That makes sense. But are you sure that an employer can bar all political speech? I thought (based on some incident a year or two ago) there was some reason why a high school could do it on kids’ t-shirts, but as long as it is not on an employee’s uniform that he’d be okay. If I owned a restaurant I’d hope what you stated is, in fact, the case.
But to play devil’s advocate, say the person works for a Home Depot that’s in the middle of no where, with no other parking alternatives. Or the employee works at one of those huge strip malls, again, where there are no other parking options, does that change things?
Funny. Except I wasn’t saying I disagree with you, though I do. I was saying you’re flat out wrong.
As for your comments on whether you can be fired by a private company for a political bumper sticker, well, it depends on the jurisdiction. To the best of my knowledge the federal government provides you with no protection in this area, unlike in religion. And using schools as a starting point for case law is not the right idea, because the cases are in public schools, and free speech matters are treated differently for children.
You can be fired by a private employer for political speech in most all jurisdictions, and federal law definitely doesn’t forbid it. California has some protection against employers “Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics,” but I can’t say whether firing a guy for public racism at the workplace falls on the wrong side of that line. I imagine those public policy concerns are a little less severe than when a newspaper editor gets fired for criticizing public figures, but the law’s there, at least.
I genuinely do not understand the modern conservative viewpoint on racism. You’ve got the Rand Rover style denial of the existence any such thing as pervasive racism, where they’ll tell you that nothing is racially motivated, it’s just that we liberals keep finding racism where it doesn’t exist. Like, racism would be bad if it existed, but you assholes keep making it up because it doesn’t really exist anymore, so calm down. And where it does exist, that’s only one thing, and that’s bad, but calm down anyway.
Then there’s a (presumably) commercially marketed product to call the president a nigger and which doesn’t even have a point beyond that, and the magellans of the world say yeah, well. That’s not so bad either. Calm down. Why is it even an accepted conservative position that racism is bad if no conservatives are interested in acknowledging any of the implications of racism?
From a legal standpoint, I’d say they are. Even though one alludes to a clearly racist term. I don’t think there is any law against using the word “nigger”, never mind a dumb oblique reference to it. I find it the term distasteful and offensive, but I have no desire to ban all speech that I find highly distasteful or offensive. Or to punish those who express those views beyond the embarrassment and ridicule their assholeness brings up themselves. I definitely wouldn’t vandalize someone’s car, but if I saw them getting into it, I might yell, “Hey, everyone, look at the dumb, ignorant asshole who figured out how to operate a machine”.
Who mentioned legal with regard to this? I asked you what you thought the intended effect was. You unbelievably seem to be maintaining the intended effect of each is to get people not to vote for Obama. And that’s whack.
Clearly, you guys are over thinking this. The person in question is clearly someone who voted for Obama in 2008 and he is encouraging those others who voted for Obama in 2008 and vowed to support Obama 2012 to hold to their word and support him in 2012.
Well, that’s not true. It’s contains both a racist message and a political one. That’s simply a fact.
I don’t get your last sentence. But, yes, calm down. In the end, it’s just speech. It’s certainly no excuse to turn yourself into a criminal and vandalize the guy’s truck. Do you disagree?
No, I don’t think people should commit crimes against the guy. I think he should be treated with outright hostility, though.
So what’s the political message? It says “don’t re-nig.” That has one meaning. All that communicates to me is a black person can’t be the president. That’s the racist message. Obama isn’t the only black person out there, so where’s the politics?
My last sentence is an honest question. Why do you think racism is even a problem if you don’t think outright racial hatred has any implications beyond one man’s trying to get us to vote for a different candidate? You seem to think “don’t re-nig” is just another Buck Fush or re-elect Gore in '04 or whatever other banalities people plaster on their cars in advance of elections.
OK. On the vain hope you two aren’t just being trolling dicks, explain to me why the exhortation “don’t re-nig in 2012” should be read to assume said individual voted for Obama in 2008? As opposed to being a request to those who did not to do so?
As it is, it’s just a bumper sticker. Hardly anything to get worked up about. And like I said earlier, I laughed when I first read it. It’s not that big of a deal.
I think you have to stretch things to say that it is not clearly directed at Obama.
Close. I don’t think it’s the same. But it doesn’t go so far as to turn itself into anything that we can do anything about. There are ignorant assholes out there. That doesn’t really come as a surprise, does it. What do you think should be DONE about it? Or should be allowed to be done?
:rolleyes: Like I said, lighten up. You know what I mean, Francis? One post was clearly (to the non-dumb and those not in an emotional tizzy) a joke. You know, “ha-ha”.