Yes, you do own the product of your work. You own it exclusively and absolutely.

No, the neighborhood bully has no right to your product. You have every right to refuse sharing with him for whatever reason or no particular reason at all.

Same with the Filipino family. If you decide not to do business with them they have no right to force you in any way, neither does anyone else.
You own your product. If you refuse to sell it for any reason or no reason at all, you refuse, end of story. It makes you a hatefilled asshole, but you've got the absolute right to do it. It may end up hurting or even killing your business, but you are absoluetely free to do so.

Same with hiring people. It's your decision and your decision only who you sign a contract with. You are free to refuse for whatever reason or no reason at all.
Again, you may be hurting yourself here, but you have the absoluet right to do so.

Human right of property and ownership, nothing else.

Okay. If that provision were left out of the Civil Rights Act for those reasons, and only discrimination by the state were banned, what do you imagine the state of society would be today? Do you think there would still be widespread racial discrimination by private businesses and citizens (and if so, is that okay with you)? Or do you think the end of state-sponsored discrimination would be enough to bring about the societal change necessary to end the culture of segregation (and if so, how so)?

Yes, I am sure discrimination and segregation would continue.

Prejudice is a basic function of the human minds and has ensured our survival for millions of years. It is rooted in the limbic system, a primordial part of our brains, and unless the government cracks open all people's skulls and tears it out there will be no end to discrimination just because of some fancy laws that can or cannot be enforced or even controlled.

I normally refrain from using the ever-popular "human nature" argument, but here it is scientifically applicable. Prejudice is human nature.
Government may have the means to suppress discriminating behavior to some degree, but not to get rid of its source. It will always reappear as soon as the pressure is taken off.

I think you have every right to discriminate on behalf of some asshat's douchebaggery, but certainly not because some one because of their decent(unless they descend from asshats lol). I'm not too clear on laws and how they work with private businesses, but I think since you hire people, you are responsible for them and must succumb to labor national labor laws and such.

I think that you can't discriminate as far as public policy is concerned, but when its business, that's property rights. You can deny service to anyone that is on your property. I don't think it would be right to discriminate but that right is reserved to the owner of the property.

I think that everyone has a right to equal business/consumer opportunities. You shouldn't be able to charge more or less unless the product change, NOT the consumer.

What about raising prices in response to reduced supply, for instance? The product doesn't change.

I'm going to categorize that under "product" though. Im saying "product" and an umbrella for everything that involves or affect the product.
that's worded kind of weird sorry. make sense though?

Okay. So what is your response to this specific analogy? What if the product is free (price of $0), and why does it make a difference (if it does) when you're charging people for the product?

I don't think timing is an issue at all.
If the milkshake gets a price (for whatever reason) there should be no change.
This analogy quite simply boils down to: "Do you believe in price discrimination?"

But what about outright denial of service? If I'm giving out my own stuff for free , am I obligated to give it to everyone who wants it for the sake of fairness, or do I have a choice in who receives my property? And again, what if I were selling my stuff?

(I'm just trying to better understand your stance and reasoning)

hm. thats a hard one. If you're giving it away for free, it's not really a transaction, so I guess there's no real moral obligation to give something to everyone if you don't want to.

however, if the milkshake whatever becomes an actual business, it takes on an ethical (and now a legal) responsibility to sell that milkshake to anyone who is able to make a purchase at the established price

Thanks, I think I understand.

This is where you and I differ. I think all contracts - including business transactions - must be mutually voluntary. My property, even that which I put up for sale, belongs to me exclusively until the moment I actually give it away (in exchange for money, or otherwise). You, a potential customer, do not have a right (entitlement) to my property even if you are willing and able to pay the set price. You only gain a positive right to the product after both of us have agreed to the transaction, and assuming you hold up your side (by paying for it).

Because it is my property, I am not obligated to sell it to you for any reason, even if I am willing to sell it to others. In discriminating against you I may be being a dick, but I am not violating your rights because, again, you never had a right to my property in the first place. The same goes for jobs - you're not entitled to be employed by me, because the business is my property.

That said, I DO support the Civil Rights Act - purely from a general welfare perspective. I do think the reasoning in my original argument is sound, but I think if that aspect of the Civil Rights Act were not implemented minorities would still be commonly and openly discriminated against and have far fewer opportunities than white people, living as "second class citizens". I consider these consequences to be dire enough to warrant an sacrifice of property rights.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said here, except the last paragraph.
Nothing and nobody has a right to force others to sacrifice theirs, not for any goal or reason.

See, in my view that is a good principle, but overly idealistic. Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice principle for pragmatism, so that society can function and prosper. Taxes are an example. They are a violation of property rights: the government takes your money without explicit permission and spends it in ways you have no say in on things you may not benefit from, and if you don't give them the money you go to jail. But the government has an essential role in society, and it need a source of revenue in order to perform its functions.
The US Constitution states that the purposes of the American government are to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty". These are all essential functions of government. The government exists to protect us (defense) and our rights (liberty) from both external and internal threats, so that we can have a productive and cooperative society. It also needs to arbitrate disputes (justice) and maintain at least some degree of order (domestic tranquility). Finally, it should do something to promote the general welfare, whether this means building infrastructure, providing safety nets, funding public education, or simply prohibiting certain deleterious behaviors - inevitably at the expense of rights.
AND all of these functions must be carried out while respecting the popular will.

These functions will inevitably clash with each other, and a balance must be found between them. Prioritizing defense and order over everything else will inevitably sacrifice liberty and welfare (to the extent that liberty is part of welfare). Going the way of individual rights and liberty will come at the expense of defense, justice, order, and general welfare.

(con't - damn this is a long reply)

Sacrificing morality for pragmatism is effectively the same as sacrificing morality for greed or savagery. Morality is gone afterwards.
In my eyes, safe for self-defense, there can be no excuse for violating the rights of others. Human self-determination is the one thing I value highest of all, for everything else is a shade of slavery and tyranny.
Worst of all, once a person, group or institution is allowed to disregard morality and execute force and violence against others in however small and restricted way, there is nothing to stop it from gradually seizing power until it establishes a position of totalitarian domination.

Nothing except violent Revolution, that is, and looking through human history, we see exactly that. Councils "evolving" into oligarchies, senates into aristocracies, aristocrats fighting over power until a principality among them is formed, thus creating a form monarchy, republics changing into kingdoms and empires, all that happening almost by itself.
Wresting that power that was never meant for their government out of its hands again then costs the citizens blood and lives.

Looking through history, we humans have struggled against the very concept of government for the last ten thousand years, and of all conflicts in our history, it is by far the bloodiest and most destructive and costly.

So yes, I propose universal self-determination. Anarchy. And why should I not?
The government can never exert powers that we, the people, cannot give them and therefore have ourselves. All the money they have is taken from the citizens. All the resources they have are as well. All their personnel and armed forces are part of the people, all they stamp their name on is in truth property of the ones paying for it; it is ours.

Government is an unnecessary evil. All it takes is a change of mind and it can become a horror of the past, primitive days of humanity.
There is nothing an institution of monopolised violence provides that we cannot achieve ourselves.

If we take your principle literally to its logical conclusion - "nothing and nobody has a right to force others to sacrifice their [rights], not for any goal or reason" - then we must assume that you are opposed to the Social Contract itself. And although the Social Contract is a coerced contract, in that it assumes consent rather than asking for it and does not allow one to realistically opt out, it is nevertheless the core of any society or government ever. The alternative is anarchy, which leaves people and their rights (including property rights) utterly unprotected, the way they were before civilization itself existed.

Yes, I very much oppose the so-called Social Contract. It is an abomination in my eyes, an insulting travesty for all involved, piling crushing debt on children of generations yet unborn.

I would very much prefer the alternative you named and take defending my rights into my own hands (or, more realistically, a voluntary joint effort) than entrust an utterly selfish and immoral institution with it.

"the way they were before civilization itself existed."
That is wrong. Many important aspects of our lives are wholly unregulated and anarchistic and many if not all would defend that freedom with violence if they had to.
Different civilizations left different aspects ungoverned and even the most tyrannical and totalitarian regimes left little specs of anarchy in their citizens/victims lives.
The less they left, the more dark, evil and tyrannical they appear to us.

Why, in your opinion, was government invented in the first place?

I do not know, I was not there.
Most probably it was just the strongest individual of a group exerting his force onto all others, back before even the dawn of language and scripture. The justifications people have come up with over the millennia surely came afterwards.

well now this can branch into a business ethics discussion, a business ownership discussion, a consumer rights discussion... there are too many variables haha

but this was an interesting analogy, and a fine valid point from you. haven't thought too much about this kind of thing before :)

As far as hiring goes, unless you outright say that you are not hiring people of a certain race, it is hard for a prosecutor to present definite evidence that you are not hiring people of a certain race. If the owner of a business does not want to hire people of a certain race, they have the right to. Everyone has a right to opinion, and the owner of a business has the right to manage his business how he wants. Though, of course, it would be a terrible business choice to openly discriminate, anyway. You would be not last very long at all; no one wants to eat at a racist restaurant. Except for Klan members, or something.
Anyway, people do not have the right to a job, nor do they have the right to buy from whoever they want. The owner of a business should be able to make his business choices without federal interference, no matter how stupid said decisions are.

I agree with your stance on rights. But rights and liberties are sometimes sacrificed to fulfill other functions of government, such as promoting general welfare.

Suppose that provision were left out of the Civil Rights Act, and people were able to continue legally discriminating against racial minorities in their private businesses. Would there still be a culture of segregation, as there was in the 60s? At the time, businesses that discriminated would NOT go out of business, and in fact discrimination was common practice in parts of the country.
Would ending discrimination by the state also somehow make private discrimination socially unacceptable, as it would be today? Or would black people and other minorities continue to live with greatly reduced opportunities and living standards compared to white people, as a direct result of segregation?
Is that acceptable, and does the government have any responsibility to prevent that from happening?