FFRF gets its panties in a twist

[Seth]

Because you said I was "wrong" about freedom of speech not supposed to be limited in the workplace, and then you proceeded to prove that point by explaining that a private employer can control speech in the workplace, which, of course, has nothing to do with freedom of speech in the first place.

MrJonno: "Well an employee and to some extent employers lose a lot of free speech once they enter work."

CES: "In the US, that is not supposed to be true."

Seth: "Wrong."

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Let me rephrase for clarity:

MrJonno:"Employees lose free speech rights at work."
CES:"Not in the US" (Implying that employees HAVE free speech rights at work in the US)

Which they do.

Not really. When you're working, your boss can dictate exactly what you say and when you say it, and fire you if you deviate from the script.

Seth:"Wrong" (Stating that employees DO NOT HAVE free speech rights at work in the US.)

And, you are wrong about that. They do have free speech rights at work. However, free speech rights do not include the right to not be ordered off private property or fired by a private employer because of what you say.

Obfuscation and pettifoggery. Yes, you can speak, but no you cannot maintain a legal claim against your employer for firing you because your speech violated his rules, therefore you do not have a "free speech right" you merely have the ability to speak. The concept of "right of free speech" implies that you may invoke the law to protect your exercise of speech if it's infringed upon, and that right only exists as against GOVERNMENT, not private, suppression of speech.

The First Amendment prohibits government from regulating free speech, but people wrongly assume that this means they have a "right" to free speech everywhere, which they don't.

I don't care what idiots "assume." Freedom of speech has nothing to do with a person's right to be or speak while on someone else's property.

Yes, it does. You're pettifogging.

They have a right not to have the government infringe on their speech unreasonably. But they have no "right" of free speech as compared to, for example, the "right" to not be discriminated against by reason of race, religion or disability in the workplace that can be enforced against the employer.

They do have a right of free speech. They just don't have a right which takes precedence over the employer's rights, and the employer owns the property/building or leases it.

Pettifoggery. If the employer fires them for saying something, they have no recourse in the law, therefore they have no "free speech right."

The government cannot suppress speech, but neither can the government mandate that a private employer not suppress speech in the workplace.

Who in the world stated or implied that the government could?

You did. Government exists to secure the rights of the people. A person has a right not to be discriminated against in employment by reason of race. If an employer so discriminates, the employee has legal recourse, enforced by the government, against the employer. No employee has such a right when it comes to speech while under employment.

That's what I was saying. Sorry if there was some confusion.

The right to free speech only relates to government power.

Exactly.

To say that an employer can control what is said by employees, or take adverse job action against an employee for saying the wrong thing, has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Now you're flip-flopping.

Just like the moderators here don't violate freedom of speech by deleting posts. We still have 100% freedom of speech.

You have the ABILITY to speak, but you don't have the RIGHT to speak or post. The term "right" implies a freedom of action that can be defended (in this case legally) against infringement by another. You cannot invoke the protection of the law (enforced by the government) to prevent the mods from censoring your posts or to prevent your employer from firing you for speaking out of turn.

The fact, is in the US, Constitutionally, the government is supposed to have no greater power to restrict speech in the workplace than it has to do so in the street. Thus, the First Amendment doesn't indicate a location-dependent right of free speech. Freedom of speech exists in the workplace, as much as it exists outdoors. You told me I was wrong about that. I'm not.

Yes, you are wrong about "freedom of speech" existing in the workplace as much as it exists outdoors. It doesn't. Outdoors, in public spaces, the only authority that can regulate speech is the government, and it is severely restricted in how and when it can lawfully do so. Therefore there is "freedom from government restraint of speech." But in the workplace, there is no "freedom of speech" because the employer has absolute control over what is spoken in his establishment.

You have a complete backwards notion of what freedom of speech is.

No, you are moving the goalposts by intermixing "freedom of speech" and "rights." "Freedom to speak" is nothing more than the present ability to mouth words and make sounds. A "right" to speak freely is something entirely different. You are pettifogging when you mix the two as if they are interchangeable. They aren't.

Freedom of speech is not location dependent. It exists to the same extent everywhere, which is why the constitution doesn't mention employers, or homes, or streets. You have freedom of speech if you are in my home, but I have property rights to kick you off if I don't like what you're saying.

You have the ABILITY to speak, but you don't have a RIGHT to speak freely in my home that can be invoked under the law to prevent me from kicking you out of my house. That's what "a right to freedom of speech" means in this context. If you have a right to speak freely in a public park, and the police come along and suppress that right, you have a cause of action against the government that can be enforced by the law to prevent the police from interfering with your speech. You have no such right when it comes to your employer's premises.

You're just being evasive.

Since the term "freedom of speech" implies the words "right of" to form the phrase "right of freedom of speech" this implies some protection against an action suppressing speech which can be asserted as a right against the employer. In public, all persons have protection against GOVERNMENT suppressing speech or sanctioning it (to one extent or another...but not absolutely), in private no person has any protection whatsoever against a private business owner suppressing or sanctioning speech at all. Period.

An employer has no right to suppress a person's speech. the employer has a right exclude the person from the employer's property, or fire the employee. But, the employer has not right to shut the person up. That's what you're missing. The employer can exercise free speech rights, and condition presence on the employer's property on the employee only saying certain things. However, if the employee refuses to comply, the employer has no remedy that shuts the person up - the employer can escort the person off the property or call the police and have him removed. Beyond that, there is no power to shut another person up other than through force of persuasion or simply telling the person to shut up.

If your boss doesn't like the way you pronounce your words or the words you choose, he can fire you, and you have no "free speech" claim against him.

Where, exactly, do I imply or say that one would have a free speech claim against him?

The employer has freedom of speech rights too.

And, the employees have their freedom of speech rights. An employer firing a person for saying the wrong thing is not a free speech violation at all, and doesn't deprive the employee of free speech rights. It doesn't even shut the employee up, necessarily, unless the employee consents to shut up. If the employee keeps talking, the employer's recourse is to have the person removed from the employer's property - which is an exercise in property rights, not a suppression of speech. The person is free to keep talking off of the employer's property.[/quote]

[Seth]

An employer has no right to suppress a person's speech. the employer has a right exclude the person from the employer's property, or fire the employee

Its relatively easy for an employer to exclude a person from property but firing them is a different matter.
In the UK you can't make a person redundant ever under any circumstances you can only make a role redundant (meaning you cant replace someone in that role). You can fire someone immediately for gross misconduct but may need to justify this in court/tribunal, if you want to get rid of someone for less serious but continual misconduct then there are warnings and procedures to go through.

You can basically can never get rid of someone because you don't like them or their face doesnt fit etc

Which is socialist idiocy, and why the UK (and other socialist countries) are going down the toilet.

[MrJonno]

Which is socialist idiocy, and why the UK (and other socialist countries) are going down the toilet.

Better than worrying whether your boss will sack you because he had a row with his wife or such other trivia

[Seth]

Which is socialist idiocy, and why the UK (and other socialist countries) are going down the toilet.

Better than worrying whether your boss will sack you because he had a row with his wife or such other trivia

That you would think the economic destruction of the UK beats being fired is illustrative of the delusional mindset that socialists inhabit. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that private businesses exist to provide you with a job. They don't. They exist to make a profit for the owners and investors, and if you want to work for them, you have to provide more value to the owner than it costs him to keep you employed, otherwise, like a socialist government, the company quickly goes bankrupt and everybody starves.

Socialists are SUCH morons....

[MrJonno]

That you would think the economic destruction of the UK beats being fired is illustrative of the delusional mindset that socialists inhabit. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that private businesses exist to provide you with a job. They don't. They exist to make a profit for the owners and investors, and if you want to work for them, you have to provide more value to the owner than it costs him to keep you employed, otherwise, like a socialist government, the company quickly goes bankrupt and everybody starves

They are allowed to exist because they provide taxes for public services and provide a minimum level of treatment for workers, if they can manage that then sure they can make a profit

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Damn, a Hitler thread and I missed it.

Anywho, Franz von Papen, the Chancellor under the outgoing government, told von Hindenburg he could form a government with A.H. as the Chancellor. When von H. objected v. P. told him to not worry, "I can control that little Bavarian corporal."

So, Hitler's ascension to the Chancellorship was perfectly legal and normal under German law. In effect he WAS elected to the government in the last free German election for over a decade.

[Seth]

That you would think the economic destruction of the UK beats being fired is illustrative of the delusional mindset that socialists inhabit. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that private businesses exist to provide you with a job. They don't. They exist to make a profit for the owners and investors, and if you want to work for them, you have to provide more value to the owner than it costs him to keep you employed, otherwise, like a socialist government, the company quickly goes bankrupt and everybody starves

They are allowed to exist because they provide taxes for public services and provide a minimum level of treatment for workers, if they can manage that then sure they can make a profit

"Allowed to exist?" You do understand what happens to a society when commerce and industry are not "allowed to exist" don't you?

People die brutally, in large numbers.

Just ask the victims of Stalin.

Oh, and businesses cannot exist if their only purpose is to provide taxes and jobs, an economic fact that clearly escapes you.

[Pensioner]

Take this you swine

[MrJonno]

Nazi Germany did a good job in combing extreme christianity captialism natural libertarian rights and mass murder

[Ian]

Jessica Ahlquist, Atheist Student In Prayer Banner Fight, Gets $40,000 Scholarship Fund
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/1 ... 86875.html

[Bella Fortuna]

Go, Jessica!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I blame Darwin.

[eXcommunicate]

Problem is, it's not illegal for a business to discriminate based on POLITICAL (or any other) belief. It's perfectly legal to refuse to serve Democrats, or Progressives or Communists...or atheists.

And if every business in a community decides to refuse service to Libertarians or Republicans? What if those Libertarians or Republicans don't have the means to move to a more welcoming area?

[Coito ergo sum]

Problem is, it's not illegal for a business to discriminate based on POLITICAL (or any other) belief. It's perfectly legal to refuse to serve Democrats, or Progressives or Communists...or atheists.

And if every business in a community decides to refuse service to Libertarians or Republicans? What if those Libertarians or Republicans don't have the means to move to a more welcoming area?

If that happened, you'd have Libertarians and Republicans crying out as a new group against whom discrimination is tolerated, and maybe the law would do something about it.

As it happens, that isn't the case, and if a business wants to open up "The Democrat Bar and Grill," and require all patrons to show their Democrat party affiliation on entering, I don't think that would be illegal. And, it seems like a perfectly fine idea to me. Maybe it's a market niche that would work nicely. Republicans are not a group that has a historical record of being subjected to invidious discrimination, and there are plenty of options out there in terms of bars and grills open for everyone.

Like cigar bars -- open to people who don't mind the smell of cigar smoke - there is a place for that, and even though non-smokers may tend not to like bars that allow smoking -- tough shit -- go somewhere else.

Race discrimination - sex discrimination, etc in housing and employment -- those things are prohibited because there were rational, demonstrable public policy reasons to prohibit them, and very little in the way of any positive argument in favor of them. But, the fact that we prohibit things that have a history of invidious discrimination and which are otherwise pointless and counter-productive, doesn't mean that ALL discrimination of every kind likewise needs to be or should be prohibited. Discrimination against Republicans is done all the time -- like -- when a State prohibits Republicans from voting in Democratic primaries. Doesn't seem to be a problem there. Maybe someone wants to open a bar and grill for Democrats only, so that Democrats will have a place to go to talk politics free from asshole Republicans and Libertarians mucking up the mix with their bullshit? If there is a market for that, it seems reasonable to me that it can be met.

[amused]

I'm sure the FBI would just *love* a bar where just Libertarians gather.

Wait... Maybe they should open one themselves.