Just when you think that people are decent...

[rogerbox]

@magellan01

Oh, so if I don’t feel you’re answering me to my satisfaction, I can call you a racist, or a pedophile, or rapist, and I get a free pass until you do what I want. so I get to blackmail you into answering. Are you out of your friggin mind. You think that’s a good, sane, or honorable way to debate?

Unbelievable.

I was debating in good faith. When I called him a racist, which he is, the debate was already over because SA refused to respond to my arguments (notice he demanded a cite for him being a racist but ignored the rest of my post). And someone is free to call me whatever underneath the sun, but I wouldn’t expect them to go to the trouble to search through my post history if I refused to answer simple questions already.

The one making the debate dishonest and dishonorable is SA. I would prefer he respond to my questions and arguments, that was why I was making them in the first place, I don’t post here to talk to myself.

[boytyperanma]

@Shot_From_Guns

So you’d be okay with someone boycotting a business because one of the employees was, say, in an interracial relationship, because the boycotters probably wouldn’t be able to get the person fired, or get the boss to make the person stop dating anyone who isn’t the same race?

OK isn’t the term I’d use but yes they are within their rights to organize such a boycott. They’ll likely fail in their efforts and I’d find it fitting if people ID’d those boycotters and the result was the loss of the boycotters jobs.
Racists and Religious bigots have organized boycotts since the beginning of time to further their causes the only thing new here is they are frequently finding themselves on the other side of the boycotts. Seems like justice to me.

I tried to follow the beginning of you last post but couldn’t really understand what you were trying to say.

Massive boycotts have been held over the issue of gay marriage/acceptance. They continue to go on. Disney has been under constant boycott by Christian bigots for years now, it’s just not a very effective boycott because Disney is more then happy to take they higher profits from the paying gay customers.

[boytyperanma]

@rogerbox

I was debating in good faith. When I called him a racist, which he is, the debate was already over because SA refused to respond to my arguments (notice he demanded a cite for him being a racist but ignored the rest of my post). And someone is free to call me whatever underneath the sun, but I wouldn’t expect them to go to the trouble to search through my post history if I refused to answer simple questions already.

The one making the debate dishonest and dishonorable is SA. I would prefer he respond to my questions and arguments, that was why I was making them in the first place, I don’t post here to talk to myself.

I tend to agree with the position of if you are going to call someone a racist you need to back up that claim. Any other BS you through around about SA’s dishonesty is irreverent, SA isn’t the only one looking for you to provide evidence of your claim.

Just so we are clear here however I’m not going on the record claiming SA isn’t racist, I feel if you are going definitively label him racist you should be able to back it up.

[randomface]

@rogerbox

I was debating in good faith. When I called him a racist, which he is, the debate was already over because SA refused to respond to my arguments (notice he demanded a cite for him being a racist but ignored the rest of my post). And someone is free to call me whatever underneath the sun, but I wouldn’t expect them to go to the trouble to search through my post history if I refused to answer simple questions already.

The one making the debate dishonest and dishonorable is SA. I would prefer he respond to my questions and arguments, that was why I was making them in the first place, I don’t post here to talk to myself.

I don’t really blame him for not responding to you. If he’s a racist, back it up. If he isn’t, don’t make that claim and then whine about him ignoring you.

[rogerbox]

@randomface

I don’t really blame him for not responding to you. If he’s a racist, back it up. If he isn’t, don’t make that claim and then whine about him ignoring you.

He was ignoring me before I called him a racist, otherwise you would have a point. Say I do post what I think he said that was racist, and he still ignores my questions. What then, did I get out of going through his posting history?

[randomface]

You didn’t get anything from going through his posting history apparently, because if you looked enough to find stuff and found it you would have posted it.

[boytyperanma]

@rogerbox

He was ignoring me before I called him a racist, otherwise you would have a point. Say I do post what I think he said that was racist, and he still ignores my questions. What then, did I get out of going through his posting history?

Well for starters it would alleviate the increasing lack credibility you are now suffering with other Straight Dope posters. You going on and on with excuses not to back up your claim isn’t helping. Put up, shut up, or apologize.

[Kolga]

@Hippy_Hollow

You are privileging the comfort of racists over those they victimize, until they get their heads around the fact that we’re all people, etc.

Amen. The oppressed don’t owe anything to the oppressors, especially not any consideration for the oppressors’ oh-so-tender feelings.

If you’re depriving me of my rights, either passively or actively, saying “Oh, I wouldn’t do this if you would just ask nicely! Because you got angry, I’ll keep hatin’ on you for a while” just makes you a disingenuous douchecanoe.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@boytyperanma

Racists and Religious bigots have organized boycotts since the beginning of time to further their causes the only thing new here is they are frequently finding themselves on the other side of the boycotts. Seems like justice to me.

Personally I don’t ever take pride in using the same tactics as people I loathe.

I tried to follow the beginning of you last post but couldn’t really understand what you were trying to say.

I was asking **Jimmy **to consider a situation where a homophobic boss reacted to a homophobic boycotter by putting an employee in a position where they were forced to participate in activities that promoted SSM as a sin.

Again, as I keep repeating: what legal opinions I legally express on my own time should be no fucking business of my employer, because I *do not trust *every employer to understand that being racist on your own time = bad, but being an advocate for LGBT rights, or a Muslim, or whatever, != bad.

[Shot_From_Guns]

Further thoughts:

It’s very easy to support free speech when people are saying things you agree with. IMO, the true test of freedom is how you react when people use it to say things that you think are wrong, or even disgusting. For us to be truly free, we must *also *fight for the right for people to express opinions that are factually incorrect and even hateful, because if you go down the path of having the government, employers, or other major institutions enforce one official version of “truth,” there’s a very good chance that it’s not going to be a “truth” that you agree with.

[devilsknew]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

Oh, and devilsknew: when you originally told the story, you said you dropped the bomb after you got the victim to safety. Good for you that you told the story in the first place, but don’t kid yourself about what happened there, and jesus, don’t try to defend it.

I’m not trying to defend it, I’m simply explaining what happened. I got her about ten feet away to safety, out of the scrum, and sat her half unconscious against a wall so I could put myself between her and them and they came after her, yelling racial epithets as parting shots and trying to kick her in the head… all the while I was trying to hold them off. That’s when I cursed them and they backed off.

[devilsknew]

I’m not kidding myself about what happened there, I stood up against a bunch of racists and fought fire with fire.

[devilsknew]

I just wish that I could track every one of them down and see that they are boycotted from their jobs, or better yet, prosecuted for hate crimes, or minimally, the assault they committed against that poor girl…

[Little_Nemo]

@Shot_From_Guns

Personally I don’t ever take pride in using the same tactics as people I loathe.

I posted above that it would have been stupid for the United States to refuse to use tanks and airplanes in the fight against Nazi Germany because those were the same weapons the Nazis were using.

There’s nothing inherently immoral about public protest. You need to judge its morality by the cause it’s espousing. A public protest against racism is moral. A public protest against gay marriage is not.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@Shot_From_Guns

How about this, Jimmy Chitwood:

Well, how 'bout it? It doesn’t seem to me that I’m taking a categorical position the way you are, so I don’t know - I hate it but it’s fine, I guess? Obviously I don’t agree with them, but I think that’s covered by what I said about being comfortable with a special anti-racist moral judgment. I’m with Little Nemo on that. Racism bad; boycotting racists OK. Homophobia bad; homophobic boycott also bad.

I also don’t see the merit in the argument about “using the same tactics as.” A boycott is a neutral device. It’s like saying you don’t want to make a speech because those are what Jerry Falwell makes, which is maybe a little closer to home than the Nazi deal. To me, a boycott is either justified or not based on the value of the thing it’s protesting; there’s no inherent moral value in purchasing or not purchasing something. Hating gay people is a terrible justification for a boycott, hating racism is not. I M humble O.

In this case, I’m making the judgment call that, you know what, bully the racist. Fairness to racists stopped being merited, I don’t know, 35 years ago if it wasn’t a hundred? Shout a motherfucker down, and bring whatever pressure to bear against him that you can within legal/ethical limits. This is within my limits. I acknowledge the relativism at work there, and I’m comfortable with it. We’re all relativists. And no matter what I think about it, your hypothetical boycotters are certainly within their rights to try it. I’ll boycott the fuck out of their boycott, and we’ll see. If there’s blood in the streets, it won’t be because of a boycott, it’ll be because each of us is antithetical to the other, and if that’s the case, it couldn’t have been avoided by not boycotting.

It is ***none of my employer’s fucking business ***what opinions I express on my own time, so long as I do so in a legal fashion and don’t allow it to interfere with what I do on the clock.

Your employer’s business is his or her business, though. I think you’re actually misstating this, even though I do get what you’re saying your point is - your employer is none of the boycotters’ business. The employer’s not getting involved because your employer gives a shit what you say. The employer’s getting involved because the customers give a shit, which is what gives the customers power over the racist, the leveraging of that power being the entire point of the operation. The unfairness is kind of the appeal. Free society can’t buy you a muzzle, but it can change the price.

The unfairness of it would also be, I agree, worrisome in different circumstances. Government involvement would be one. In those circumstances I would worry about it, and the existence of those circumstances is reason to be careful about getting all self-righteous, but I don’t feel like it’s a reason to never tell anybody to shut up. I will defend to the death that racist’s right to say his bullshit, and then pay the fucking price for it. If that risks racism becoming an oppressed worldview, high five. I don’t see how it threatens any other kind of speech rights, though.

[tumbleddown]

@Little_Nemo

I do feel sorry for Mrs Redneck and the little Rednecks. Bad enough they have a racist idiot for a husband and father.

How many racists are married to non-racists? Birds of a feather flock together, have chicks, and raise them to be little racists too. If you married an ass who drives around with a slur on his bumper, you’re either just like him, or knew what you were getting when you said I do. No sympathy.

@Shot_From_Guns

It is ***none of my employer’s fucking business ***what opinions I express on my own time, so long as I do so in a legal fashion and don’t allow it to interfere with what I do on the clock.

You keep coming back to this “on my own time” canard. Do you honestly believe that racists are magically non-racist just because they’re on the clock? Do you think the filthy opinions he espouses are tucked away in the back of his mind and never let out while he’s at work? Do you think that someone who drives around with a racial slur publicly displayed on his bumper is actually capable of treating his non-white co-workers and customers in the same fashion he treats whites?

If you honestly think that this person’s racism isn’t reflected in his entire mindset, in his entire worldview and that doesn’t inform his speech and his behavior, you’ve not had the misfortune of knowing any actual racists. This isn’t something that bubbles out from moment to moment, this is something that you are. And it shows.

[Hippy_Hollow]

Shot From Guns, the problem that I have with your stance is that you are in one moment advocating free speech, then suggesting it be curtailed when citizens employ their own free speech rights to show disdain for someone’s views.

Furthermore, advertising your hatred on a bumper sticker is a far cry from having a private conversation that’s overheard. The minute this specimen put the sticker on his truck, he made it a public affair.

And in your hypotheticals, I wouldn’t endorse someone for instance boycotting a business with an employee who supports LGBT rights (as I do). But that’s their right to do so, and don’t think that such boycotts, announced or unannounced are happening right now. In fact, if I knew of such a boycott I’d probably make a point of frequenting the business - a counter-boycott.

There are certainly some pockets of this country that a bigoted boycott would be successful. But I think it would be newsworthy and everyone would soon know where the business owner stood on that issue, for better of for worse.

It’s not a million miles from the boycott that some are running over Domino’s Pizza because the CEO apparently contributes to pro-life groups. I don’t participate because that’s not IMO objectionable, although I personally don’t agree with that choice.

[bengangmo]

@Shot_From_Guns

Pointing out that the guy won’t get fired if the boycott successfully gets him to remove or cover the bumpersticker doesn’t help your case at all–in fact, it’s exactly the thing I’m objecting to. The idea that someone can be forced *by their employer *to curtail their legal expression of ideas *outside of work *is something I find unAmerican, no matter how disgusting and factually incorrect I find those ideas to be.

Frankly speaking, I would be quite happy to see a racist having problems at work because of his attitude.

The problem I have with it though, is that if it’s “OK” to give him problems at work for what he legally* believes, then it’s also “OK” to require that only pro lifers can work at a particular place, or that you cannot work somewhere if you support gay marriage, or any one of another 100 causes that I think are right.

And this is something I DON’T support.

This is why it’s important that there is a separation between “work” and “private” lives, unless and until the private intrudes upon the work. (and the line here is very fuzzy and needs to be carefullly managed)

• Not forgetting that in some places, violently racist bumper stickers are illegal as hate speech or similiar.

[Little_Nemo]

@bengangmo

Frankly speaking, I would be quite happy to see a racist having problems at work because of his attitude.

The problem I have with it though, is that if it’s “OK” to give him problems at work for what he legally* believes, then it’s also “OK” to require that only pro lifers can work at a particular place, or that you cannot work somewhere if you support gay marriage, or any one of another 100 causes that I think are right.

And this is something I DON’T support.

This is why it’s important that there is a separation between “work” and “private” lives, unless and until the private intrudes upon the work. (and the line here is very fuzzy and needs to be carefullly managed)

The problem with this ideal is that it doesn’t exist in the real world. Do you think a racist is going to respect your opinion that gay marriage should be legal because you respect his opinion that black people are inferior? I doubt it.

[magellan01]

@Little_Nemo

The problem with this ideal is that it doesn’t exist in the real world. Do you think a racist is going to respect your opinion that gay marriage should be legal because you respect his opinion that black people are inferior? I doubt it.

But that’s the construct that should exist, right? I think it’s the one that should be supported. Because, again, think of the other option bengangmo put forth. If you want him to respect your opinion, it seems that you must respect his. And by “respect” I simply mean giving it wide berth. It doesn’t suggest condoning it in any way.