Ed Dueling protests spark state of emergency in Virginia.

[dudalb]

What scares me about the Trumpites is how they blindly praise and support ANYTHING that Dear Leader says.

 

[Giordano]

What scares me about the Trumpites is how they blindly praise and support ANYTHING that Dear Leader says.

This is certainly one of the most amazing and disturbing aspects of the Trump presidency! Poll the population today and 0.001% would be in favor of flying a Nazi flag at the White House. Poll the population tomorrow after Trump participates in a Nazi flag raising and 35.6% would be in favor.

What a strange man to look to for guidance in any realm- moral, economic, political, etc!

 

[xjx388]

When I seek to employ someone there are certain circumstances in which I can legally discriminate, having a political view different to my own is not one of them. I have employed many people that I later would find held opposing political views to my own. But that would never enter my head as a reason to not employ them, I want to employ people who can do the job I needed doing. And I assume the same is probably true for some people who have employed me over the years. My personal morality should have nothing to do with my hiring and firing people.

Perhaps my views on this have been coloured by the fact that most of my working life has been under the shadow of employers being able to sack me for no reason attached to my ability to do my job but I strongly believe that my right of freedom of expression should not be curtailed under threat of losing my job for legally expressing my views outside of work.

I disagree. I employ healthcare workers and restaurant workers. Perception and public image is everything. If one of my employees was publicly outed as a Nazi, I'd have no choice but to let them go. I can't afford for my customers to find out that one of the people who is caring for them/serving their food probably wants to kick them out of their home or have them exterminated.

He has a right to free expression but not the right to be free from the consequences of that expression. One of the consequences is that I and my businesses will be associated with that expression. Unacceptable.

 

[Giordano]

It's about "replacement" which is big in alt-right circles. It's the idea that white people have lower birth rates than non-white people, and that the white race is being "replaced" over time. It's also considered by many to be a deliberate conspiracy by - you guessed it - the Jews. Alt-righters like Lauren Southern and other "not-a-racist" people often spew this BS.

Obviously simply supporting the principles of equal opportunity and equal justice leads to being viewed by the Nazis and KKK as engineering an evil conspiracy. Although I am proud to have this "conspiracy" attributed to Jews in particular, I must admit that "we" cannot really take very much of the credit, given these goals are the ones that have been held by so many American patriots and have built and sustained this country.

I wonder how the Nazis explain the fact that more and more Jews are marrying outside their religion and joining their families to those of many of these "non-white" groups. Apparently the Jews are "replacing" themselves! Oh, I am certain that there is an "explanation" that further smears Jews, but it must have taken the Nazis some considerable effort to come up with one.

 

[dudalb]

A good portrait of the Noble, Heroic Nordic Warriors:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...omepage/story&utm_term=.1a0871310400#comments

The Brave Aryan Supermen turn out to be a bunch of whiney losers. What a surprise

 

[LSSBB]

This is certainly one of the most amazing and disturbing aspects of the Trump presidency! Poll the population today and 0.001% would be in favor of flying a Nazi flag at the White House. Poll the population tomorrow after Trump participates in a Nazi flag raising and 35.6% would be in favor.

What a strange man to look to for guidance in any realm- moral, economic, political, etc!

Charisma.

Worked for.Chavez also.

 

[quadraginta]

I support allowing the local jurisdictions decide whether or not they want to take them down and/or relocate them.

Sure, doesn't that sound perfectly sensible?

Not to the conservative Republicans who control the NC General Assembly, apparently.

Or the ones in Alabama and Mississippi.

Not that "sensible" is a trait easily discovered among conservative Republicans these days.

 

[Eddie Dane]

If you're using freedom from employer reprisals as the standard, then in most parts of the United States people really don't have freedom of expression. The quote below is from an article in a publication called Business Insider:


If I discover Joe is a member of the Nazi party I am free to fire him. In a larger sense, this is the way a society works. It's not all theory and legalities. There's also decency and common values. If someone embraces the Nazi philosophy I don't want them around. I'm not going to debate with them, I'm going to shun them. I would bet most Americans feel the same way.

That's an interesting situation.

If an employee converts to Islam, can you fire that person in the US?

Or votes Republican?

Is there an ideological cutoff point in the eyes of the law?

 

[Giordano]

My sincere apologies if Schwarzeneggar's video has already been posted here. I would be surprised if it wasn't, but there are 56 pages to the thread and I just can't find it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_YIBr0ELM

Arnold is not my favorite actor or ex-politician, but from time to time he makes an important point clearly and superbly. He has particular legitimacy when discussing Nazis, having grown up in post-war Austria, and I found his references to his own experiences particularly touching.

 

[Eddie Dane]

I disagree. If ANY employee hurts your image...and your public image is a very important asset...you get rid of him.
Of course I am old fashioned, I think a business man should have the right to employ whom he wants, without having to go to a bureaucrat everytime he makes a personal change.

I agree.

I would not want my business known as the Nazi pizza place.
God knows what kind of clientele you'd be left with.

 

[quadraginta]

I agree with your ambivalence. In principle, I have nothing against honoring men who fought for their states, even though they fought against the nation. At least, monuments to the typical soldier don't bother me.

On the other hand, I can sure imagine that many of these memorials are an affront to the African American community in the area, and that matters.

There's a monument to fourteen Confederate POWs who died on George's Island in Boston. Some are discussing whether it ought to be taken down. I haven't seen it, but it sounds like the sort of memorial that I'd tend to think should stay. It seems harmless to me to memorialize those who died in your care, no matter whose side they were on. (I'd say the same for dead Nazi POWs, unless we're talking about notably powerful, cruel and horrific individuals -- and I'd make the same exception for the Confederates.)

How about a memorial to six executed Nazi spies, hidden in National Park Service land in D.C.?

 

[Giordano]

In terms of not hiring Nazis and other white supremacists: I think there must be some nuance here. First and most important of all is the question of if their views impact on their job. Obviously promoting their views at work so as to damage the functionality of the work place or alienate customers, certainly would justify terminating their employment. But even positions expressed off-job can also severely impact job suitability: for example, posting on Facebook that one hates Jews, or believes Blacks are inherently inferior, would invalidate a person's employment in most any position that impacts other people, such as employment as a supervisor. Such a supervisor might argue that they would never let their private views affect their evaluations or treatment of the people they supervise, but I really can't see how one could rule this out. If someone believes Jews are evil, how can that not influence their opinion when considering a Jewish person for a promotion vs. a Protestant, consciously or unconsciously.

I recognize the legal and moral requirements that one's employment ideally should not depend on their private political views. I accept that and I suppose that a "weekend" Nazi would be fine if employed flipping hamburgers (or even as a coder living in their own cubicle). But it is tricky: as a Jewish customer I would be concerned that a burger Nazi would spit on my patty when my back was turned.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You absolutely cannot know that.

At most you could point to individual letters sent by individual soldiers confirming that they were ready to die to defend slavery. Until I see such letters in numbers I don't buy the fact that that was their cause.

What was their cause then?

History: Slaves in the South were the wealth of the slave owners. Abolishing slavery amounted to confiscating much of one's wealth without compensation.

Care to tell us what the optional motives were of people fighting to secede from the Union?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You'd have to ask them.

Fortunately, we do have written records.

If you can't name alternative reasons, how do you have a case?

 

[Darat]

I disagree. If ANY employee hurts your image...and your public image is a very important asset...you get rid of him.
Of course I am old fashioned, I think a business man should have the right to employ whom he wants, without having to go to a bureaucrat everytime he makes a personal change.

And as I said above that you want such a curtailing of freedom of expression does not mean that we can't say the USA does have freedom expression. It's just one of the USA idiosyncrasies that you allow it to be suppressed in matters of employment.

 

[Darat]

I disagree. I employ healthcare workers and restaurant workers. Perception and public image is everything. If one of my employees was publicly outed as a Nazi, I'd have no choice but to let them go. I can't afford for my customers to find out that one of the people who is caring for them/serving their food probably wants to kick them out of their home or have them exterminated.

He has a right to free expression but not the right to be free from the consequences of that expression. One of the consequences is that I and my businesses will be associated with that expression. Unacceptable.

As I said above to dudalb that's one of the USA peculiarities - such as say Germany's suppression of freedom of expression in regards to holocaust denial or use of Nazi symbolism.

 

[xjx388]

As I said above to dudalb that's one of the USA peculiarities - such as say Germany's suppression of freedom of expression in regards to holocaust denial or use of Nazi symbolism.

There's a crucial difference: the government is not curtailing the freedom of expression. I'm not curtailing anything by firing an employee: he is still perfectly free to say and think whatever he pleases. In fact, I am merely exercising my own freedom.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

What was their cause then?
...
If you can't name alternative reasons, how do you have a case

I suspect the average grunt in the Confederate Army was not a slave holder, nor did he have any real stake in slavery one way or another.

If I were forced to guess motives outside of slavery, how about fighting against northern aggression? Self-determination? State's rights? Loyalty to one's neighbors and state over a government seen as detached from local needs?

I'm pretty sure if you asked them the reason they fought, slavery would not be high on the list. To say it was the only reason is simplistic and absurd.

 

[pgwenthold]

I suspect the average grunt in the Confederate Army was not a slave holder, nor did he have any real stake in slavery one way or another.

If I were forced to guess motives outside of slavery, how about fighting against northern aggression? Self-determination? State's rights? Loyalty to one's neighbors and state over a government seen as detached from local needs?

I'm pretty sure if you asked them the reason they fought, slavery would not be high on the list. To say it was the only reason is simplistic and absurd.

They may not have had slaves themselves, but they were also fighting to maintain their superiority over the black people.

State's rights? Yeah, right, make up another one. "Northern agression" is more legit, in that after the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter to start the war, it is true that the US armies tried to regain control.

Just as the German soldiers were fighting to protect their homeland from the invading Allied army, and not for Naziism.

 

[dudalb]

There's a crucial difference: the government is not curtailing the freedom of expression. I'm not curtailing anything by firing an employee: he is still perfectly free to say and think whatever he pleases. In fact, I am merely exercising my own freedom.

I have a perfect constitutional right to go into my boss's office and call him a dirty SOB;that will not keep me from being fired.

Pretty clear that Darat wants a Nanny Government ...