No, I never suggested we lynch anybody. Heck, I haven’t even suggested we burn any crosses or firebomb any buildings. I’m practically Gandhian here.
Well sir the fine people of the South did break laws. If they stuck to peaceful demonstration and avoided trying to subvert our democracy they may have been able to hold out for their cause a bit longer, though when it comes down to it their cause was a bad one and could never have survived the light of day indefinitely.
Of course he doesn’t - he’s shown how stupid he is. But that doesn’t matter.
What’s happening here is that YOU think it’s ok to hurt him for a legally held (if repugnant) opinion.
The point that many are trying to make is that hurting people for legally held opinions is not ok - that way lies censorship and people being cast out of their jobs for supporting “good” causes.
This closes down the public sphere of debate.
Of course - if the “state” decides that “don’t renig” is hate speech, I wouldn’t have a particular problem with that. But until they do, his employer has no say in what legal actions he takes.
You think a black person isn’t hurt when he hears himself called a nigger? Why is it okay for a racist to hurt people like that?
I have a legally held opinion too. I don’t think people should support racism. Don’t I have a right to express my legally-held opinion?
One of the things that bothers me about this thread is this continued ignorance. In almost every state an employer absolutely gets a say in what legal actions their employees take. Employment at will is just that. A person can be fired for any reason with only a few exceptions. As long as you are not firing someone solely for race, religion, sex, disability, age or veteran status the government is AOK with you firing them.
Stupid racist is not a protected class. He can be fired for any reason. Being a stupid racist is a pretty good reason for termination to me.
Case after case can be presented where employees have been fired for off the clock activities. Being on the clock or not makes no difference. If your actions draw your employers ire they can fire you.
If you think it’s unfair that employers can terminate people for bumper stickers the problem isn’t then the people using the law to further their cause the problem is the law maybe you should start by doing something about that.
Ok fine - I should have been more careful in my phrasing…
Where I come from (or at least, where I learned employment law) you could NOT fire someone without “proper”, work related cause - and even then there was a proper procedure to go through based loosley on a concept of natural justice.
A boss should not be allowed to fire someone for their personal beliefs, and a “good” boss won’t - no matter how repugnant he finds those beliefs.
- I should add here there are all sorts of exceptions I can think of where the stupid racists firing would be justified, not least of which of there was a “nig” at my work place I could then suggest that that the bumper sticker was creating a hostile work environment and fire his arse.
I hate this sort of argument, because its on a hiding to nothing. The fact of the matter is, that (IMHO) I would like to have a two step “defence” here
- If the racists attitudes are known at his workplace it then creates a “bad” work environment, and he should be canned.
- If the boss doesn’t take action when the other employees (or customers) feel uncomfortable around him from his actions then the boss is failing in his duty.
- If the racist is able to keep everybody in his workplace in the dark about his attitude, then it is the business of nobody but himself.
- The ONLY thing we know about this guy at the moment is his bumper sticker - this should not be enough to get someone fired.
because he’s just expressing an opinion, albeit a dumb one. Since when do people have to be protected from having their feelings hurt? Is that the road you really want to go down. You want a metric of how offended someone is.
Sure you do. Make a bumper sticker. Seriously. And if you do, and I find it repugnant, I promise to not try to get you fired.
Shot From Guns - put yourself, for the moment, in the role of a small businessperson. You are looking to hire a new worker. It comes down to two choices - equally qualified. Then you run a Facebook search on them. One comes back as a hardcore racist, the other as a regular Joe. Who are you going to hire?
Since I started looking for work, I have been very careful about what I post on Facebook. On the one hand you can argue it shouldn’t make a difference, but it absolutely does. Now, I haven’t had to censor myself much politically there - if someone chooses to not hire me because of my support for SSM, that is good, because I don’t want to work there anyway. I did bite my tongue on a particular strike, because I was actually applying to a different division of the firm that was being struck.
How we choose to put ourselves and our beliefs forward has an impact on how we are viewed.
Do any of those jobs involve making sandwiches? Is there perhaps different standards of off-site behavior for an attorney and a sandwich artist? Would you accept that it would be okay for someone to take offense at a bumper sticker on your car, stalk you until they found out where you worked, and then tell your boss that they wouldn’t do any business with them because of you?
No sandwiches, though I do make an awesome grilled cheese. And yes the standards vary. However, as an employer, whatever the position, if I have two otherwise identical candidates, and one is a racist, I’m hiring the non-racist, and not feeling the slightest bit bad about it.
Would I be OK with that? Of course not. It would suck. But we come back to the bottom line that things things do happen, and that expressing our opinions has consequences. I used to have a NOW bumper sticker. If I was to be working on a matter for Dominos Pizza in the past, or for a Catholic Charity, I wouldn’t drive my old car to the client, and I would understand them being peeved at me if I did.
Based on what you’ve been saying, apparently racists need to be protected. I guess they’re special snowflakes.
No, go ahead. In fact, I dare you to try to get me fired. I’ll even double dog dare you.
You go down to the sandwich shop where I theoretically work and tell the owner that you’re offended by my “I don’t like racism” bumper sticker and you want me fired. You do that.
And if he doesn’t fire me, you go to the town square and start a protest. You make a speech and tell everybody that the sandwich shop is knowingly employing an avowed anti-racist. And you find this insensitivity to the feelings of racists deplorable and you want everyone in town to stop eating sandwiches there as a show of support for downtrodden racists.
And I guess if everyone in the town is as concerned about the protection of racists as you are, they’re all going to stop eating there and I’ll lose my job. Or I won’t, if nobody besides you joins the boycott.
Only to the extent that Nazis need to be protected, and war demonstrators, and gay rights advocates, and people who burn the flag, and pro-life demonstrators, and pro-choice demonstrators. And no one is saying their feelings need to be protected. You just pulled that out of your ass.The argument is that people’s right to voice a minority view need to be protected. The majority views don’t need it. But the more fringe the view the more important it is to suck it up and say, “Man, I hate those motherfuckers, but their right to hold those beliefs and voice them is one of the greatest things about this country.”
Yawn. You’re certain sense of righteousness is unconvincing. If fact, you seem to be using it as a shield, an excuse to address the points I’ve made and questions I’ve asked. In fact, double dog YAWN. :rolleyes:
You asked a question about hurt feelings. I was answering it.
And as I’ve said - what is it? four times now? - I’m not suggesting anyone loses their right to speak. You want to be publicly make a racist statement, you’re free to do so. But you have to man up and accept the consequences for what you say in public.
You have the right to say “Nobody vote for a nigger.” And I have the right to say “Nobody hire the racist.” We’ll see whose message more people listen to.
Oh, so now you’re too tired to keep posting. I suppose you’re going to go off and take a nap. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that your arguments are wearing thin.
Fine, go get a bumper sticker that says that. Or go tell the guy to his face that you found it offensive and try explain to him why, and try to change his mind. All acceptable in my book. But to attempt to force him to knuckle under through fear of losing his livelihood is off limits.
Not to me obviously. I’ll try talking to a racist first. But if that doesn’t work I’ll take it to the next level. I won’t use violence and I won’t break the law over something like this. But I have no problem trying to get a racist like this fired.
And THAT is your problem.
Seems like it’s a problem for the racist actually. He’s the one who’s job’s at risk
By all means go out and campaign to change peoples minds and make them less intolerant of racists. Try to get a law pass restricting me and Little Nemo’s freedom of speech and assembly in order to protect those persecuted racists I’m sure you’ll find people that agree with you. You probably won’t like their company or want to be seen in photographs with them but they’ll agree with you!
Too bad you weren’t in charge of the U.S. war effort during WWII, or we could have had some really awesome death camps for Americans of German, Italian, and Japanese descent. :snaps fingers:
Here’s the problem: you’re not boycotting racists in this scenario. You’re boycotting a company that happens to employ a racist, who you only know is a racist because of some legal free speech outside of work, which was made in a way that wasn’t even easily associated with his employer.
At that point, you are insisting that a company pass judgement on one of its employees for legal behavior outside of work. And I find that disturbingly unethical and unAmerican.
Yes, it is. My point is not “don’t **ever **make boycotts,” but that “just because stupid people boycotted things for stupid reasons doesn’t mean that it’s okay for *you *to boycott things for stupid reasons.”
No, I’m not misstaking it: What legal activities I do outside of work should be none of my employer’s fucking business. These boycotters, on the other hand, are saying that it *should *be my employers business, which I vehemently fucking disagree with.
And I’m saying there are some levers you shouldn’t push, because the collatoral damage is that they’re opening the door for discrimination against beliefs that we *agree *with.
The issue here is not “dude potentially fired for being racist.” Racism is a red fucking herring. The issue is “dude potentially fired for expressing an opinion that some stranger on the street found offensive.” In this case, it *happened *to be racism, which I’m sure most of us here except magellan0540640354030 would agree is fucking retarded. But it just as easily could be same-sex marriage, or being a follower of Islam, or socialism, or flag-burning. Get it?
You seem to be unclear on the concept of having a right to say your bullshit. If you are going to be beat up, or jailed, or fired, or prevented from buying a home, etc. because of what you say, then you are not fucking free. You can refuse to interact with someone, or call them a disgusting idiot to their face, and they’re still free, because no one has a right to friends or social acceptance of their ideas. But once you start interfering with basic things like safety, shelter, and ability to support yourself, that’s where you cross the line.
If he were racist on the clock, they’d be threatening a boycott over that, instead of the fucking bumptersticker bullshit. I don’t disagree that it’s entirely possible that the guy is prejudicial in how he treats his customers–but then that’s what he should be fired for. Not for the fucking sticker. And since the sticker is all we *know *about, the sticker is all we can *talk *about.
And IME, some bigots *can *compartmentalize their prejudices. I used to have a Mormon friend, for example, who thought that homosexuality was sinful, all gay people were going to hell, etc.; but he also supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, because he understood that he couldn’t make political decisions in a non-theocracy based on a purely religious belief.
That’s because their speech is designed to have a negative physical effect. Consider “don’t re-elect the nigger” versus “kill the nigger.” Those are both speech, but one is inciting an illegal action.
This boycott is as much “speech” as “give me your wallet or I shoot you in the face.”
This makes me think you’re not even reading half of what I’m writing. I’ve explained repeatedly, almost every time I’ve used the word “private,” that what I mean is “off the clock,” i.e., private life versus professional life. Not “private” as in “not visible to the public.”
Of course they’re legal. That isn’t the point. This boycott is also their “right.” However, that doesn’t mean it’s not, IMO, unethical and unAmerican. (See the example posted repeatedly in this thread of the woman fired for having a Kerry bumptersticker: legal, and again, IMO, unethical and unAmerican.)
Sure it is: boycotting the person who directly profits from the success of the business (owner, major shareholder, high-ranking executive with performance bonuses) makes sense, because the point is to not give your money to enrich that person. Boycotting over the sandwich guy who takes home the same $7.25 an hour regardless of whether there are 20 customers or 2 is unethical, because the point isn’t that you don’t want him to get your money, but that you want his employer to curtail his legal speech outside of work.
Exactly.
Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”
So, are you (a) so fucking retarded that you don’t understand that, for the purposes of “free speech” or “free expression,” written language is considered a form of expression, or (b) just being a pedantic ass for the sake of being a pedantic ass?
QFT.
You think a conservative member of the armed forces isn’t hurt when he sees someone burn an American flag? Why is it okay for people who hate our freedom to hurt people like that?
Someone having their feelings hurt–no matter if it’s justifiably or not–is not a reason to restrict someone else’s speech.
This was never about legality. Of course it’s legal for the employer to fire him for something he did outside of work. I’m just arguing that it’s unethical and unAmerican.
Not really comparable–in that example, I don’t have any evidence of how the person will act towards my customers once they’re hired. That makes it a bit of a trickier decision. However, I *can *say that if I’d already hired two new people, they’d been working for me for six months and I’d seen no signs of racism from either of them at work, and then I happened to find out that one of them was a racist, I wouldn’t fire them over it.
So you would have less problem not hiring them based on their free speech outside of work, on the presumption that they would create problems at work? But what about the employer who thinks people who believe in gay rights are child molestors, and so takes a pro-SSM bumper sticker into account when he makes a hiring decision?
I don’t get your un-American thing. If I choose (as I do) not to associate with racists, and I find out my favorite sandwich shop is staffed by a racist, then I will stop going there. Freedom of Association and all that. Now, instead I go to the sandwich shop across the street. Should I not tell the owner of the sandwich store the reason for my newfound lack of custom? Should I leave him wondering if the sandwich shop across the street has better sandwiches? Or perhaps pondering whether I have stopped coming in because of the fact he is a good liberal employee and offers benefits to domestic partners? Or, alternatively, would it not be more honest for me to tell him that he sells a fine sandwich, and I applaud his decision to extend benefits to people regardless of sexual orientation, but that I choose not to have to interact with a racist on my lunch break?