1997-12-23 - Re: Freedom Forum report on the State of the First Amendment

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From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
To: Marc Rotenberg <rotenberg@epic.org>
Message Hash: 39cf6b256ab35a18e7ce8696c0b78c9896e58a99e411ec274e16f9319f11ed83
Message ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.971222144853.3012B-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Reply To: <v03007800b0bf50ceed20@[207.172.112.244]>
UTC Datetime: 1997-12-23 14:33:08 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 22:33:08 +0800

Raw message

From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 22:33:08 +0800
To: Marc Rotenberg <rotenberg@epic.org>
Subject: Re: Freedom Forum report on the State of the First Amendment
In-Reply-To: <v03007800b0bf50ceed20@[207.172.112.244]>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.971222144853.3012B-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




> Tim's analysis is nonsensical.
> 
> A government employee loses his job because of his political
> views. He brings a lawsuit, alleging a violation of the First
> Amendment, and eventually prevails in the Supreme Court.
> 
> A non-government employee who loses his job because of his
> political views would have no cause of action because the
> private employer is not bound by the First Amendment.
> 
> Therefore there should be far fewer government employees
> to prevent further erosion of the First Amendment.

This makes sense, do you not see the logic?

> >Suppose RealBig Corporation fired Umbehr for his views. Would a First
> >Amendment issue have arisen? Of course not. In a free society, RealBig is
> >free to hire whom it wishes, and to refuse to hire niggers, homos,
> >perverts, Jews, whatever. And to fire anyone who wrote opinions the
> >managers at RealBig disliked.
> 
> Substitute "fascist society" for "free society" in the paragraph
> above and the discussion begins to make some sense. Hell, it's even
> historically accurate.

Wrong, do you dispute the fact that RealBig corp. is free to refuse to 
hire people for any reason whatsoever? Do you think I should not be 
allowed to refuse to hire people because of their race or sexual orientation?

Should the government be able to take action against me because I fire 
someone for being jewish/black/homosexual???


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