However, “finding out through social media” gives your scenario multiple decision points.
If he goes out and becomes an internet sensation with the virulence of his attacks, then he has brought the the lightning on his own head. I have no problem with the company defending itself.
If some Social Justice Warrior tracks him down and makes an issue of his views, then the SJW is wrong for his or her lynch mentality. If the guy does nothing to encourage attention, then the SJW is wrong and the company is wrong for acting without simply letting the publicity blow over. If the guy tries to keep his head down and the SJW will not let him, putting the company in the position of having their bottom line jeopardized, then the SJW is wrong and the guy might have a case to sue the SJW. And in any case where the racist is not standing up and making an issue of his position, then any efforts of a howling lynch mob to pressure the company places them in the wrong.
And all the separate ways that the SJW and the lynch mob scenarios might play out have not even gotten into the matter of whether they have a clue regarding what they are doing. We are already seeing the results of stupid SJW/lynch mob behavior.
You don’t think the very act of posting to social media is “encouraging attention,” or at the very least “standing up”? I’d call that, and attendance at a large scale rally, both, myself. And to clarify, you think yes, under certain circumstances, a company is morally obligated to lose out on profits for the sake of its racist/sexist/what have you employees?
I hesitate to divert discussion into firearms in non-firearm specific threads. But I’ll respond generally since you asked.
I don’t think people’s 2nd amendment rights ought be curtailed because they are in a protest. I think everyone needs to evaluate for themselves what the best course of action is, and at times that could be engaging a threat relative to the greater danger theory. That not acting is a greater danger than acting, even though both courses of action carry the potential of bad outcomes. At other times, it could be running away, or simply not being present in those environments. Ultimately I’d prefer good people stay home and deny the bastards the attention they seek.
Luckily, we haven’t had a scenario play out very often, or at all, as you enumerate. On the other hand, we have multiple instances of people exercising their rights interceding against criminals with positive outcomes. I think as you posit is possible, but not likely. As always, deadly force should be the last resort.
But back to speech - I’m generally a free speech absolutist. I’m willing to tolerate assholes who espouse shitty beliefs to uphold the principle of free speech.
Another question/thought for tomndebb: where does corporate culture, whether internal or external facing, come in for you? A lot of companies these days have a mission statement or something that they are “committed to diversity and inclusivity” or what have you. Is a customer or employee justified in concluding that such a statement is BS, no matter how they found out about this hypothetical employee, assuming the company knows?
Bone: a question as to your post above: to what extent do you regard white supremacy and Nazism as a “political opinion”, as opposed to a call to violent action? Is it, to you, morally impossible for someone to both believe in the principles of free speech and believe in limits to it based on content? Does this mean those European countries we keep bringing up just don’t value it as much as we Americans do?
Are we going to play “let’s move the goalposts until we get the score we want”?
Your original post said “finding out through social media,” which is what happened to Kyle Quinn. Now you want to challenge me regarding “the very act of posting to social media,” a point I have already addressed. If you are desperate to have that clarified: someone setting up a hate website and trying to attract traffic to it is “standing up and making an issue of his position.” Sharing his stupid beliefs on Facebook or a message board is not. In like fashion, grabbing the podium at a hate rally and ranting is “standing up and making an issue of his position” but simply showing up in a crowd of like-minded idiots is not.
Regarding companies: for the majority of incidents, they will pass out of the news cycle swifty enough to have little impact on profits if they are not kept in the news cycle by the explicit efforts of the hater or a hating SJW. If the hater keeps up the publicity, he is encouraging corporate response. If the hater is not calling further attention to himself and the publicity is the result of an SJW’s efforts, then the SJW is no better than the hater, looking for ways to inflict pain on others.
I am not a big fan of companies dictating what an employee may say or do on his own time if it does not actually affect the company. Mission statements should stick to addressing those actions. Would you support Chik-Fil-A if they chose to fire an employee with pro-choice comments on Facebook?
One final thought: the reason why this issue is gaining traction, to me, is that to a lot of minorities, this isn’t just about espousing “shitty beliefs”; this is about actual Nazis advocating genocide and violence against them personally, against a backdrop of a president and VP who support them, in the middle of a country that’s already rife with racism down to its most basic institutions.
That’s why I keep saying that something more than “Sorry, First Amendment, what can you do, hey, did you see the week 1 preseason games?” is vital.
Aha, there was a basic disconnect of assumption here. I was thinking, when I said “finding out through social media,” that the source is the person themselves, not a separate party.
As for Quinn, yes indeed that was terrible. However, I’m not sure I’d draw any conclusions from it about the right and morality of the act in general.
I fundamentally disagree with all of these conclusions. I think all of your examples involve a person standing up and trying to gain attention for their beliefs, that it’s the entire reason for posting or showing up to begin with. I compare it to the debate about whether petition signatures should be public information (which, obviously, you may still have different conclusions to me, for the same reasons).
And I fundamentally disagree with any attempt to draw moral equivalency between, to take an extreme example, people who don’t want to get shot and the people who want to shoot them.
Here’s another point of difficulty for me: that such actions don’t “affect the company”, even internally, and that customer or public opinion “doesn’t count” because the customer or the public is the one to kick up the fuss. Is there a difference between the hypotheticals we’ve been talking about so far and what Google did recently (in the sense that the guy definitely and deliberately made his opinions widely known within the company)? What do you think in general about the concept of “corporate responsibility”?
It’s important to recall that the ones who banned free speech were the Nazis. They consolidated power by silencing criticism through force.
And, let’s not forget that Hitler was jailed early on for the views he espoused. Did Nazism die in that jail cell? No - it went underground and turned violent.
You’re right I wrote that very poorly. In fact, let’s scratch that whole post. Although, the point about the Nazis consolidating power by silencing critical speech might be valid…somewhere…maybe?
Well, the Nazi with that car did think that it was valid to silence critical speech. Of course most people do know how bad is to silence speech…
But one likely exception seems to be the current president of the USA. (not much for his recent “criticism” of the Nazis that only made them happy, but for his ongoing efforts to declare the press the enemy).
And I noted in my first response that you left open the types of scenarios involved and I tried to fill in the response to each one.
I would not use Quinn as an example of what the moral response to open racism should be. It is, however, an example of the sort of evil that will occur when hungry SJWs feel a need to take action when no action is actually required.
I go to church every Sunday. I post on religious issues, from time to time, on a message board. That is not the same act as dragging a soap box to the main four in town and trying to convert or condemn passersby. In your view, my simple public participation in a religious service or posting on a message board is the equivalent of standing on street corners shouting at people. We do disagree.
I have no problem with signatures on a petition being public records. I am disinclined to approve of someone getting copies of those lists and waving them about as lists of shame–as much for the Kyle Quinn effect as anything else.)
And I disagree with equating every human with a bad idea to any emotionally disturbed twit who acts violently on those bad ideas. Your example is extreme and hyperbole is a good choice for rhetoric but a poor choice for analysis or discussion.
If the “bad” person is acting in a way to actually disrupt services or production, that person may be disciplined or fired for those acts. I work with several people who are clearly racist as well as several people who are black. As long as the racist does not push his racism in the face of the black workers and actually makes an effort to cooperate with them, pleasantly, in the work place, they seem to get along fine. I see no reason for my company to discipline or fire people who keep their racism to the BBQ grill on Sunday.
It depends on what you mean by “personal safety”. If you mean direct and imminent threats, the federalist principle at stake is the Equal Protection clause. Everyone, minority or Nazi, has the right to the equal protection of the law, in this case the law against direct and imminent threat.
If you mean speech like “we should round up blacks/Jews/Roma/homosexuals and put them into concentration camps”, that is Constitutionally protected speech and the only aid and comfort anyone gets, minority or otherwise, is the right to speak against it.
Agreed. Guns at protests and 2nd amendment remedies are a tangential conversation.
I continue to maintain that if society is going to let neo-nazis march then the onus is on the same society to conscientiously oppose those views just as publicly and as vehemently. It’s important to see this opposition to racist and fascists because staying home isn’t denying attention to the bastards, it’s tacitly approving their agenda - “See? Look at everyone who’s turned out to support us. Nobody is objecting to what we’re saying!”
I continue to maintain that “hate speech” is anathema to “free speech”. I use Nazi Germany as my example because it’s the same groups espousing the same rhetoric now as did back then.
Even if he’s excellent at his job and gets on well with all the other employees and doesn’t bring his political beliefs to the workplace? What business is it of the bosses to investigate his political beliefs and make sure he has the right ones to work there? Would you like all companies to scrutinize the political leanings of their employees? Would you be comfortable with a right-wing company sacking liberals?
This is a terrible idea. Conform to your boss’s politics or you don’t work here.
And there’s another point of fundamental disagreement (the last six words, specifically). I’m not sure if drilling into it is in the scope of this thread, or if it opens such a complex can of worms that it’s better off in its own.
I do, and since many minorities already feel their concerns and protests are treated less equally by the powers that be, media, law enforcement, and general population, I guess the gap in opinion is going to continue.
As long as white supremacy and Nazism is limited to spoken words, demonstrations, etc. consistent with rules for permits, then I regard it as political opinion.
I believe people can both believe in the principles of free speech and believe in limits to it based on content, as some countries in Europe do. That’s their choice. It’s not a binary selection in my view. I do believe those European countries don’t value free speech as much as we Americans do, but it’s not a competition to try and win. I just like the US position more.
There is a much more extensive list that I won’t reproduce due to copyright, but in lots of places adverse action against employees for their attendance or participation would be prohibited by statute.