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[–]Alienhunter糞大名 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Hey if you wanna give it a go be my guest. Doesn't have to be perfect or an idea but you've got to at least attempt a legally passable idea of how you'd define "acceptable" political speech for what is "unacceptable". I'm not sure it can be done.

After all if someone wants to post very publicly on Twitter something along the lines of "I work for Coca Cola and their secret formula is aborted fetuses" I think most all of us would agree that firing such a person is justifiable. Whereas "I support the Republicans, or I am not in favor of gay marriage" or whatever unpopular opinions as such should be allowed speech. The problem is where do you draw the line? Because it has to be something that is consistent, fair, and not open to too much speculation. And that's a really hard thing to do.

We're already at a point in the public discourse where useful idiots have essentially conflated the ideas of opposition with promoting violence. You're causing trans people to kill themselves if you express a critical opinion of trans-related healthcare that isn't 100% affirming of the person, because they've conflated the suicide rate with murder, and they've conflated hardline targeted bullying with broad criticism of an idea.

But legally where do you draw the line? Direct threats? Ok I'm fine punishing people to make violent threats towards others but again how do we draw the line there. I wish someone was dead is a very different thing to say then I'm going to kill someone. Both can be quite horrid things to say naturally, but one is a threat and one is not. One can make veiled threats without ever breaking the "rules". The very nature of speech is one of innuendo and sidestepping that can be interpreted in positive and negative ways.

How do we codify such things into a policy? Stronger employment laws I'm in favor of in general but you've got to be quite fair about it. You need to make some concessions for people hurting the public image of a company, but if you make it so they have to argue that in a court of law you are opening up the political machine to start deciding what is and is not legally accepted speech.

It's really an all or nothing approach to free discourse in the end I think. We need to be free to discuss any and all ideas, even uncomfortable or dangerous ones, because often it's exactly those things that nobody wants to say that are true.

[–]LtGreenCo 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Bottom line is I don't believe in corporal consequences for speech. Getting fired from a job I consider corporal punishment because it affects your livelihood which in turn affects your survival. I believe speech should have no consequences beyond social. Meaning, yeah your coworkers can call you a jerk but your boss can't fire you for being a jerk unless being a jerk is a direct hindrance to your job duties being fulfilled.

Using your earlier KKK cop example. If a cop is a KKK supporter, but performs his job duties without any evidence of racial discrimination, then I say let him continue to do his job. We should measure the fitness of a person and their worth to society on their actions not their words.

IMO I don't think it would be too hard to come up with a law based on those principles, but I'm not a legislator so it's above my paygrade.