when our inner cities had riots worse than in Greece. The solution was the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action, which have brought enormous changes to the USA and are still working, imperfectly, but mostly in the right direction.

It would be nice if we could all just get along and treat each other with respect. But people are not perfect and a lot of people are downright evil. If essential services are unavailable to anyone, then the government has to step in. Racial discrimination was legally abolished in 1868, yet 100 years later, it was not being implemented in a manner that was acceptable to most Americans, so we came up with laws prohibiting specific things, like housing, employment, and that any business that holds itself open to the public, cannot discriminate.

Private clubs are permitted, so if you want to exclude members at your country club, based on their race, that is your right. If the Nation of Islam wants only black male members, that is their right too. The KKK does not have to accept non-white members. Hollywood can limit its auditions for Othello to black men if they like.

But a shop that claims to be open to the public should serve everyone, or they should lose their license to do business. The peace and prosperity of our country demands this.

I'm not a conservative, but in a way I do wish a business could have a sign that says a policy similar to that. It would make not supporting a racists business really easy.

Yes just like we have the right not to do business with them, now that all restaurants have no smoking I keep waiting for one that has a no screaming kid policy !

NO and they don't not since the 60's.

People today don't know how many white people marched for civil rights.

How do you think we won our civil rights? We had support from the white community.

We are people too and we should/are treated a such.

Do you know that this is the most racist question I have seen on here in a long time?

Most veil their racist questions.

Do you know how to tell is someone is a racist?

It is the people who THINK about racism.

People who are not racist don't even think thoughts like this.

Why alienate a voting base your party desperately needs?

Black Independent

Yes. Private property is private. If I want to only allow white people into my house, that is my choice because it is my private property. A private business is no different.

Is racism right or moral? Of course not. Buy no law will fix that. And you can't solve it by violating the property rights of every American.

If a racist business owner wanted to do that, he has the right to. But I also have the right to choose not to shop or work there and therefore put him out of business.

That would be a really bad business practice in this day and age. I think also this is a settled issue the answer is no. You must be one who just likes to imply that Conservatives are racist.

Well, I'm a libertarian so I am pretty much of the opinion that a private business should be able to refuse business based on any stupid thing. It's unethical...yes. But I don't want the govt. mandating who private companies do business with. The market will punish them for the prejudicial ignorance.

Yeah, I think it should be allowed, but it would be incredibly damaging to the company. Not only would it prevent blacks from entering, but virtually no one would go there for fear of being deemed "racist."

So there shouldn't be a law against it, but it would probably put the company into financial ruin.

No. I also don't believe that a business should be forced to hire by race either.

Yes, might not make economic sense but a person should be allowed to admit or refuse entry to anyone for any reason