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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   42625 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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What makes you think than your employer would have no problem with you saying that even if the potential liability didn't exist?

I am not claiming that my employer and most potential employers would not discriminate against me; I am saying that I am in favor of the sorts of laws they have used to coordinate such discrimination should be used to coordinate discrimination against my enemies as well, and that I am entirely comfortable with the federal government forcing them to do so regardless of their personal wishes.

I am pointing out that we have been abridging free speech through the power of federal law for more than thirty years, and the core purpose and justification of these abridgements absolutely applies here. I understand that to a first approximation, no one ever actually meant all that horseshit about fair, meta-level principled opposition to discrimination against the Other; it is enough to make that fact abundantly clear.

To the extent that there was ever a justification for legal restrictions against "hate" and "prejudice" and "bigotry", it applies here. To the extent that it does not apply here, every instance of acceptance and cooperation with these laws for the last fifty fucking years has been a swindle.

You can talk about edge cases all you want, but there's a Chesterton's Fence element here too. Hostile work environment doctrine was introduced to prevent employers from evading discrimination laws by, say, hiring black people but making fun of them for their race at work so that blacks simply wouldn't want to work there. "You can work here, but it will be hell" doesn't exactly advance the aims of the Civil Rights Act. You can argue that in some instances courts have gone too far, but you can do that with respect to any doctrine. When discussing tradeoffs, guys being able to look at porn at work isn't going to win against making it difficult for women to be employed there.

Hostile work environment doctrine was introduced to prevent employers from evading discrimination laws by, say, hiring black people but making fun of them for their race at work so that blacks simply wouldn't want to work there.

Notably this is how conservatives were forced out of academia.

I am not arguing that people should be able to watch porn at work, or that people should be able to use racial slurs. I am saying that some approximation of the respect people like me have been required by federal law to extend to those different from us must now be reciprocated toward us, that this reciprocation being enforced by the same federal law is perfectly acceptable to me, and that those who object at this have no leg to stand on.

doesn't exactly advance the aims of the Civil Rights Act

Neither does the judiciary gutting the black-letter law of the CRA to decide that harassment is a one-way street and protected classes are not general categories.

The Supreme Court just ruled unanimously that the CRA is not a one-way street, and the same standards apply regardless of whether the plaintiff is a member of a minority group.

Yeah, I recall the case, still waiting to see if it has real impact or gets worked around by some other loophole or discretion.

It only took them sixty years and four chief justices to reach the correct answer.

When discussing tradeoffs, guys being able to look at porn at work isn't going to win against making it difficult for women to be employed there.

Is there a difference between this style of "tradeoff" and "that have been systematically stripped from and denied to myself and my allies for decades or more, and will never in any case be allowed to protect us in any way in the future"?

I'm not sure what you are referring to.

Hostile work environment doctrine was introduced to prevent employers from evading discrimination laws by, say, hiring black people but making fun of them for their race at work so that blacks simply wouldn't want to work there.

Ah, but telling white people that they are harmful or evil or oppressors due to their race is A-OK? Because that's the order of the day at some employers (including the well-documented case of Google) who dismiss for "hostile workplace" directed against their favored groups.

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