Genetic Discrimination: Unfair or Natural?

Time ^ | May. 08, 2008 | MICHAEL KINSLEY

[forkinsocket]

Last week, with little attention or fanfare, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 414 to 1 to outlaw genetic discrimination. The only dissenter was the irascible libertarian Ron Paul. The Senate passed the same bill unanimously, and President Bush is ready to sign it. The bill tells employers and insurance companies that they may not use the results of genetic tests in choosing their employees and customers. One purpose of the bill is to encourage genetic testing. But the more important reason for it is to uphold a sense of fairness. Just as the law forbids discrimination against a person because she is black or a woman, it will henceforth forbid discrimination against her because she carries a gene that makes her more likely than average to get cancer. And the logic is similar: Why should she be punished for something completely beyond her control?

That's a good instinct, and this new weapon in the arsenal of equality is a good thing. But how far should we take it? This law forbids the use of genetic information garnered in blood tests. But your genes affect your life in many ways. To avoid all the controversy around the concept of "intelligence," let's consider a slightly different concept called "talent." Is it unfair that Yo-Yo Ma can play cello better than I can? Or that people hire Frank Gehry instead of me when they want a beautiful building, or that Warren Buffett is a better stock picker? Sure, it's unfair. And it's unfair in precisely the same way the results of a genetic test are: my lack of talent at playing the cello is something I was born with and beyond my control. Could I have overcome my lack of talent through discipline and hard work?

[forkinsocket]

.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Wow. Nice Straw Man in the second paragraph.

[messierhunter]

It’s insane; determinations of talent are not genetic tests, nor is the reverse true. A genetic test may be able to reveal potential in some cases, but it is not able to tell if you have actually capitalized on that potential. The truth of the matter shows precisely why we must not allow companies to judge people based on their genetics. It would further the new age of eugenics and set the stage for abortions based on “genetic potential,” not just genetic disease. I’m not terribly surprised that a racist like Paul would vote against it.

[militem]

I thought it was genetics that proved we are all the same, that is, we all descend from ancestors in Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Genographic_Project

The view that race is an illusion is based on genetics, therfore an individualist would be more likely to support that, not a racist. But you obviously hate Ron Paul so I won’t let reason stop you.

[traviskicks]

The only dissenter was the irascible libertarian Ron Paul.

Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.

[pupdog]

Last week, with little attention or fanfare, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 414 to 1 to outlaw genetic discrimination. The only dissenter was the irascible libertarian Ron Paul.

Beyond the hideous and nightmarish extensions of where this kind of logic could lead us that I'm sure others will point out, I'll only ask exactly the question Paul would ask (and probably did), since he will likely wind up being a centerpiece of the discussion:

Where is this power granted to the federal government in the Constitution?

[superfluousdude]

Remember the movie Gattaca?

[superfluousdude]

[knarf]

" .. and this new weapon in the arsenal of .. "

Let's see nowwwww ....

Not everyone gets a complete physical, nor enters therapy, nor submits an app. for conceal carry ... you know ... and your info disappears? ...

But almost everyone gets/has a job ........ !

And of course .... no, no no ... you may not data base that information Mr/Ms employer ... it's against the law.

[murphE]

The only dissenter was the irascible libertarian Ron Paul.

That ol' wascally wabbit.

[messierhunter]

Just because credible geneticists tell you that race is an illusion does not mean that eugenicists will not pick and choose genetic "ideas" in order to further their cause. The only reasons for allowing the corporate discrimation of people based on their genes stems from racist and eugencially derived ideas.

Don't give me that "he just wants everyone to be free to do whatever they want" crap. In order for that to be true he'd have to be an advocate of true anarchy, where your "freedom" allows you to infringe on the rights of others without intervention. You have the freedom to think whatever you want about other races or people with different genes than you, but you shouldn't have the right to deny them employment or insurance based on those prejudices, regardless of how "fact based" the genetic discrimination is.

What we have here is yet another ronpaulogist who wishes to excuse his racism by saying that we all have common ancestors so it's not really racism, it's just genetic profiling. Frankly I don't give a damn whether it's eugenics or racism, they're both forms of discrimination based on the things you were born with, and they often go hand in hand. Paul himself has made some pretty outrageous racist statements that he later denied making, he has a history with this garbage so it's not "unreasonable" to attribute his lone dissenting vote to his extremist racist agenda.

"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal"

"order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks."

Ron Paul on carjacking - it's the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos."


He claims he didn't write those things. So instead of being a racist he claims he just surrounds himself with racists. Similarly Obama has claimed he "never saw the survey" that clearly stated his real position on gun control. We know Obama definately lied about that because his handwriting was on the survey on one of the pages. Unfortunately, we can't know the same about Paul for sure, but it seems damn incompetent of him to be allowing his staffers to publish things in his name sight unseen multiple times without even getting the name of the writer. Frankly, I don't believe his claim that he had no idea what was being published, and since he can't even name a name he's complicit in covering for the racist behind it, whether it's him or not. He's stormfront's favorite politician and refuses to return the money he's received from racists like them. You have to ask yourself, what do they know that we don't, or rather, what are they willing to believe about him that we aren't? It's no different than the issue of Hamas supporting Obama. If you have an issue with Obama because of the latter, you ought to have an issue with Paul because of the former. Personally, I have issues with both of them for both reasons.

[messierhunter]

Try the equal protection clause, as currently interpreted by SCOTUS. According to SCOTUS, it also gave congress the power to pass the civil rights act of 1964, and since that forbids the discrimination of people based on race, it is not a stretch to say that congress has the power to forbid discrimination based on other genetically-determined factors unless there is a compelling business reason (like hiring a person with a disability in a position whose responsibilities they cannot fulfill because of that disability). The chance that the person is genetically prone to a problem later on that could cost the company more in health insurance doesn’t sound like a compelling enough business reason to me.

[timm22]

You have the freedom to think whatever you want about other races or people with different genes than you, but you shouldn't have the right to deny them employment or insurance based on those prejudices, regardless of how "fact based" the genetic discrimination is.

Why not?

Isn't the "employment" owned by the employer, and the insurance owned by the insurer?

Do you believe people have a "right" to employment or a "right" to insurance?

[pupdog]

Try the equal protection clause, as currently interpreted by SCOTUS. According to SCOTUS, it also gave congress the power to pass the civil rights act of 1964

In other words, in the interpretation of activist courts. "Equal protection under the law" in my world has never meant, and still means nothing more than that, not "equality of results in every human situation". Sorry, I know of that clause, I never agreed with that interpretation remotely, so if that's the best we've got, then IMO, even if you only considered Constitutional reasons, Paul voted correctly.

Anti-discrimination laws in general is one of the most anti-free-market concepts in existence. All choice is based on discrimination. The concept of some outside party trying to discern what is "good" and "bad" discrimination has never been anything more than absurd.

If we hadn't already gotten to the point where hiring anyone was such a legal landmine of lawsuits waiting to happen every time an employer breathed wrong that it's not even worth it anymore unless you have a legal team the size of Xerxes's army, this will handily take care of that.

[Eric Blair 2084]

As long as they don’t smoke. In that case you can discriminate against them all you want.

Don’t you dare discriminate against someone whose parents were so retarded they should never have reproduced. I’ve seen some of these people, they just shoot holes in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I’m a Darwin natural selection, survival of the fittest adherent, but then I see some people....makes me wonder....maybe I’m wrong and Darwin was wrong.

[militem]

Brevity is the soul of wit. Welcome to FR

[messierhunter]

Hate to burst the bubble, but a congressman is not above SCOTUS, unless they're working to pass a constitutional amendment. You don't have to like their interpretation, but their interpretation stands and they are the ones who must decide what is unconstitutional. Clearly their rulings show that this law would be constitutional, so it is not up to Mr. Paul to decide whether genetic discrimination is constitutional or not. He's a congressman, not a judge.

If you want to nitpick, the equal protection clause is only half the equation, the other half is the commerce clause, which gives congress power over interstate commerce. Hiring practices and insurance definately fall into that category.

[messierhunter]

I wasn’t trying to be witty, I was being thorough. I hope I covered everything, because you can always count on a paulogist to nitpick.

[messierhunter]

Well folks, I guess we should just let people discriminate against black people if they want to. Even if the discriminated can prove their case they should get nothing. Wonderful, I think we just regressed FR to the late 19th century.

You're trying to use a frakking strawman here, I never said you had a "right" to employment. I said you don't have the right to abuse other people with your "rights." Discriminating against someone for reasons such as race that have absolutely NOTHING to do with the job itself is not the right of the employer. That doesn't mean the same thing as having a right to employment, it just means that your employer does not has a right to discriminate on the basis of things which have nothing to do with the job. "Affirmitive action" is an example of believing in a "right to employment" by forcing companies to fill quotas regardless of job qualifications, but that's not what I'm advocating.

I thought most Freepers were against allowing racist discrimination, maybe I was wrong about that.

[r9etb]

Genetic discrimination, eh"

Well, take your pick: