{"id":113,"date":"2015-04-09T10:20:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coppercommando.com\/?p=113"},"modified":"2015-04-09T10:20:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T17:20:37","slug":"in-defense-of-ownership-and-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Ownership and Conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you don\u2019t want to serve everyone, perhaps you shouldn\u2019t be in business?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea quoted above has popped up\u00a0innumerable times in the media. It’s on Twitter, Facebook and other areas, even\u00a0being posted\u00a0by many\u00a0in the media industry. \u00a0The quote attempts to be\u00a0a\u00a0rhetorical question aimed at shaming business owners who don’t agree with the individual positing the question. It shows\u00a0a significant cultural misunderstanding about ownership, conscience, and rights in America. I\u00a0would like to\u00a0to advance a radical idea for the benefit of the people who live in the various coastal states; and perhaps also for the enlightenment of the liberals in Montana who don\u2019t connect much with actual Montanans. It\u2019s something they might not understand but it is something that the rest of us deal with regularly. \u00a0The idea is part of our culture, it is multi-dimensional and cuts across the political parties. Let me describe it.<\/p>\n

When starting a\u00a0business the owner\u00a0have a tendency to believe that they\u00a0own it…because they do. This\u00a0is\u00a0a hard concept\u00a0for people who have never owned a business or worked in the private sector to wrap their minds around. The feeling is that when someone\u00a0pours their sleep, blood, sweat and tears into a product or service, it is something more than “just a business”. It\u2019s more than sandwiches, or auto-repair; it\u2019s more than pizza, cakes and flowers. It is a persons identify revealed\u00a0in an object for consumption. Life, your energy, and moral conscience are all wrapped up in the product. This\u00a0feeling isn’t required\u00a0for small business ownership but it is a common component most small business owners feel.\u00a0With this feeling of right to ownership comes a belief. \u00a0A belief that \u00a0the owner can use what they build to exercise their\u00a0conscience in the world. \u00a0The idea that “what I<\/strong><\/em> make is<\/i><\/b>\u00a0me”, in some important manner, and the owner may choose how they\u00a0impact the world.<\/p>\n

Most people\u00a0support noncontroversial uses of this right of ownership. They\u00a0support the right of small business owners to expel a rude customer. \u00a0They\u00a0support the right of small business owners to defend against thieves. However, when a small business owner exercises their conscience though act or policy that is disagreeable to a portion of the population, it seems suddenly people who disagree with the specific policy want to remove any ability of the owner to exercise their conscience.\u00a0 The proverbial “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. It is in supporting things you personally find repugnant which\u00a0proves your true commitment to this principle of ownership and conscience. I don\u2019t like the Westboro Baptists, if they disappeared from public life tomorrow, nary a tear would I shed. But I support their right to peacefully assemble in public spaces to express their conscience to the community. I personally could not imagine denying my services to someone based on their sexual preference but I support the right of anyone to deny service for any reason. Because I hold creation, ownership, speech and association as a sacred and fundamental human right.<\/p>\n

A quick side note, throughout the 20th century liberals rightly stood up to for rights of speech and association for communists. Many conservatives wrongly accused those liberals of being communists themselves if they did so. Liberals should resist the temptation to make the same mistake\u00a0in characterizing any effort to publicly recognize this right as an implicit endorsement of such activities.<\/p>\n

This isn’t a\u00a0radical idea. \u00a0However there is a culture, mostly on the coasts, that tends to undervalue work, ownership and entrepreneurship (with a few\u00a0exceptions). Thankfully there are many who understand what it means to own a business. \u00a0It means that\u00a0the government local, state or federal; or the People or the collective; do not own your business. The business owners\u00a0conscience and identity is in their\u00a0service, and they\u00a0can no more separate it for the \u201ccollective will\u201d than a gay person can\u00a0separate his or her love for their partner on the alter of political expediency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you don\u2019t want to serve everyone, perhaps you shouldn\u2019t be in business?\u201d The idea quoted above has popped up\u00a0innumerable times in the media. It’s on Twitter, Facebook and other areas, even\u00a0being posted\u00a0by many\u00a0in the media industry. \u00a0The quote attempts to be\u00a0a\u00a0rhetorical question aimed at shaming business owners who don’t agree with the individual positing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}