Did You Mean "*Dis*analogy," Steve?
Landsburg's whole post was an exercise in deliberately missing the point of what your opponent is saying, but this part was especially bad: "I am dismayed by Father Wildes’s blindness to the clear analogy between being forced to work someone else’s land and being forced to serve someone else’s lunch." Okay, there indeed is something about these two situations that is analogous: both parties are being placed in a legal situation in which they are forced to choose between two options, each of which they would rather avoid. This slave is being faced with the choice: pick cotton or die. The restaurant owner is being faced with the choice: serve people of all races lunch, or... don't run a public dining establishment. So, while there is some analogy, the situations are far more dissimilar than they are alike. No one, after all, is forced to run a public dining establishment. (No one is forced to live either, but that is sort of a sine qua non for doing anyth...