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[EDIT: actually what’s probably quite relevant is all the stories about high schools sending young women home because they don’t approve of their outfits even i

[EDIT: actually what’s probably quite relevant is all the stories about high schools sending young women home because they don’t approve of their outfits even if said outfit doesn’t violate a dress code.] Imagine someone walks into a grocery store naked. Or wearing a t-shirt with a explicit image of a man and a woman having sex. Or two men having sex. Or a t-shirt which says / shows something extremely inflammatory yet not illegal. I could imagine various stores making various decisions in all of these cases, all of which would be the folks working in that store expressing their beliefs! Humans are inherently social and thus inherently political (politics in the sense of politics as the negotiation and management of a community). Or imagine someone walks into a grocery store and doesn’t wear a mask! Lol :):/:(.

stale2002 6y ago
> Or wearing a t-shirt Or wearing a "vote for Trump/Biden" t shirt. In that situation basically everyone would agree that it would be ridiculous to say that the grocery store should ban people for wearing that t-shirt. I think that most people would not call refusing to ban someone for wearing this t-shirt as a "political" decision. Most people would agree that it is not political to refuse to ban someone for wearing a "vote for Trump/Biden" shirt. If you do call that political, to refuse to ban someone for that, basically everyone would disagree with you.
- ghaff 6y ago
  It's hard to parse all the double negatives. But, in general, businesses businesses should generally have a fairly wide latitude as to what the t-shirt slogans they allow customers to wear. (Though I think we can imagine various slogans a business might deem objectionable.) At the same time, businesses can reasonably have a fairly narrow latitude as to what employees should wear, even barring an official dress code, with respect to even advocating for a specific candidate--and that may even get into matters of company campaigning.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > to what the t-shirt slogans they allow customers to wear. But the point is that basically nobody would call it a "political" decision if a store allowed customers to wear "vote for Biden/Trump" shirts. Nobody would call that political, if a store allowed customers to wear those shirts in their store.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      Actually I do call it a political decision, but one that is not so controversial in many places in the US - the political decision to value freedom of speech! In China, for example, while I don’t know for sure I would bet you could not wear a t shirt with the face of say, a former communist party member who had opposed current clique in power (Ie the closest thing to an “opposition” politician that China has). Or a democracy activist t shirt. Point is, in the US, though we are lucky in that we often don’t have to think about it, our politicial principles of free speech allow for a lot of behavior. Stores are demonstrating their political belief in freedom of speech if a store manager doesn’t kick up a fuss when someone walks in wearing a t shirt for a politician the manager dislikes. Of course there are probably also laws or the manager is savvy enough to know they could get the store sued, but, you get what I’m saying I think / hope :). You don’t notice it until it’s not there. And thus, what often appears to be not making a choice, really is making a choice, albeit the default choice :).

stale2002 6y ago

> Or wearing a t-shirt Or wearing a "vote for Trump/Biden" t shirt. In that situation basically everyone would agree that it would be ridiculous to say that the grocery store should ban people for wearing that t-shirt. I think that most people would not call refusing to ban someone for wearing this t-shirt as a "political" decision. Most people would agree that it is not political to refuse to ban someone for wearing a "vote for Trump/Biden" shirt. If you do call that political, to refuse to ban someone for that, basically everyone would disagree with you.

ghaff 6y ago
It's hard to parse all the double negatives. But, in general, businesses businesses should generally have a fairly wide latitude as to what the t-shirt slogans they allow customers to wear. (Though I think we can imagine various slogans a business might deem objectionable.) At the same time, businesses can reasonably have a fairly narrow latitude as to what employees should wear, even barring an official dress code, with respect to even advocating for a specific candidate--and that may even get into matters of company campaigning.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > to what the t-shirt slogans they allow customers to wear. But the point is that basically nobody would call it a "political" decision if a store allowed customers to wear "vote for Biden/Trump" shirts. Nobody would call that political, if a store allowed customers to wear those shirts in their store.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    Actually I do call it a political decision, but one that is not so controversial in many places in the US - the political decision to value freedom of speech! In China, for example, while I don’t know for sure I would bet you could not wear a t shirt with the face of say, a former communist party member who had opposed current clique in power (Ie the closest thing to an “opposition” politician that China has). Or a democracy activist t shirt. Point is, in the US, though we are lucky in that we often don’t have to think about it, our politicial principles of free speech allow for a lot of behavior. Stores are demonstrating their political belief in freedom of speech if a store manager doesn’t kick up a fuss when someone walks in wearing a t shirt for a politician the manager dislikes. Of course there are probably also laws or the manager is savvy enough to know they could get the store sued, but, you get what I’m saying I think / hope :). You don’t notice it until it’s not there. And thus, what often appears to be not making a choice, really is making a choice, albeit the default choice :).