I'm not sure if you're really serious or just playing devils advocate
I am very serious.
first of all it's not "my judgement" that is being used. It's the collective judgement of our legislators and our courts which has a perfectly reasonable mandate to protect it's citizens from prejudice and unfair business practices.
I didn't mean "you" personally. I was referring to this nebulous collective judgement. I don't believe this "collective judgement" can or should replace or supplement my own. Frankly, I don't think it's as good as my judgement, and I wish that it'd collectively go to hell. If the collective judgement of the public is that a landlord (or a banker) is racist or prejudiced or whatever else, the public has means at its disposal to punish those people: by not doing business with them.
That is the answer as to WHY we would would want to prevent people from using racist or prejudice practices. This shit seems so obvious that I truly wonder why you're arguing about it unless you were really racist or prejudice against certain groups
I'm neither racist nor prejudiced against anyone; I simply don't believe that the Government should have the authority to tell me how to act and how to think; why you consider this to be the hallmark of a racist or someone who is prejudiced is beyond me. Perhaps you're the one who's prejudiced?
In spite of your brilliant analysis that whites might pay off their loans on time and blacks don't.....thats EXACTLY the type of abuse that the laws are created to prevent. BTW - the best way to tell if someone will pay their bills on time is having a history of paying their bills on time. Credit scoring models take that and many other factors into consideration but race, creed, religion, etc.. are not viable factors in determining likelihood of repayment
First of all, it wasn't an analysis. It was a
HYPOTHETICAL (hence the use of "arguendo" – which means, literally, for the sake of argument). I never asserted that whites are more likely to pay off their loans on time and blacks aren't. I was arguing an example, and "black" and "white" where just convenient labels. Frankly, I've no idea if there is such a correlation. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't.
But you, on the other hand, assert that any of these factors are not viable. As I said, perhaps they aren't, but
how do you know? What are you basing this assertion on? Do you have any hard facts? Any studies that you can point us to? Any research that has been published perhaps?
Before you answer, I'll even give you an example that demolishes the notion itself to shreds. Followers of Harold Camping took out loans and maxed out credit cards, fully expecting never to have to pay those back. Do you
REALLY think that this belief (which the bank
CANNOT LEGALLY CONSIDER when making a decision on whether to grant the loan) is irrelevant? Shouldn't that affect the credit-worthiness rating of an individual?
Maybe you should read the ECOA sometime. It covers more than just race
I'm well aware of what attributes a bank can't consider. Let's play some more hypothetical games, shall we? Do you think a bank should be able to say "For the next 30 days, when a married couple gets a mortgage with us to buy their first home, we will make the first three payments as a wedding gift!"? If not, why not? If yes, why yes? What if the bank, instead of offering to make three payments, turns around and discounts the interest rate by, say, 5 basis points? What then? And what if the bank wants to say, instead, "for married couples, the minimum FICO score we will require for a mortgage to be approved will be reduced by 25 points"? Would that be OK?
Why is it OK for the government to give incentives to married couples (e.g. larger tax exemptions) but NOT OK for a private company to give similar special incentives?
Your point that a racist landlord can still achieve his racist goals even if prevented from overt or explicit prejudice is certainly true but again, I don't agree that it's a reason to take no action at all.
Quite right, it's not a reason to take no action at all. But that's jumping a bit ahead: the question is should we be taking action in the first place? You've yet to convince me; you just keep saying that that's what we, collectively, decided. That may very well be, but at some point we had collectively decided to outlaw booze. Indeed, at various points in our history, we had collectively decided to prohibit many things, some of which we later found out we should have never prohibited. Why is this decision different than all those other decisions of the past?
Your point seems to be that some people wil stil get away with it so we might as well not make any effort at all. Basically we'll never catch everyone so why make any effort at all. That a great idea. Why bother having speed limits if we know that some people will still speed and not be caught. For that matter, why have laws agaisnt murder, rape, etc.. since we surely can't catch every murder
The government setting speed limits on
its own roads isn't a good analogy. A more correct analogy would be to have to government tell me that I
must have a speed limit on the private toll road I plan on building between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Or better yet, that I must allow everyone who wants to, to use my road. Do you really think that the government should be able to regulate what happens on my private road, and who is allowed to traverse it?
Your example of murder, rape, etc is also not applicable. The government has a Constitutional responsibility to protect people's rights. It doesn't have a responsibility to ensure that people get credit from private institutions.
btw - in spite of your denial you sound pretty damn racist to me......either that or all of you posts are merely playing devils advocate for some reason
Good grief...
Believe whatever you want to believe - I know what I am and what I'm not and I don't particularly care about what I sound like to you.
