Never understood why people who supposedly support "free speech" think that everyone in society should be forced to associate with them.

I wanted to stick to the process becuase otherwise, apart from anything else, I'm going to have to delve much further into the details of the tribunal case. The appeal might be more revealing as it may well analyse the tribunal judgement.

The main point is the one has come up often. The idea that employers can just sack people without being subject to tribunals and the law is horribly right wing imo. Also the idea that failure to renew contract cannot be a sacking is wrong.

Is this forced association?

I think you misunderstood me. I'm saying that businesses or individuals should not be forced to associate with people like MF, even though she may have the right to her bigoted opinions.

Does your reasoning go beyond, it's rightwing, so it is bad?

In general I agree with cuepee that it should be legal for businesses to fire people for their political opinions. However, if we are going to ban that, I would much prefer banning it for any political opinion rather than having some government tribunal picking and choosing which political views it is okay to fire people for and which ones it is not.

We would not to tease this out quite a bit as I may agree in part but probably not to the majority.

I agree to certain 'protected areas' and mechanisms to govern those.

That said when it goes too broadly into 'speech' that is not protected I think companies should be able to dictate and establish their culture and prefer that to some gov't bureaucrat dictating that outside areas of protection.

Again, we had so many outrageous examples of what i would call 'abuse' immediately after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals were set up where people with political positions to push (activists) who found an often simpatico board, loaded with like minded people, ready to use State power to compel speech and behaviour and punish those with differing views.

Confisued. Who to mean by "we" and what do you mean by "ban"?

Like, the government prohibit political opinion in the workplace? Or the government prohibit political opinions as a firable offense? Or something else?

By the bolded I meant the government banning businesses from firing people for their political opinions. I'm saying if the government is going to have a rule preventing businesses from doing so, I'd rather they just make it a blanket rule about any political opinion rather than just the political opinions some government tribunal decides are not very offensive.

However, my preference is that businesses are allowed to fire people for their political opinions (even though I don't think businesses should do so).

No that would be silly.

Power to the bosses is a generally right wing idea. In this case I dont think you would any left of center political view in Uk or Europe that supported bosses firing without recourse. You would have to go a very long way into the right wing of the tory party before anyone would oppose employment law taht protects workers to some extent from being fired - that's what makes it a horribly right wing position.

Okay. I disagree as I'm prefectly fine with a truibunal supporting the firing of someone who supports prohibited far right groups etc. But not just because the boss doesn't like the view. Not all politcal views are equal in UK law - quite right too imo.

It's partly a question of where the polical battle should be. I know nothing about the Canadian examples but if the tribunals are bad then you work to change them via legislation - that is what politics is mostly about.

Then why do you act like it is? You point out that this is a rightwing view - which, whatever - and stop there with your justification for your position.

I struggle with how right wing even the more progressive group on this board is (from my perspective). I can usually take as a straightforward given that issues like protecting employees from being fired at the whim of the boss is something the left* just agree on and don't spend time debating as a principle.

*and the centre (and even much of the right).

Okay, you should aim to have a less parochial view of politics then.

I'll try, it's a tough adjustment in so many areas.

Although the problem usually seems to be people taking what happens in the usa as some sort of unquestionable norm or even the only possible way.

Yes, it is unfortunate when people do that, and you should also try to avoid treating your own country's politics the same way when you are talking to Americans. If the only way you can defend your political views is by pointing out that in your local political culture something is the "left" view rather than the "right" view then you don't have much of an intellectual basis for what you believe.

Sure but I specifically said UK and Europe. I'm thinking other countries as well Australia etc. This stuff is the norm for the left (and centre) in liberal democracies rather than the exception. It is the usa that is odd and even then I suspect this board is odd by USA standards (perhaps not as odd as it used to be).

Okay.

+1

Sometimes your political views make you unable to carry out your job properly.

- If you for example had a political views with an ideology that states that people were not equal and should not be equal before the law, you probably shouldn't be employed in the legal system.
- If you have a political view that states change must come through armed revolution or political violence, you probably shouldn't receive military training.
- If you believe modern medicine is a hoax and homeopathy is the way to go, you probably shouldn't be making healthcare decisions for anyone.

But in most cases, political views don't make you unable to carry out your job properly. So the idea that one should treat it all equally is something that looks nice on ideological paper, but that is about it.

Anyways, the solution tends to be to focus on job performance and risk, not political views. So there is zero need for a tribunal that sits around determining which political views are acceptable. Additionally (some countries) like to provide employee rights, so that you can't be fired just because your boss doesn't like your political views either.

So, going to get all these company to spy on American citizens.

They already do the spying, it's merely the US wanting to buy in too.

US citizens have surprisingly few rights. No right to paid maternity leave, for example, and not much right to paid leave at all. They are also subject -- and I very much do mean 'subject' -- to at-will employment law, so they can be fired for any reason or no reason at all at any time. In non-mad countries, where people do not rend their garments and ululate and bow down before the Golden Calf of an oligarchic constitution written by and for 18th-century aristocratic slavers, this is not the case. Non-mad countries also, and not coincidentally, tend to feature proper public health provision and a certain lack of daily mass shootings.

Imagine still being a conservative in 2021

“One of the Intercept stories to which I (and many others) objected involved a fund-raising email sent by The Intercept to the public on May 4, in which they proudly boasted that they had obtained the full archive of private data on all users of the social media platform Gab. The Intercept vowed that they would use the data archive to target ordinary citizens, including QAnon conspiracy theorists and those who believe that the election was defrauded.

Based on that promise, the email solicited donations from the public (why an outlet lavishly funded by the world's 73rd richest billionaire and which provides their largely unread writers and editors enormous, above-market salaries has to beg for donations from the public in the middle of a pandemic and joblessness crisis is, as I understand it, the subject of an imminent investigative exposé on their finances).

Because I am not on their email list, I became aware of that Gab email only when a former senior Intercept editor forwarded it to me, furious that The Intercept was now doing the work of the NSA and FBI by infringing privacy rights rather than protecting them: a core mission of the organization's founding.

The other Intercept story I criticized was an expensive, highly produced 20-minute video, narrated by former New York Times live-blogging reporter Robert Mackey, designed to vilify numerous journalists with small right-leaning news outlets who do the work that The Intercept would never get near: namely, they report on what actually happens at Antifa protests.

Why would a news outlet that has a $15 million/year budget, which works from a $3 million/year penthouse office on the 18th floor of a Park Avenue tower offering panoramic views of Manhattan, and which pays their senior employees annual salaries between $350,000 and $450,000, devote their vast resources to villainizing obscure, poorly paid video journalists who — unlike most Intercept reporters — do actually dangerous, on-the-ground reporting? Who is the "bully” in this situation?”

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/cor...ouble-standard