Yeah, that's not going to be a winner.

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''The enemy isn't conservatism. The enemy isn't liberalism. The enemy is bulls**t.''

—Lars-Erik Nelson

The snark was the best part of that post.

Snark has always been my strongest suit.


It is precisely the point in my view that it was not a serous opinion, further this was not an "opinion that someone might not like," it was a finger, and the companies actions have no chilling effect on real discussions.

It was not a serious opinion, no. But that's irrelevant. It was most certainly an opinion someone might not like. (In this case, our petty and vindictive president- a fact which, I should point out, blurs that whole "it's not the government oppressing her" schtick.)

But it's the larger issue that I'm arguing, not simply this one case in point. People are afraid to post their opinions on partisan topics on social media. Why? Because people have accepted the idea that it's perfectly acceptable to suffer consequences like a job loss as a result. People believe that it really is appropriate to target a person's job if you disagree with them, and it's perfectly reasonable for a company to avoid bad publicity by firing an employee for completely legal and socially desirable behavior that has nothing to do with the job itself.


What is endangering real discussion in the country -- especially on college campuses -- is the notion that every juvenile, emotional outburst must be respected and coddled.

No, what's endangering real discussion- including on college campuses, which is a worrisome trend I include in my concern about free speech- is the impulse to demonize, punish, and especially silence dissent, by any means necessary. The lady in this case isn't equivalent to the snowflakes on college campuses who demand a safe space. She's more akin to Ann Coulter. She might be saying stupid, inflammatory stuff, but it's important to our society that she isn't silenced. To the extent that something needs to be done about her inflammatory gesture/speech, what should happen is a reasoned response- or maybe just everyone ignores her. Because when you silence her, and everyone justifies silencing her, you basically justify silencing everyone. Yours is the only argument in this thread that's based on the lack of her gesture's merit. Everyone else has argued that it's acceptable to fire her because what she did was against company policy, or because the company could lose business because of what she did, and so on. And those arguments can, will, and have applied equally to people who tried to engage in serious discussions about issues.


Your turn to answer: do you thing she'd be fired if pictured holding a protest sign (like the ones I described, regarding real issues, excepting one that said something like "Fuck Trump")?

Yeah, I think she very well might have been. More to the point, all the arguments that people have employed would apply. If she stood by the side of the road with a "No Wall" sign as the motorcade drove by, and that picture went viral, wouldn't the company face the very same risk of losing business because the president was offended?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Winner in what sense?

And you seem incapable of grasping the concept that your position prioritizes one set of rights over another. You're restricting the freedom of certain groups to associate and advocate vigorously for their position in an effort to sanctify the right of another person to disagree or to say whatever they want.

I understand that the rights are somewhat in tension. But I'm not restricting anyone's rights at all. I'm saying that everyone needs to practice some self-restraint in exercising their own rights at times in order to promote the broadest degree of free discourse in society. We can't all run around wielding our rights to the fullest extent possible as weapons to shut our opponents down. We can't all constantly run around swinging both arms wildly, bringing our fists to a hair;s breadth of the opposition's nose simply because our rights don't stop until we actually punch someone in the snout. A free society simply can't function that way. There really does have to be a measure of self restraint in the exercise of rights. We really do sometimes have to tolerate others' speech without trying to shut it down, even if we find it offensive.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Actually under your hypo the common law tort of assault has occurred.

What?

It's not a hypothetical, it's a figure of speech. You've never heard that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins?

Sheesh.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

No i haven't and moreover that is not true.

Fuck if you don't make good points. Coming the fuck around.

Really. :)

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Boycott as coercion? Never heard that before. I think this "proper understanding" might be somewhat unique to vitus-world. :)


OK, that's better. I can sign up for something like that. This is something different, in my mind. I'd call it good, old populist collective outrage, which in its more extreme forms is mass hysteria (e.g. Salem witch trials). And which is made more efficient by the extraordinary power of the Internet to rapidly distribute an expression to most of the world in seconds, and almost-as-rapidly serve as an amplifying echo chamber that focuses a particular populist response into a laser-like beam.

'Trial by Internet" is another term.

It can be scary and out-of-control sometimes. Almost everyone enjoys the entitlement of having their own opinions, separate from a corporate entity. And 99.999% of the time no one gives a shit. Even if you're posting about libtards on a daily basis. It's just that one time when the magic viral effect of the Internet decides to focus its beam on you. That's when your expressions suddenly become public property, and all your affiliations become targets of the masses.

I just don't think it's a free speech or "freedom of expression" issue. It's a human nature issue. And I don't see any way to regulate or mitigate that human nature issue that doesn't interfere with freedom of expression in and of itself. You can't prevent people from assembling and talking about ideas, and then voicing collective opinions, or taking collective, legal actions (like all deciding not to buy something). Because freedom of congregation, etc, are all fundamental rights.

All you can do is draw a line at *literal* coercion. Like tying the "witch" to the stake and lighting the fire. I don't think you can prevent the problem of everyone deciding not to shop at the witch's Discount Wicca Supply chain store without opening a big-ass can of human-rights worms.

I would have canned her for being STUPID.

Shouting down a speaker is for sure un-American.

Kneeling during the National Anthem? Anti-American.

Flipping off the presidential motorcade? I'm being serious when I say it's as American as apple pie. And I would hazard a guess that it's been done millions of times since such motorcades began. I support the flipping off of politicians in general and presidents in particular, even.

So she had a right to flip off the motorcade, in other words, and I don't have a problem with her form of speech in that regard.

But she deserved firing for being so stupid and self-aggrandizing. She flipped off the Orange-Haired Wonder. Fine (and it's not like that thought hasn't run through my mind on a couple of occasions... but I believe we should be flipping off ALL presidents from time to time, just to remind them of where the true power in the nation lies).

But then she actively sought recognition and fame for doing so and wanted praise as well, and she expected her employer to go along with her silly publicity stunt once the photo of her illustrating her impressive digital manipulation and motor skills went viral.

That was stupid. And I've fired plenty of stupid employees and continue to fire them to this day (just last week, in fact). Mostly for being stupid, though I've usually had to dress it up in HR-approved syntax.

Stupid should, and often does, get you fired. If she didn't realize the import of her decisions in regard to her post-motorcade activities then she's stupid. And should be fired posthaste. Which she was. Because she was a liability to her employer at that point.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

In the lawsuit sense. I figured that if you're justifying the termination on a legal doctrine (at will employment), that we're talking potential legal culpability. If we're not, then I don't know what point you're trying to make.

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''The enemy isn't conservatism. The enemy isn't liberalism. The enemy is bulls**t.''

—Lars-Erik Nelson

What was she fired for? That is the question. It seems people are arguing it was for flipping off the president and publicizing it. If so there is no issue. Are you contending it is something else?

Indeed, Vitus' work on this thread has been exemplary. Calm, cogent, and well-reasoned.

Thumbs up!

I've always admired how Vitus can successfully argue for a falsehood better than most people can defend a truth. It's pretty much his bread and butter around here ;)

He's not wrong in his reasoning. Problem is, in this instance, it's largely irrelevant when competing interests are involved, and she's imposed needless risk on other people, regardless of whether that risk should, in reality, be considered risk. It's not ideal, but it's where we are, and people are reasonably compelled, if not obligated as business owners and employers, to mitigate that risk.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

https://www.cnn.com/...rump-sues/index.html

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I thought this was going to be about the Florida teacher who was found doing a white supremacist podcast and such. I believe she claimed it was just a character she was playing and that she really didn't believe that sort of stuff.

I hope she gets crushed in her law suit.

me too. One of my employees has a make america great sticker on his bumper and I want to fire him.

Having a bumper sticker on your car supporting a candidate is practically the same as flipping off the president and putting it on social media...go for it! Make your office parking lot great again!

She didn't post the photo on social media but if she did I would see your point of view. I hope you see mine.

well I was wrong about that^ so point taken. That was the assumption I was making.

Snowflakes shouldn’t leave their safe spaces. Too much offensive material out there in the wild.

She used the photo as her profile picture on twitter and facebook and was fired, or forced to resign, for violating the companies social media policy.