I’ve read your definition of what’s private. I just don’t agree with it.
If this guy had a racist poster up on a wall in his home, I’d agree that he was keeping it private. But a guy that puts a racist bumper sticker on his car? That’s not private - that’s a very public act.
I don’t see the sense of this “off the clock” idea you’ve come up with. Are you claiming that we should only hold people responsible for their actions at the moment they’re doing them? If so, I guess we better let a lot of people out of prison - they’re not currently murdering anybody.
I’m going to have to go with (c) neither of the above.
And he can do the same thing I’m saying I would do about a racist. He can call for community action against the flag burner (including a boycott of his place of business).
And somebody can call for a boycott because a business hires a long-haired hippie or a vegetarian or a Star Trek fan or a gun owner - you can call for a boycott for all kinds of silly reasons. That’s part of free speech. You can even call for a boycott of people that call for silly boycotts. Of course most of these boycotts aren’t going to be very effective.
Like I said before, you have the right to say “Nobody vote for a nigger.” And I have the right to say “Nobody hire the racist.”
Well, you are operating from an ahistorical perspective. That word, nigger, has a particularly threatening aspect. It’s different than being called “big ears” or “fatso.” I feel the same about words like “kike,” “jap,” and “fag.” People have been killed and seriously injured and these words are often used by bigots to threaten and intimidate people, and in fact has been a precursor to violence. Someone who is willing to publicly use the word “nig” is not someone I feel is necessarily harmless.
That’s pretty hyperbolic language for a nonviolent act of protest.
First, boycott =/= racist guy losing his job. That’s one scenario, and the most dramatic one. I think any number of outcomes are more likely: manager blows off protesters, manager confronts racist and he removes or puts the sticker in a place where it’s not visible to everyone.
Well, I think you need to consider that prominently displaying a sticker on your vehicle is not private, unless you drive your vehicle up and down your driveway. And I find your dichotomization of private odd, and I daresay one that most people would disagree with. If the sticker becomes “Honk if you like naked boys,” or “NAMBLA Member,” or “God Hates Fags,” I think most reasonable people would not see an issue if someone found out who owned the vehicle and let them or their employer know that the message was objectionable. And there’s no implied threat of violence in doing so.
I think exactly the opposite: expressing your disdain for views you find objectionable through nonviolent protest is about the most ethical and American thing one can do. You have to convince others to join the boycott for it to have an impact beyond you - through creating compelling arguments. If others find your arguments weak or unethical or un-American, it won’t have an impact.
No, what I’m saying is that a sufficiently offensive opinion should be grounds for termination if an employer asks an employee to stop expressing it at the workplace and the employee refuses.
As I said, “Re-Nig” guy should be asked to remove the sticker or to stop parking in the employer’s parking lot or drive a different vehicle or whatever. If he doesn’t want to do that, then I have no problem with him being fired.
I’m much less comfortable with the Socialist Workers’ Party thing because it purportedly involved political views expressed wholly outside the workplace (though I doubt he kept his views to himself within the workplace).
As far as “placing the decision in the hands of a fast-food franchise owner”, who the fuck else is supposed to decide who gets employed in the fast-food franchise?
Oh it’s certainly a problem for the racist. But it also a problem for the guy who can’t respect another’s right to voice an agreement he doesn’t agree with. The point I was making is analogous to: while rape is obviously a problem for the victim, the rapist definitely has a problem of his own. And it’s just analogy, don’t come back claiming I’m trying to equate raping someone with reporting a racist to his boss.
HA! We are in agreement on this issue, and for the reasons you have stated. You’ll see they mesh with mine perfectly. I have not and do not defend this guy’s racism, just his right top hold and voice an opinion. So, get comfortable with the fact that you feel about this issue exactly as I do. We’re two peas in a pod…compadres. Except your the one who feels some strange need to lie and misrepresent what the other believes.
Here’s my opinion: “I don’t like racists. I think anyone who has a racist bumper sticker is a racist. I think the people in this town should get together and do something, not illegal or violent, to make this guy remove that bumper sticker. Like boycott his business.”
Now, do I have a right to express my opinion in public or not?
If you’re arguing that everyone, even racists, has a right to express their opinion in public, then why are you saying that I shouldn’t express my opinion in public? And if you’re arguing that the racist has a right to express his opinion in public but I shouldn’t, can you explain why you think a racist has more rights than I do?
The employer’s business in this situation is only that some number of people are no longer comfortable at his restaurant, so they aren’t coming there anymore, and that is definitely his business. It’s like the whole thing. You just think that why they aren’t coming isn’t any of his business, which he probably doesn’t even care about.
I get it by now. None of their business. I don’t agree with it. I don’t agree that because there is this super-vague, exception-riddled legal doctrine that “speech” is “free,” that protection has to extend so far into private interactions that somebody is ethically obligated to protect a racist’s publicy-expressed secret identity from his employer.
“Hey, Cliff. Beautiful service this morning, wasn’t it? By the way, I missed you around the shop this week.” “Yeah, I won’t be coming around ever again, Bill, but I can’t tell you why because the speech is protected pursuant to Chaplinsky and its progeny.”
I think it’s ludicrous to make the “we are only truly free” speech given that the most extreme action we’re talking about is not eating at a restaurant, which again if that’s on the road to fascism it’s a long road and there’s probably a cut-out for a U-turn before we get there. I also don’t agree that racism is a red herring, and frankly I think that’s just an awful thing to say on its face. You keep drawing on comparisons where some form of bigotry is the source of a boycott in order to demonstrate to me and others that it’s a bad precedent to establish, i.e. if I can say don’t eat here because that guy’s a racist, somebody else can say don’t shop there because that guy loves homos. And you’re using bigotry as your example because it’s so clear how dangerous it is to open the door to empowering bigotry. And I’m saying, yes, that exactly. If anything is un-American, it’s that.
This guy with his bumper sticker is basically brewing up a little private batch of smallpox and carrying it around with him. He’s very quietly calling for people to die, whether he’s too ignorant to know it or not. We had to fight a war against ourselves and then spend a hundred years killing each other after the war ended just to get to the point where we would come out and say officially that discriminating against black people isn’t all right, and that was during a lot of living people’s lifetimes. This guy’s just a blip on the radar screen, obviously, but it’s kind of important that the radar screen he’s blipping is the one attached to the people who say the South will rise again. That would still be a terrible justification for government involvement. But a group of people telling his boss they don’t want to be around him, and letting the chips fall where they fall is fine with me. If he wants to play terrorist, it’s the least we can do for him.
I also think we must be living in very different worlds as far as what is and what isn’t your employer’s fucking business. I lost a colleague about a year ago because of what somebody else said on that other person’s own facebook page. Because if the employer can easily get to that kind of thing from the employee’s non-private facebook page, so can clients, and that shows very poor judgment, association with that sort of behavior. What can you do? It costs them money to look bad. Everybody is all up in everybody’s shit all the time, and they can fire anybody they like for pretty much anything. Somehow I feel like the fact that this guy is walking around with race-hate stink wafting off of him is not the place to start the campaign for privacy.
I think everyone is in agreement on that. But we’re talking about more than just spouting something on a bumper sticker. You want to do more than what the truck did. Would you be equally supportive of the people who don’t want “niggers” to be hired going around to businesses that employed them and strongly encouraging them to not hire them?
Except this is somethi ng different. This is tracking the owner of a bumper sticker down in an effort to get him fired.
And did this employee make sandwiches? Some jobs involve representing one’s employer, or one’s employer’s clients. The quality of an employee is judged by their ability to do so. Other employees are measured by the quality of their sandwiches.
The quality of an employee is determined by the employer, no questions asked, in most places in this country. A sandwich maker can be fired for reflecting poorly on her employer the same as a professional can.
With respect to the first point, it’s not something different at all. We’ve already agreed that it’s OK to stop going to the place where the racist can be found. The only thing that leaves open is the question of whether to inform the proprietor, and Shot from Guns says it’s not just inadvisable to do so, it’s unethical. You’re required to withhold from the employer true information about the reason you won’t be spending any more money.
Nope, it’s just about the sandwich. I have no idea what political sentiments the people who make my sandwiches hold. That’s because, when I see a bumper sticker I disagree with, I don’t stalk them. It is unethical to stalk people because you don;t like their political beliefs.
Except that it’s really obviously not “just about the sandwich” anywhere in the real world. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Are you saying that a sandwich shop owner can’t fire an employee for anything other than the quality of her sandwiches? Or are you just not really arguing with the post you quoted?
He says something in public. I say something in public. Explain how it’s different.
No. Because I think racism is wrong. (I would have thought you would have picked up on this by now.) I would make a stand against racism because I think racism is wrong. I wouldn’t make a stand in support of something I don’t believe in, much less make a stand in support of something I oppose. I would have thought this would be obvious.
If someone has a reasonable suspicion that an employee will act outside the rules of their organization after they’re hired, I think it’s fair to take it into account when deciding between two otherwise qualified employees. However, IIRC sexual orientation is a status you’re not legally allowed to discriminate based on when hiring, so I’m not sure this is the best analogy.
I feel there’s a qualitative different between “Hey Bob, I’m going to ask for a different server when Ricky is working, because I feel uncomfortable being served by a racist” and “I’m refusing to patronize Bob’s Sandwich Shop as long as it employs someone who has a racist bumpersticker on their car.” Maybe that’s splitting semantic hairs, but it feels very different to me.
Ugh, for the last fucking time, I’m not trying to say that it’s a private thing in the same way that something he does in his own home is private. It was simply the first convenient word that popped into my head. Clearly you’re too much of an idiot or a troll to comprehend that words can have shades of meaning depending on context, so instead of “private,” let’s just make up a word, okay? Forbink. From now on, when I say “forbink,” please understand that to mean “taking place outside of work or some other official capaticy, when a person is acting as a private citizen.”
I’m saying that an ***employer ***should only concern themselves with the average employee’s otherwise legal activities when they’re on the clock. My problem is not the boycott per se, but that the boycotters are attempting to involve the racist’s employer in something that *should *be none of the employer’s business, i.e., the employee’s forbink life and forbink activities and forbink opinions.
Again, I have to ask: are you not reading what I’m saying (lazy), reading it but not understanding it (retarded), or reading and understanding but pretending you don’t (troll)?
I’m not saying you *can’t *do these things, or that you don’t have a *right *to. I’m just saying that trying to get someone’s **employer **involved because you don’t like their **forbink **opinions makes you a fucking asshole, unethical, and unAmerican.
I don’t disagree that it’s a hateful, threatening word, or that people who use it are shitstains. I just think it’s beside the point.
Again, it’s not the boycott per se that I see as the problem, but that the boycotters are attempting to involve an *employer *in an employee’s *forbink *activities, activities that were *never *directly connected to the employer or in any way reflected on the employer. (They had to stalk the person to figure out where he worked.)
Oh, absolutely. But this guy isn’t expressing his opinion at the workplace.
It isn’t “the employer’s parking lot.” It’s the parking lot for a building that contains a bunch of offices, *one of them *his employer.
Get the hell away from my tits, creeper.
It’s not his business, and he’s not expressing his opinion at work or in any way that could easily be associated with his employer, ergo, it’s none of his employer’s fucking business.
Address his forbink opinions in a similarly forbink manner. Don’t drag his employer into things that don’t concern it. *That *is what I see as the dick move.
I’m aware that it happens. I also think it’s bullshit. I just don’t happen to think that the fact that it’s legal and happens makes it okay, or that it’s an acceptable axe to hold over someone’s head to get them to stop doing something you don’t personally agree with.
Words in the forbink sphere, however hateful, should be fought with words or equally forbink social actions: *not *with a threat to someone’s ability to support themself and their family.
[QUOTE=Shot from Guns]
However, IIRC sexual orientation is a status you’re not legally allowed to discriminate based on when hiring, so I’m not sure this is the best analogy.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe true, depending on where you are, but not everywhere or even in most places. I think this is still accurate.
As a further aside, what would you think about the boss firing him if the boss himself saw the bumper sticker on the truck in an employee lot? I would guess that off of business grounds, that would be forbink, but what about on them?
I don’t see where you getting this. Obviously, I’m reading your posts as I’m responding to them. It’s hardly trolling - even you are agreeing that racism is bad so I’m not taking up some outrageous position.
Is it that you can’t comprehend that somebody disagrees with you? Do you feel your opinions are so prefect that anyone who doesn’t see their truth must be retarded?
And I disagree with you on these issues. I think that part of having a strong opinion is being willing to do something about it. It’s moral cowardice to say you’re mentally opposed to racism but you’re not prepared to do anything beyond hold a firm opinion on the subject. Morality means you take a stand and do something.
Let me ask you this. Do you feel that people like Gandhi and King and Chavez were wrong? They all advocated collective non-violent actions to put pressure on people into doing something. Were they wrong in your opinion?
Yeah, I meant to qualify that as sexual orientation being a protected class in some states, and then I got all distracted trying to remember the phrase “protected class,” and by the time I decided to just write around it the qualification had slipped by mind.
Anyway, how’s this for an unambiguous analogy: would it be appropriate for someone deciding between two otherwise equal prospective employees to be influenced by the fact that one of them plays an MMO? It’s a legal activity, but some people allow it to negatively impact their performance at work. In that case, if there were no other deciding factors and the person doing the hiring had no way to tell whether or not the person could properly restrict their gaming time, I wouldn’t necessarily object to its inclusion as a criterion.
But again, this is at the point where you’re trying to make an educated guess about how a forbink thing will influence someone’s behavior on the job. That’s not relevant here, because the employer already has evidence of how the employee’s racism does or doesn’t affect his ability to do the job. If he can treat all customers and coworkers with an equal level of courtesy and service, and while working refrain from making comments or displaying attitudes that demonstrate his racism, I see no reason to fire him.
Again, doesn’t apply here, because it’s a shared lot for a number of businesses. If we’re talking about a ***hypothetical ***business, though, that has its own lot, then we get into more of a gray area. I think that if the truck could clearly be identified as belonging to someone who worked for the company (as it would be in an employee lot), then the boss could be justified in requiring the employee to not park the truck in the organization’s lot as long as it displayed a sticker that was inconsistent with the values of the organization.
If you’re reading what I’m saying and comprehending it, but pretending you don’t just to be a dick, then you’re trolling.
Gee, I dunno. See me calling anyone else in this thread retarded? Nope, just you, since *you’re *the one to whom I’ve repeatedly explained what I meant by the word “private” in this context, and you keep insisting that I *must *mean something else. So, again, take your pick: either you’re not reading where I’m explaining my meaning (lazy), or you don’t understand when I’m explaining my meaning (retarded), or you’re reading and understanding but being deliberately obtuse and putting words in my mouth that I’ve already told you are wrong (trolling).
Absolutely. However, this doesn’t mean that *all *actions are appropriate.
Not remotely comparable. Again, are you lazy, retarded, or trolling? I’ve explained time and again that there’s nothing *inherently *wrong with boycotts, simply this particular one, because it’s seeking to involve someone’s *employer *in something the employer has no business being involved in.
**Fear of personal harm **for engaging in legal speech should *never *be considered an acceptable weapon. And that’s what this is. It’s not a protest: it’s a bludgeon. Threatening to have the racist fired unless he removes a racist bumpersticker is just as unethical as threatening to beat him up unless he removes it, IMO.
