[guildwriter]

>These mechanisms escalate along with the perceived harm. It starts with subtle hints that you should work more diligently, and only when such attempts fail, it escalates to direct appeals, or even the loss of your job.

>Political opinions aren't somehow exempt from the judgement by others. If there's a real danger that a reasonable employer will fire you for you political opinion, don't ask "who will be targeted next?". Ask just how far from the pack have you strayed?

Are you suggesting that the majority is always correct in what it deems is worthy of punishment?

[matt4077]

I'd think that ultimately, the idea of democracy is indeed that the majority gets to set the rules for punishment.

But I'll freely admit that this ideal isn't true in practice, where we see elements of a wisdom-of-the-elders system of justice mixed in, because we don't fully trust the majority to understand that democracy isn't two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

[lurrr]

This is the exact reason why pure democracies do not exist. What we have instead is a representative democracy.