[shadowgovt]

That's a little irrelevant; if someone wasn't complaining, it's likely one's boss wouldn't know.

But that doesn't imply it's the mob's fault; it's up to the person who said the things to not say things their employer would fire them for.

[throwaway894345]

The point is the employer wouldn't fire them apart from the mob's pressure. Moreover, mobs are famously fickle and they're happy to descend upon anyone, guilty or not (even irrespective of whether or not today's target was part of the mob yesterday). I really hope we can agree that mob rule is strictly worse than rule of law.

[shadowgovt]

The rule of law doesn't exclude an employer deciding an employee is more trouble than they're worth outside of some very specific situations (class protection, etc.).

Within the constraint of the rule of law, a group of people can organize to petition an employer to remove an employee for behavior A, and the employer can evaluate A and decide whether the group's claims are untrue, A should be removed for the behavior, or it's not worth the time to decide and A should be removed to quiet the group.

Good employers won't do 3, and we should probably shame the employers who do, but I think it opens a Pandora's box to constrain their choices with further law on this topic.

[throwaway894345]

> The rule of law doesn't exclude an employer deciding an employee is more trouble than they're worth outside of some very specific situations (class protection, etc.).

"Rule of law" refers to "judgment in a court on the basis of a codified law" as opposed to "mob rule" where the mob takes it upon itself to determine who is guilty. My point is that I hope we can agree that the mob is bad at determining who is guilty and what an appropriate sentence ought to be, and this is why we have rule of law.

> a group of people can organize to petition an employer to remove an employee for behavior A, and the employer can evaluate A and decide whether the group's claims are untrue, A should be removed for the behavior, or it's not worth the time to decide and A should be removed to quiet the group. Good employers won't do 3...

The problem, of course, is that employers have a fiduciary responsibility that reliably overrides their moral responsibility in practice. And naturally, cancel culture depends on this basic fact, or else it would be ineffective. If employers were able to resist the mob, then the mob wouldn't get its way. If the mob and the employer were really righteous then the employer would terminate the errant employee without pressure from a mob (there would be no point).

Personally I think we should make it harder for employers to terminate their employees for their private free speech, such that mobs can "protest" employee behavior but they can't even implicitly threaten the employee's livelihood and access to health care. If you remove the mob's ability to control one's employment, then they can shout into the Twitter void to their heart's content with my full blessing.

[shadowgovt]

> Personally I think we should make it harder for employers to terminate their employees for their private free speech, such that mobs can "protest" employee behavior but they can't even implicitly threaten the employee's livelihood and access to health care.

I'm personally nervous about a law enacting that creating a situation where a black employer can't fire an employee for organizing a Klan rally.

[throwaway894345]

I empathize with this. There's not an easy answer.

First of all, to clarify, if the employee is using any racist speech at work at all, there's no question that s/he's creating a hostile workplace and that warrants termination. I'm very wary of allowing any private speech to constitute a hostile workplace due to the slippery slope and ease of abuse, but I certainly empathize with the impulse.

If the "Klan rally" is burning crosses or otherwise threatening or harassing people, then the law should handle this. Basically we should have stronger protections against mobs--make it easier for the law to prosecute participants. This also would have lots of additional social benefits (including protecting victims of BLM riots).

If the hypothetical Klan rally is truly peaceful (however abhorrent their ideals), then all they can really do is result to the same cancel culture tactics we're debating--if we can render those tactics impotent, then the Klan rally is impotent. Moreover, it becomes an opportunity to hold a counter-rally where we talk about why Klan ideas are abhorrent (because ideas about racial superiority/guilt are abhorrent, etc).

Note that while this isn't as satisfying as firing someone over their private speech, it provides much more protection against abuse, and it's more holistic--it not only covers your hypothetical black employer / racist employee scenario, but the much more common scenario involving racist employees offending their coworkers.