The Drookster goes Genghis Libertarian:

Quoting me:

The wimpy fucking old "vote with your wallet" line again? Sheesh, you Merkins... Seem to think *everything* is about money, dontya? Words and phrases like "principle" and "stand up for your rights" are just incomprehensible *noise* to you, aren't they?

Not everything is ABOUT your GODDAMN WALLET in the first place, so why the fuck should you think your GODDAMN WALLET is the appropriate tool FOR fucking EVERYthing?!?

He was in a mall, wansn't he? Sure, some people like to just "hang out" at malls. But the basic reason to be in a mall is to shop. So when the mall's representative told him he had to leave, they were really saying, "We don't want you to shop here." So in this case it was about the money.

Sorry to be stating the obvious, but it seems you are in dire need of it: He DID fucking well shop!!!

In fact, since he BOUGHT the bloody T-shirt in question AT THE MALL, I would say that it MUST, "by definition" so to speak, have been OK to wear it there -- what's the fucking sense of allowing it to be SOLD there, if it's so fricking terrible to WEAR it???

But, to address your sub-points (and sub- they are, indeed...) one by one:

He was in a mall, wansn't he?

Why, if you mean a place where you can both buy T-shirts and get something to eat at a "food court", then yes, I do believe he was!

Sure, some people like to just "hang out" at malls.

(As an aside, this has bearing on the "bums" Ben mentioned, and is another aspect of what I was trying to address with the phrase "functional requirement" that Spicy misunderstood: If there are "bums" just "hanging out" at a mall, one can get rid of them by invoking the "functional" argument that they aren't doing what the place is for; I think the word is "loitering". There *are* at least somewhat objective criteria to apply for most undesirable *behaviours*, so there's no need to try to justify throwing out people totally arbitrarily.)

But the basic reason to be in a mall is to shop.

You mean like buying T-shirts and getting something to eat at "food courts"?

So when the mall's representative told him he had to leave, they were really saying, "We don't want you to shop here."

That's funny -- *usually*, they'd be more likely to be saying, "We don't want you to NOT shop here."! :-) (See the bit about "loitering", above.)

So in this case it was about the money.

You mean like the money he paid for the T-shirt and at the "food court"?

But more importantly:

And I believe any privately-owned facility should have the absolute right to exclude anyone they wish.

Actually, I don't think they *do* have that right. Wasn't there some discussion here (or on a previous incarnation) about how shopkeepers that run a business open to the public are obligated to deal with the *whole* public?

You're absolutely right. What I was saying is that while they aren't allowed to discriminate I think they should be allowed to. Yes, you read that right and I know exactly what I'm saying.

If that is really true, then you are a total fuckwit.

If I own my home, I am allowed to decide who can come in. It's mine. If I own a store, shouldn't I have the same right?

No, not exactly.

A store is not a home, you see. (Sheesh, I sound as if I'm talking to a three-year-old -- but then, if you think that's a valid analogy, then that IS obviously the level of discourse you operate on!)

Your home is *private* property, where you do whateverthefuck you please, since nobody else has to see it. (Are you still with me, or should I use even smaller words?)

Your store, OTOH, is by its very nature NOT "private" (yeah yeah, as "property" perhaps it is, if "you" happen not to be a corporation).

What a store (or mall) is *for* is to interact with the public -- not to put too fine a point on it, it is all about relieving them of their hard-earned dough. Well, it's "all" about that, from the *store's* point of view, anyway. (Which you seem to blithely assume is the only valid point of view -- if you've even realised that it *is* just a point of view!)

That makes a store (or a mall) a matter of *public* interest, and thus NOT "private", at least not in the same way that your home is "private". (Don't worry -- if you don't understand this, I'll put it in other words right away:)

In other words: A store (or a mall) doesn't exist in a moral vacuum -- it sits in the middle of a community, of *society*. (Now pause and think about that for a while, before you read on.)

If I'm not allowed to decide who comes in, it isn't really my place. It's a property rights issue.

You say that as if you think it somehow decides the issue; as if in one fell swoop it proves your point. The reason you exclaim so trimuphantly about "property rights", apparently expecting to thereby have "won" the discussion, "game, set, and match", is probably because, as an American, you automatically assume that the Holy Right To Property automatically trumps all other rights.

This is just another way of saying "it's about money"; and my point that "not everything is about your wallet" was just another way of saying -- something which will probably come as a shock to you, since to all appearances, you still haven't even understood that this *was* what I was saying -- that "property rights" *don't* automatically trump all other rights.

You've been talking about how a corporation operating a mall -- or, in your slightly shifting-the-grounds analogy, "you" running "a store" ("Welcome to folksy Mom and Pop Kime!") -- is an economic actor. (See, now we'll pick up where we left off, up above.)

Including the Khasimoid one-short-sentence-per-paragraph style. (AND including these additional explanatory parentheses.)

But the society, the people of that community where your store sits, are not JUST economic actors -- above all, they're *citizens*. (Where "above all" means, this is an even more important aspect of them than that they "are consumers".)

At least that's how it works Over Here; but AFAIK, it also used to be how it worked Over There, at least until fairly recently. (But the very fact that you need to be reminded of it does of course go quite a ways towards showing that perhaps it isn't like that Over There, any more.)

The problem seems to be, either that this guy with the T-shirt thought that was still the way it works, even Over There... Or, more optimistically, that *you* haven't understood that it still *is* the way it works, even Over There. (Oh well, if it's just you misunderstanding the situation, that's not all your own fault: That's what Coprorate Money *wants* you to think, so they're busily brainwashing you to think so.)

[Sorry if I seem to have arrived at a conclusion a bit abruptly; I was actually planning to go on for a bit, but I get so tired... Hope you can piece the puzzle together from the bits I've given you above.]

So I suport racially exclusive clubs, and single-sex colleges, and offensive membership policies, and arbitrary admission policies.

Thanks, duly noted.

I think it's best, at least in the long run, to know these things about people one socializes with...

Either it's my place or it's not. Why should you get to decide who I have to serve at my business?

Because it is my community, too, that you have put your fucking business in!(*)

Your fucking business isn't just a way for you to make money -- it's a part of society, which is about more than your fucking "right" to make money!

How the fuck can that be so hard to understand?!?

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(*): In the "editorial my" sense, of course, of pointing out that at least it isn't *just "yours"*.

Tha Drookster explains(*):

[Quoting me:]

Those of "the rules" that *aren't* so "obvious", though... Are, one would hope, at least *clearly stated* somewhere, so people *know* what the fuck they have to behave like.

They can't do that. Why? As you said above that quote:

You can forbid public drinking/drunkenness or lewd *behaviour* (or, as I've said before, loitering) -- you don't have to resort to more or less arbitrarily throwing specific *people* out.

We have laws about what you are or aren't allowed to prohibit. If someone wants to prohibit them anyway, they can explicitly claim the right to be arbitrary. As long as you don't give a specific reason you're (somewhat) leagally protected.

Fuck that.

No, really, I mean it -- FUCK that!

Yours is an overly-legalistic society, so utterly and moronically bent on suing each other for anything and everything -- and, therefore (albeit only as a consequence of that original cause), also on protecting oneself from being sued -- that you're suing each other, right and left, over *nothing*.

And, what's at least just as bad, you're busily creating an idiotic system of "rules" that aren't rules; of arbitrary discriminations "in order *not* to be arbitrary", apparently as an attempt "not to be sued". Sheesh, man, can't you SEE that that's just plain fucking BULLSHIT? That that's no way to build a sane society?!?

What you people need to do, is to get over your fucking lawyer-complex. Quick, before you turn yourselves into such morons that you can't find the way back.

That's why I said I support racist membership policies and all the rest. If someone is actually going to practice it, then I want them to come right out and say so. I guess I could have been more clear that I support their right to have such policies, not that I support the intent of the policies themselves.

That's stupid, short-sighted, morally repugnant, and, well, just fucking STUPID.

It's akin to saying, "We don't need no silly laws against 'murder' and such. If someone is going to go around killing people for fun and profit, I'd much rather they come right out and say so."

It contributes to the malaise, in stead of working against it.

Which should be -- nay, *is*! -- every thinking man's duty.

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(*): What I knew, already, that he meant.