Quote Originally Posted by Strypi View Post

Now, Paypal making this statement and choice- well, let's just look at that for a minute. Paypal is not a government entity. They don't get their funding from taxes. I believe that they should be allowed to determine what sorts of transactions that they will support. This has nothing to do with rights. If you walked into my nail salon a few years ago, you'd have to abide by my rules, and that is how it should be. Paypal is saying the same thing. Corporations are not democracies. They get to make the rules, and your rights have nothing to do with it. Your rights come into play when you are dealing with police, or other governmental entities. If you don't like how a company is ran, you have the ability (not the right) to spend your money elsewhere.
I've thinking about this...and I believe there are several issues here. One: A business is not a state in the state, and there is a limit to what you can decide. A business has its own rules, but must also abide by the rules of the state. For instance, if you have an amusement park, you cannot decide what the people should wear who are using it, unless it were a safety issue. If you have a nail salon, you cannot say for instance that you will only serve customers if they are over 1.65 m tall, because that would be discriminating.

The second issue is whether or not it is reasonable to take the role of thought police because you have a business. Would it, for instance, be reasonable if a baker demanded that people say a short prayer upon entering his shop? Would it be reasonable if a hair-dresser wanted every customer to swear that they had never voted for the republicans? If you import stuff from China, should you only sell to customers who are pro-life/free-choice, in favour of lower taxes/more taxes, or want more military/less military?

As I see it, and as a general principle, if you sell a service or goods, your are in the busines of selling service or goods, you are not in the busness of converting people to your ideas.