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Largest U.S. Bank Cuts Ties to Conservative Group, Canceling Donald Trump Jr. Event
The country's largest bank has cut ties with a Missouri conservative group, forcing an event that had been set to feature Donald Trump Jr. to be immediately canceled.
[....] Defense of Liberty founder Paul Curtman, a former GOP state representative, told the Missouri Independent that WePay informed him in a message that it would no longer do business with his group based on an alleged violation of terms of service and had refunded $30,000 in payments already processed for the event.
"It seems you're using WePay Payments for one or more of the activities prohibited by our terms of service," the message reportedly states. "More specifically: Per our terms of service, we are unable to process for hate, violence, racial intolerance, terrorism, the financial exploitation of a crime, or items or activities that encourage, promote, facilitate, or instruct others regarding the same."
Maybe Trump Jr and Defense of Liberty political action committee should not promote such things?
Or . . . maybe those things are their core message, and appeal to their base.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @04:02AM (18 children)
Agreed, but usually the response is to let the market deal with it. The opposite is also true, forcing a business to serve someone with KKK tattoos that openly supports violence and discrimination against others isn't fair to the bank or its employees. My position is to let someone bring a lawsuit if they feel unfairly discriminated against, that is what black and gay people had to do. Why should white supremacists get easy protection?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @04:26AM (9 children)
The problem is that the concept of letting markets deal with it has already been shunted aside because enforced transactions are already a thing. That's kind of the point. It has nothing to do with white supremacists as such - doesn't the same logic apply to people facially recognised as being in BLM protests? Or are banks now OK with saying: "According to our arrangements with Faceb... we mean Meta, and Goog ... er, Alphabet, we've done some analysis of footage of BLM activity and, uh, yeah, you've disqualified yourself."
Or if it isn't BLM, it's Extinction Rebellion, or Million Mom March, or whatever.
On the other hand, if they can keep the KKK out, and that's cool, why not BLM? Why not simply demand all everyone's social media accounts, and find that holding anything back is grounds for refusal?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @06:06AM (8 children)
Thus the lawsuits to set precedent, or Congress can update the anti-discrimination laws. Or we need privacy laws to protect personal information. We shall have to see how things play out, and so far I haven't seen any real issues with people getting access to services. What about ex-prisoners that have way more trouble than any other group? Maybe we should fix that discrimination first along with reforming the entire process to promote rehabilitation like some other countries have successfully done.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 19 2021, @01:45PM (4 children)
It's always amusing when someone immediately contradicts themselves in the next sentence. You just mentioned a group, ex-prisoners who indeed have real issues with people getting access to services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @06:19PM (3 children)
I always love when khalliw rears his sociopathic head. Haven't seen prisoners unabke to access basic utilities, but their problems came to mind as a tangent. Try keeping up khallow, I know it taxes your smooth brain but still.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 19 2021, @08:13PM (2 children)
The grandparent wasn't speaking of just basic utilities. Banking services are an example of something that ex-cons have trouble obtaining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @03:00AM (1 child)
Maybe there's a logical reason for that? Like, it takes time to re-earn trust.
Something like 90% of the population are not, and never will be, ex-cons. Ex-cons come in all colours, races, economic backgrounds, and educational levels. Because stupidity.
Yes, laws are much more likely to be enforced against minorities, but how stupid do you have to be to not take that into account? Life isn't fair, news at 11.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 20 2021, @04:33AM
What trust does a bank need?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @05:02PM (2 children)
Yes, Congress or the courts can address this question, and probably will right after they address pressing questions about whose hair looks most gorgeously coiffed on 4K TV.
Right now we have a perfect example: someone is pushed out of banking services for no reason of malfeasance, but a sort of scattershot laundry-list of things including "reputational risk" which is the corporate way of saying: "Your cooties may rub off on us!" This is why we establish principles. If equality before the law is to mean anything, then discrimination in services on the grounds of differences must be outlawed. If civil liberties are to mean anything, then discrimination on the basis of exercising them is ...
... apparently just peachy, today.
On the other hand, if freedom of association is the ruling concern, including in public transactions, then we can go back to lunch counters for white people, and for everybody else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @06:24PM (1 child)
How demanding you are that peoole address your concerns! Were you orotesting with BLM? D you support police reform? Or are you a dirty little shithead that only cares when white people face hardship?
Rhetorical questions, your commentary makes your position pretty clear.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @07:04PM
OK, so while we're asking rhetorical questions, how do you feel about the idea of Antifa wall-of-moms members get denied mortgages because they stood in front of Portland police?
Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Because right now, this is right there for any bank to glom onto. "We're terribly sorry, ma'am, but we just noticed that your face matches that of some kind of person who doesn't like large institutions, and blahblahblahREPUTATIONALRISKcoughcough fuck you, bitch. Oh, and your savings account just got closed, here's a grip of benjamins, the door is thataway."
And *poof* just like that, Mom is one of the unbanked. Bye-bye, government goal.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 19 2021, @01:42PM (7 children)
Why should fairness to the bank outweigh fairness to the someone with KKK tattoos in this case?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @06:30PM (6 children)
You stepped in it twice.
BAKE THE CAKE!
JAIL THE 1/6 TRAITORS!
God damn u dumb!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @09:07PM (5 children)
I realise that you're just a shouty troll who gets off on being the louder idiot, but ... you didn't actually answer the question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @12:39AM (4 children)
Looks like pointing out Republican double-think, on this site conservatives all lined up to support the baker's discrimination. Now that conservatives are getting a taste of the discrimination they love to serve suddenly it is not ok and something must be done to protect conservatives from people not wanting anything to do with them. It is very sad, but no one expected integrity or intelligence from conservatives after 2016. Well, to be fair, it was a black man being elected president that really broke you all, but 2016 was when you decided fascism was cool.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @03:54AM (3 children)
So, if I'm reading your position correctly, people forfeit their right to freedom of religion if they want to have a business, and the government can use private businesses as proxies to exact a prohibitive toll on the exercise of disfavoured civil liberties.
See the common thread of civil liberties there? The baker wanted to retain his (even after the Colorado commission openly disparaged them, and him), and the bank isn't laying claim to anything about civil liberties but is assailing the civil liberties of its customers - and unlike bakers, banks have close regulatory ties with the federal government.
Now, I don't honestly know what the republicans/conservatives on this site think, but if I were to take a wild guess, I'd lay pretty fair odds that somehow they're the one concerned about civil liberties, here, and that they're being consistent about it. From my perspective as an ACLU-supporting liberal sort of guy, you seem to think that civil liberties are icky because nasty people use them to make you cry. Maybe you should consider that pluralism isn't all bad, for a nation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @08:32PM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @11:49PM
Even if all that is true (nnnnot quite really on the fascist thing, by the way) it has no bearing on religious identification as a civil liberty.
Bear in mind that the real secret sauce behind religious freedom is that government can't tell you you're wrong to hold a given opinion. They can disagree with the opinion, and they can order things in a certain way to represent social needs (no human sacrifices, please) but matters of personal revelation and conscience are beyond their reach.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 21 2021, @09:33AM
Depends on the country, but for the US, the increasing percentage of education peoples' opinions are completely irrelevant unless they start modifying the US Constitution.