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This Hateful Fool Shouldn’t Lose His Job
In a surprising twist on the usual social media pile-ons, a left-wing Alabama man has just lost his job after posting mean comments about the victims of the Sevier County, Tennessee fires on Facebook. Bringing to mind the Left-wing social-media-fueled persecutions of Justine Sacco and Brendan Eich, this case is one where the Right has done the pile-on, and the man has apparently lost his job.
Perhaps it’s easier for me to make my point when I might be expected to be on the other side of this, and I can stand up for principle without people thinking that I have an interest in this man’s case.
I want to make a stand for the right of any fool to say stupid, cruel things and not be in danger of an online mob of villagers with virtual pitchforks and torches spreading his name around and pushing his employer to fire him. Surely we can agree on that. Right, America?
Published in Culture
Beautiful. Did you know we have a group for country music fans on Ricochet? You should check it out, Percival.
I did not know. Thank you, Randy.
If we are talking about the individual that is the subject of the OP: surely that is not a matter of a difference of opinion? The guy celebrated death and destruction. Surely just about everyone would “dislike the views”.
If you want to change the subject, go ahead. But please signal.
I’m not trying to change the subject. Oftentimes when discussing whether or not a punishment fits the “crime” people will compare the subject to other instances and ask, “What if this or that element were different?” Someone smarter than myself could make this argument without resorting to comparisons, but I cannot. So I’ll give you one more.
If there were an earthquake in San Francisco and 40 city blocks were destroyed, can you not picture someone on Ricochet jokingly saying something like “It’s a start.” I can picture it, and I can picture at least a few people hitting the Like button. It’s not nice to joke about natural disasters, but people do it.
One certainly shouldn’t expect much privacy on social media, but I think it’s fair to expect some informality rather than a professional standard of behaviour. The closest real world parallel is probably a bar: it’s a public place, but people banter and bluster with friends and strangers, without expecting their conversations to be taken as official pronouncements.
Sort of depends on what his job was.
Take my job, for instance. It is to work with people, to represent their interests, to advocate for them… if I hate them, I may still be able to do my job, but if I said something like (what that guy said) about them, I should get fired. I can think of a lot of jobs where that would be the case.
That’s a hell of a lot different, by the way, from donating to a fund that supports a political proposition. I’m not sure it merits a firing, but I’m also not going to say that it doesn’t.
So, looking at the article, it appears that he worked for an oil change company (ironic). In other words, he’s in the service industry. He’s not being fired for his views, but for his behavior. I’d say that’s pretty legitimate. If customers come to his bosses and say “I’m not soliciting your business because this guy openly hates us” – and they actually care about customer service – they’re well within their rights to fire him.
Also, remember the distinction: he’s saying some pretty nasty things about how much he hates people and hopes they lose their entire livelihoods, their property, their homes. And he’s trusted with taking care of their property? Eich is significantly different. Donating to a referendum-effort does not threaten anything, and though some people may perceive that it is hatred-based, it is almost certainly not.
I agree with your overall premise that even speech we dislike should be protected, and that the SJW crowd is bad and should not be able to influence private decisionmaking; but I disagree with this application of that principle. I would say that I also refuse to allow the left and the SJW crowd to equate these extremely different types of behavior – where they say that my church-attendance or my vote places me in the same camp as this guy who openly ranted about his hatred for a vast group of people and his wish that they be destroyed.
Would you hire the guy judging from the way he decided to present himself on facebook?
If not, why should his unlucky current employer don’t have the right to fire him for it?
My reference to changing the subject has been addressed by @ryanm. There is ZERO comparison between a “difference of opinion” and celebrating death and destruction.
The OP is referring to an instance of the latter.
Regarding your San Francisco comment: I’ve been on Ricochet since 2011 and I don’t remember seeing a comment like that and there has been ample occasion. Anyway, just because some people “do” something doesn’t mean there should be no repercussion.
I’m with @annefy. Comparing this to Brendan Eich is simply trying too hard to be even handed. Brendan Eich never celebrated the deaths of innocents.
Society has to draw the line somewhere, and I don’t think, “Wishing death on your political opponents,” is anywhere close to too far.
You’re both right.
If stupidity beyond the workplace adversely affects business, justifiably or not, then the business owner should be free to fire the employee. But it’s up to the owner/manager what matters more and how much to endure. The particulars matter.
We should generally discourage the wrecking of lives by angry mobs. We should also be mindful of what our economic decisions encourage or empower.
Bottom line: Most of public life involves business, so it is not possible to separate political values from business values. Whether to prioritize profit or cultural standards, or how to balance these competing values, is a political decision that does contribute to the freedom or lack thereof in society generally.
Probably moved there from Atlanta.
Also consider that the man lives in Alabama, one of the reddest states in the country. It’s not much of a stretch for his neighbors, if not his employers themselves to read his rant as, “I hope this happens to you.”
This is a private company with every right to dismiss any employee who exhibits such traits as this joker. The situation has nothing to do with government, politics, censorship or his rights. He posted hateful garbage on a public community bulletin board and signed it, which was the common equivalent to FB today. Would you continue to employ someone who speaks like this publicly, risking your company’s profits and implying that he’s OK? This is his direct full quote, which I notice did not appear in this post, but was referenced.
“Funny story. I was recently in Gatlinburg. Had a terrible time. I felt the place was a cesspool of consumerism and a bastion of the worst aspect of southern culture. Turns out a wildfire just burned most of the town to the ground. Good riddance, Gatlinburg. And good luck you mouth-breathing, toothless, diabetic, cousin-humpin,’ mountain-dew chugging, moon-pie-munchin,’ pall-mall smoking,’, Trump-suckin’ pond scum. (Chuckles and smiles like the smarmy liberal elitist I am,” Bonner wrote.
Yeah, I’d fire him. And not apologize or explain to anybody. Can’t we exercise basic decency and civility without the PC police knocking down our doors?
Excellent comment, Ryan. You’re certainly correct that he should be jettisoned by his employer, and you dismissed the irrelevant side issues graciously. Good work.
I take your point.
But a key difference is that people here- and conservatives in general- would be making a joke. Many of those making a such a joke would then volunteer for disaster relief, or at least donate money.
In my experience leftists aren’t joking when they say such things. I note that leftists in other nations have filled them with mass graves, and even now are busy destroying Venezuela.
In the US today, it is abysmally easy to run across leftists casually expressing their murderous hatred against anyone who dissents, which they then follow with efforts to harm such dissenters in any way they can.
I’ve had enough of this. As Alinsky wrote, we should make them live up to their own rules- if only to teach them the benefits of civilized behavior.
Wait, we are supposed to be unilaterally munificent now?
Nope. War.
Yes, but such is the nature of societies. They have standards of behavior. Violating those standards comes with consequences. Always has, always will, and rightly so. It should also be socially unacceptable to fire a person based on how they voted in an election or something like that, so the employer must walk a line as well. Social pressure can and should work both ways, but it only does if both sides exercise it.
It’s perfectly fair to suggest that any given instance crosses the line, but I’m not convinced the “Right” thing to do is eliminate social consequences for outrageous behavior.
Sorry Tim, but no.
He posted that rant in public.
Yeah they are called Auburn fans.
If he had slipped in any racial, sectarian, or sexual insults in there, no company in this country would put up with it. I’m okay with him expressing his noxious opinion, and I’m okay with him facing the consequences for doing so.
But I don’t hold with hunting people down for this either.
Exactly. No hunting, but if he makes a spectacle of himself, that’s his problem.
I think he just means from the western part of the state.
He doesn’t “have” to buckle to anything. He just makes a business decision concerning whether it is worth it to him to continue having this person in his employ. Guess what? Every single one of us who isn’t self-employed is in the same boat. If my boss decided he didn’t want me around I would be gone in an instant.
Fine, that’s entirely your choice. I sure would, though. I do not buy Barbara Streisand records, eat Ben & Jerry’s, or support other groups with which I completely disagree. I do spend money at lots of places where I am sure the owners are leftists, but if they get obnoxious about it – or employ others who are – I will take my business elsewhere. I view this as a mechanism for encouraging polite behavior.
Anyone can say or do anything they want – as long as they’re willing to live with the consequences. Had he made a racist comment and lost his job, there would be small victory parties on the web celebrating his loss.
There’s nothing quite like internet tough guys. Turns out the things you say can cost you – on the street, at work, at the gym, at the grocery store. It may not be right, or wrong, but if you run your mouth long enough, sooner or later someone will call you on it. If you find yourself lying on a sidewalk with your ears ringing, maybe you’re not in the insulated, untouchable bubble you thought you lived in.
No, no, definitely Bama fans.
This guy should certainly feel the fire. If the Right can muster enough strength through threat of boycott to force the company to fire this walking bag of human debris then I say yes. They started this war. Perhaps had our friends on the Left chose a better form of persuasion it might not come to this, but this is path they have chosen.
I don’t think so. That’s not where the universities are.
I was wondering the same thing.
Listen I don’t know anything about anywhere in Alabama, frankly they all just seem like one big humid state to me. Not like the culturally distinct Midwest, where our you can tell what state you are in by the corn.