LACC: Re: Is hate code speech?

[Tim May]

At 10:50 AM -0700 8/26/98, Dan Stromberg wrote:

>A company worth working for will have a policy that tells you you
>cannot.  (Ok, those variables are a fuzzy issue - Very bad taste. The
>violent stuff mentioned in the original article is clear cut, however)

This is not the issue. Maybe a company will have a policy forbidding flaky
or unusual variable names, maybe it won't. Maybe it will even encourage
such names.

The issue is whether the government or the courts has any right to
intervene to force changes in such matters.

....
>So what's your point?
>
>Creating a hostile environment with the expectation that you'll never
>hire someone who's black is "ok"?

In a free society, of course it should be legal, even if not desireable to
many.

Consider some parallels.

* The Hitler Corporation is dedicated to selling literature and memorabilia
exalting Adolph Hitler. It sells "Mein Kampf." It sells Nazi flags. It
sells scale models of the Auschwitz crematoria. All very legal to do, at
least in the United States.

However, Jewish employees feel offended. They consider the Hitler
Corporation to have a "hostile environment."

What are their options? In a free society, they walk. In fact, they were
fools to ever apply for jobs, and THC was foolish to hire them.

* The Carnivore's Den is a meat-only restaurant. Alice B. Vegan feels
offended that she is "forced" to serve meat, and she feels her civil rights
are being violated by the restaurant.

And so on. Non-Mormons feel slighted at Mormon bookstores. Satanists feel
slighted at Christian day care centers. And honkies feel out of place at
Rastafarian Chicken and Watermelon roadside stands.

So? The right to "fit in" in all places is not a right, only a wish.

--Tim May



"The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of
tyrants...."
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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