re: #443 WindUpBird

So here we are with all the exceptions. Walter starts with a concrete THIS IS WHAT THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO and then slowly we walk it back into something resembling reason.

My life belongs to me. Not the company I work for. No employer will ever tell me what to do when I’m on their clock.

Freedom! I like it. The real stuff, not the abstract GOP boilerplate gibberish, not the rhetorical bludgeon. Not the Salute Our American Apple Pie Mom Soldier American Eagle Freedom(tm).

The real thing. That I currently enjoy. Which you don’t seem to value so much, because only Dirty Evil Socialist Liberals smoke weed and drink and post pictures of themselves on MySpace, right? And you seem overjoyed to root for entities taking away your freedoms every day, because your ideology and your tribalism and your patterns of behavior dictate that you Cheer For Private Industry.

To take your points:

Drinking and drugs: I respectfully decline to respond in detail. I have an intense dislike of intoxicants due to personal reasons. My personal views on those tend towards their restriction and that will likely never change, However, I don’t advocate those views and I mostly keep them to myself, since I do understand that they don’t reflect the total experience of America. I ask that you accept that while I won’t push at you on this, I cannot agree with you.

Internet postings: Here I can explain my position in detail. A company has the right to decide what sort of person they wish to employ. If you post things where the public can them that show you making a lewd spectacle of yourself, your employer has the right to can you for it. They are not taking your right to free speech away by doing that. You don’t have the right to a job; free association also means the right of the employer to determine if they wish to continue to associate with you. The exception is for things like race and gender which are out of the employee’s control.