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Iâm totally with you there. I had some unpleasant episodes as a BBS sysop back in the day, and ever since then, Iâve been entirely paranoid about the intersection between my real life and my virtual life. My RatMan persona is traceable back to a name, but it isnât my real name. And I donât share a lot of information about my work.
Speaking of work, my employer is entirely down with the paranoia as well. People who work in some of our departments where they have contact with potentially unhappy people are given the option, even encouraged, to choose a âwork nameâ different from their real name. Contrary to what you might expect, as long as the work name is traceable to a real name within the company, thereâs no legal issues with that. Callers like thinking theyâre talking to someone whose name they know, yet that named employee doesnât have to worry about some random crazy tracking her down and going all Annie Wilkes on her. Itâs a clever policy. I wish Iâd thought of it.
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Iâm not crying for this asshole but is it then fair to fire somebody for being an outspoken atheist and insulting someone protesting gay marriage?
To be clear. I think this asshole should go to jail for assault or something like that, I donât think employers are good arbitrers of morality.
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So isnât it a matter for the state then?
Is assholery a crime? Is that likely at all given that the rules are written by assholes? (statistically)
The State will step in if heâs naked (despite that being far less severe an issue), if he smokes dope, or any number of other things.
Asshattery is pretty easy to identify, and walking up to a stranger and being cruel to them will always fit that bill, wonât it? Just because itâs âlegalâ doesnât mean it ever should have been okay.
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Jebus tap dancing christos, I hate when I sound like I am defending raging, horrible people.
Thought experiment: is it okay to fire someone who is a member of the Klan. My position is no, not based solely on affiliation. (Shouldnât have been hired in the first place, but thought experiment)
My position is this, At Will employment, which lets that happen, is a blight. Employers should not be making morality decisions, at all. This epic nozzle deserves a hell of a lot worse than losing his job, but losing his job shouldnât be on the table in the first place.
Now, losing his job cause he spent a week in jail for harassment and missed work? That is a different story.
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Well, as the Klan is a known terrorist organization, why should people employ people who willingly join that organization?
And where do we draw the line at protected speech here?
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I donât believe in terrorist organizations.
âŚ
On shit, I just channeled popo 
Letâs take this a ludicrous step further, if a person supported the so called Islamic state, should they be fired? If someone supports extreme measures against PP should they be fired?
I just donât think employers, who act almost extra judicial arbiters (cause court rulings say they can) should be the arbiters. And absolutely not the internet rage machine.
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But it is. The KKK is the largest and most prolific American terrorist organization. So if someone joins it, Iâm not really concerned if they lose their job over it. Maybe itâs because I had to grow up with that shit and the justification for their continued existence that I take such a hard line stance on it.
Racism is not just a point of view, it needs to be actively stamped out.
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I did work with a British Asian who (apparently, according to the rumour mill) got fired from his job for googling âhow to build a bombâ at work soon after 9/11 (Not sure if thatâs true, I know someone else got fired for downloading porn - apparently he had a folder called 'Deviant Sexual Practices" in his My Documents).
AnywayâŚprobably getting off point.
Iâm not unsympathetic to the idea that you shouldnât automatically lose your job for being an abhorrent person in your personal time, but is that a function of my privilege, or have I listened to Jon Ronson too much?
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Mind if I propose a different line?
If somebody goes out of their way to ruin the days of people who are behaving reasonably (stalkers, people who harass peaceful people like our friend, etc.), they donât deserve any sort of special protection.
Itâs a deliberate act, easily detectable, and in no way has any slippery slope issues. Somebody can still convince their employer they had a bad day or whatever, but if anything should give an employer a âget out of trap freeâ card, thatâs it.
Let people who can treat people with respect have those opportunities, and start setting up a social system where weâre discouraging assholes instead of giving them all the advantages.
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I am going to stop arguing the point, cause it makes me feel ugly, gross, and terrible. Racism must be stomped out. But not by creating unemployable racist martyrs.
Fucking hell I need a shower.
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Should, specifically, public racism outside the workplace be a firable offense? I wouldnât like it, but I wouldnât oppose it either.
Should any and all activity outside of the workplace be up for workplace scrutiny? Iâd be willing to trade that for some sweet job security if I go along with the plan.
As it stands, I wouldnât stand for the sole arbiter of good conduct to be the employer, with no capacity for redress if the employer does something morally objectinable to the employee. Iâd be OK with this guy facing jail time/fines for his racist remarks.
Employers cannot be exclusively moral if their imperative is to make money, they shouldnât pretend to be moral when they arenât.
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I think youâre dramatically underestimating how much difference of opinion people here are willing to tolerate, if itâs expressed reasonably and halfway thought through.
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Youâve got it backwards. Iâm definitely a monkey, or an ape, anyway, (and a great one, if I do say so myself), but, unfortunately, Iâm not in space. My feet remain firmly planted on the surface of this miserable globe.
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Would being spaced-out count? Thatâs easier to achieve.
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maybe iâve misread the original situation but werenât the people he was harassing protesters? iâve been to a few protests in my time and i never felt that i was going to be free from harassment or worse both from oppositional onlookers or law enforcement groups. iâve never felt that i was guaranteed a right to be free from conflict while i was protesting. i would feel less inclined to defend the racistâs employment rights if he had started up on a group of people waiting in line for a movie or a meal but that is not the situation at all.
as for your concluding thought, if we canât protect the rights of the assholes among us we wonât be able to protect our own rights either.
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Explain to me a scenario in which this is an issue.
I already defined the criteria. Itâs not a zero sum game here. We already have mechanisms to deal with various behaviors that are officially âinappropriateâ, most of them far less egregious than what this âgentlemanâ did.
I contend that the active decision to be an asshole and harass peaceful people should be a revocation of the ability situationally argue for âadultâ rights. This is not a super-confusing boundary. Grade schoolers can understand it just fine.
Well yeah, anyone worth employing would have learnt how to disguise the name of his pr0n folder when he was a teenager!
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to me this statement is in the same vein as responding to the snowden leaks by saying âif you arenât doing anything wrong you shouldnât mind if the government looks over your shoulder.â someone above described the assholes and those on or just over the line as being like canaries in the coal mine. if youâre good with this guy being fired because heâs a racist but youâre not good with someone being fired because they support marriage equality i think you are confused about how rights work.
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