[_heimdall]

> If I go online and trash talk anyone, that might prevent me from getting hired.

> Similarly, if I work someplace, and I call my boss a jackass, I might get fired!

Those examples have nothing to do with your specific political views. Both issues there are about how you engages with others and are a reasonable example of why you might cause problems on a team. The specific views you would have shared rudely have nothing to do with the actual problem at hand.

[array_key_first]

> Those examples have nothing to do with your specific political views.

Yes they do - as I've said, you can't invoke politics as a shield.

You can be fired for your beliefs. Politics are a belief. So you can be fired for politics.

If you're trying to say that you can just be an asshole in private - sure. If you share your political beliefs, it's no longer private.

Most companies don't want to hire people they think are assholes.

Ultimately, it's very simple human behavior. I don't want to work with people who suck. You don't either. Okay, so we must discriminate based on politics or other beliefs.

Hiring, in it of itself, is just discriminating. We're discriminating based on skills, personality, beliefs, and fit. That's what hiring is.

There's only a select couple of things we can't, or shouldn't, discriminate on. Politics isn't one of them. If you think black people need to be exterminated or whatever, there's no gun to my head making me hire you. No, I'm not gonna hire you.

[_heimdall]

Okay, I'll try to take this from the top.

> Yes they do - as I've said, you can't invoke politics as a shield.

That isn't the issue at hand. You are describing using ones political views against them simply for them holding those views, not someone being an asshole and attempting to justify it as a political act.

> Most companies don't want to hire people they think are assholes.

Sure, though they would base that on behavioral tendencies rather than a political survey.

> Ultimately, it's very simple human behavior. I don't want to work with people who suck. You don't either. Okay, so we must discriminate based on politics or other beliefs.

Ultimately you're the one worse off for viewing people this ways. Views and beliefs don't make a person suck, actions do.

[array_key_first]

Your identity as an asshole versus your actions as an asshole are really not too different. It doesn't matter much.

If I know you have political views X, you already fucked up. This is a tree falling in the forest problem.

You're claiming that somehow, magically, people are being discriminated by their political beliefs without ever acting on them or saying them.

Okay how? How is that possible? If I know your political beliefs, you've already taken political action.

> Ultimately you're the one worse off for viewing people this ways. Views and beliefs don't make a person suck, actions do.

Yeah and what begets actions? Beliefs.

Theyre completely inseparable, that's just a fact of life.

[zahlman]

> If I know you have political views X, you already fucked up. This is a tree falling in the forest problem.

Yes, that's the exact point the other person is making. The resulting consequences are, and should be, a consequence of that fuck-up, and not a consequence of the value of X.

[array_key_first]

Ok, sure, but now the conversation is purely theoretical. What you're talking about is a situation that, by your own admission, cannot exist!

Because in order to punish me for being X, you have to know I'm X! But if you know I'm X, then I must have said it at some point! In which case, you're firing me for saying I'm X, not for being X!

If you're a republican and nobody ever knows, then you're not a republican. Again, it's a tree in the forest problem. You literally cannot be fired for being republican then, so it's indistinguishable from you not being republican.

[_heimdall]

If you know I have political view X, I have shared my view. That doesn't mean I have acted on them.

Do you view holding or discussing a certain view as acting upon them? Is a distaste for Republicans in America today, for example, tantamount to acting on said distaste and assassinating someone?

[array_key_first]

> Do you view holding or discussing a certain view as acting upon them?

No, obviously, but they are an action. You can be fired for an action. Your action being a political one does not protect it. That is my point.

Me saying to my boss "I believe you're an asshole and you deserve to die* is an action. I am doing something - saying something distasteful.

That can get me fired. Period. And everyone agrees. No disagreement.

Okay, now I say to my boss "I believe Jews are assholes and they all deserve to die". Now it's political. And suddenly, there's disagreement.

The disagreement is very forced. This is extremely simple. Yes, you can be fired for that. Why? Because people don't like it. Nobody wants to work with people they don't like. It's very simple, very fundamental stuff about how humans work. Making it political doesn't change anything.

[wahnfrieden]

Their politics were expressed as behaviors: proclaiming "I'm a nazi" publicly, taking over leadership of GNAA from Stormfront's administrator, etc. These were not private beliefs that were uncovered through surveying. There was no survey.

Or by behavior do you mean that public support of terrorism isn't grounds for an employer to avoid hiring or termination? That the standard for that would be actual terrorist acts?

[_heimdall]

I'm not sure who the they are you're referring to here, sorry. If anyone acted on their opinions and discriminated against someone, or worse, of course an employer could consider that.

The whole conversation here, though, was whether someone's beliefs alone are enough to discriminate against them in a hiring process. My argument has been that beliefs or opinions shouldn't be discriminated against, but actions are fair game.

[wahnfrieden]

This thread is under my post about Cf employing a Nazi activist. I don’t want to name them here because their CEO targets people online who mention them. You can look it up but their X account has been wiped so you have to dig just a little