[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.