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This is a really disingenuous false equivalency. First, you're implying that all opinions are equally valid. That is... I'll be polite and simply call it nonse

This is a really disingenuous false equivalency. First, you're implying that all opinions are equally valid. That is... I'll be polite and simply call it nonsense. "Gay people should have rights" and "gay people shouldn't have rights" are not opinions of equal value, and it's not "eating your cake and having it too" to say that the latter opinion is unwelcome. Second, there's a very clear relationship between the "left" topics you mentioned and the workplace; not so for the "right" topics. You can make an argument that abortion/contraceptives are work-related because of employer-sponsored healthcare (I think it's clear that employees should keep their noses out of each other's private medical matters, but... okay), but the rest are totally ancillary. If you want a "no politics at work" rule, then you wouldn't have conversations about guns (unless it's to advocate that your employer allow guns at work), you wouldn't have conversations about immigration policy (unless it's to advocate that your employer stop sponsoring visas), and you wouldn't have conversations about furries (unless it's to advocate that your employer ban furry sex in the workplace... which I don't think is a problem that anyone has). You know what you would still have? Conversations about discrimination in the workplace. Conversations about whether your employer's political dollars are funding violence. Conversations about whether your recruitment policies are unconsciously biased.

jlawson 5y ago
When you say, "all opinions are equally valid", what does the word "valid" mean? It seems to be this word is doing a lot of work and if you explore this your position will quickly collapse. Opinions are generally about moral issues - what we should do, what goals we should pursue. They are not about positive facts like "how many people live in America". In the arena of goal-setting there are indeed no objective facts. It is equally valid to want to pursue a global caliphate where all women are slaves to the men who own them and all gay people and apostates are executed, as it is to want to pursue a global social justice utopia (however you could even describe such a thing). There is no objective standard to reject either goal. There are simply preferences. What's more prefereable? Killing an unborn fetus at 3 months development, or obligating a mother to carry it to term? Why? How can you possibly say that your preference is objectively true? It obviously isn't. If you think your preferences are objectively more right than others, you need to explain what part of the nature of the universe makes it so. (Incidentally religious people have this explanation - it's because the creator of the universe declared that these are the best preferences.) If you want more reading, you can look up the difference between positive and normative beliefs. Your goal here is just to set up a system where the people with power, who happen to agree with your preferences, get permission to punish people who disagree with their preferences. This is 100% a belief conditioned on the fact that you know that people like you have the power. If the people with power disagreed with you you'd be a free speech advocate (as people of your opinion were a few decades ago). There is in fact no way to objectively set up a policy of "Allow the right opinions, and punish the wrong ones" and it's childish to say you can.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- GeneralMayhem 5y ago
  Oh, yes, those poor persecuted right-wingers. They only have checks notes the Senate, the Supreme Court, and most of the state legislatures to defend them. Whatever will they do? >It is equally valid to want to pursue a global caliphate where all women are slaves to the men who own them and all gay people and apostates are executed, as it is to want to pursue a global social justice utopia. Imagine being this enlightened. I wasn't making a legal argument, I was unabashedly making a moral one. You're free to start your own tech company where only right-wing speech is allowed. That doesn't change my opinion that the right wing, especially the sort of right-wing culture warrior who doesn't want "politics" at work, is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Your best argument for your beliefs is that it is not literally illegal to hold them. I don't disagree, but I also don't think that's exactly a winning argument.
lliamander 5y ago
> First, you're implying that all opinions are equally valid. That is... I'll be polite and simply call it nonsense. I agree the idea opinions are all equally valid is nonsense. It's also very likely we disagree in many of our political opinions. At the end of the day we still share this society. Unless your plan of saying my opinions are "unwelcome" includes forcing me out of this society, how do you expect that to play out?
- josephg 5y ago
  Yep. The point of using our words is so that we don’t have to use our fists. When debate fails, the result isn’t agreement. The result is violence.
BackBlast 5y ago
Politics at work is still politics at work. I'm generalizing a bit here for sake of the point. There is a large amount of people advocating that other people with leanings and opinions should have their services, contracts, and professional relationships cancelled. Based on their personal politics. This cuts both ways. If companies can rightfully do that to customers, then it is also legit for them to do it to employees. The relationship is the same by type, the content of the topics is of the same type.
- duped 5y ago
  Where do you draw the line between "personal politics" and "fundamentally wrong?" In the 1950s and 1960s some people felt the line was segregation. The problem is when human decency is equated to "personal politics" (or vice versa). Some of the lines are obvious to me, but others are more blurred. At the end of the day, reasonable people can work around those fuzzy boundaries without issue.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Many of the people on both extremes of “I want only work, never politics, at work; the world was perfect in 1948” and “work is an ideal place to bring my politics into, because others cannot escape hearing me and my crusades” are quite incapable of working around those fuzzy boundaries without issue.
  - BackBlast 5y ago
    For starters, if you can define a specific known crime being committed by a specific person. It is fundamentally wrong and you absolutely should bring it up at the right time and place. If your accusations are about groups and the actions committed aren't specific actionable crimes that you are aware of, you're very likely in politics and/or advocacy. Human decency is a very nebulous term when it comes right down to it. What I find right or wrong may not match what you find right or wrong. Without an agreed upon objective measure you can't define who is actually right - regardless of how clear or blurred the lines appear to you. Without that objective measure, especially if debate skills are bad and participants are low on listening and high on fallacies, then it's really just an unproductive shouting match.
suetoniusp 5y ago
"Gay people should have rights". What "rights" currently are being denied to gays? Honest question
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  Why nitpick over what is clearly an example? But to indulge, prior to the Obergefell ruling, 31 U.S. states held statues banning same-sex unions. That was just 5 years ago.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    And employment discrimination was legal in some states less than a year ago.
- edoceo 5y ago
  --Protected-- These groups in USA have some subtle, hard to prove discrimination. If you're not in the group it's hard to even perceive and/or understand (it's why the issue is so hot-button). Like all those prospect-hires who never got a call back - as they weren't "a cultural fit for our company" on record. But maybe (and heres the nearly impossible part to prove) the hiring manager didn't like them cause they /sounded gay/ or /was a bitch/. Edit: you downvote cause you don't think it happens or because you don't like reading about how it happens?
  - ixacto 5y ago
    It would be possible to say that one was not hired about all groups, including White Christian men. This happens a lot but no one talks about it for some reason. E.g. we didn’t really feel that Mr. Ciswhitechristan was a great cultural fit because we are trying to foster a diverse and equitable workplace and we need more protected groups. /s
    - edoceo 5y ago
      Yes. My point. But using reference to who I replied to, who was not asking about the group from your example. Folk use hard to decipher corp-speak as a mask for their bigoted bullshit.
PeterisP 5y ago
While there are all kinds of radical opinions, in USA there are two quite clearly established camps of mainstream opinion, and it does seem reasonable that if roughly half of the country (or your state) vote for one candidate and roughly half for the other, then it should imply that the opinions of both of these camps are roughly equally valid from the perspective of the society. One gets a bit more votes and gets to decide policy, then another gets a bit more votes and gets to decide different policy, but ultimately both groups are part of the society and the workforce, and they should be able to coexist and cooperate while working in a single company. Whatever your stance is on the "left" and "right" topics, people who hold and express the exactly opposite stance, an opinion that you consider invalid and who likely consider your opinion on that political topic invalid in return, those people may be your neighbours and your colleagues and they have the same right to be there as you do, what's sauce for goose is sauce for gander. And the main criterion for the eligibility of a discussion IMHO is not the relevance of the political topic to workplace (IMHO the target of employer's political dollars are just as valid topic as employer's religious mission, i.e. not at all, and specific discrimination of specific employees in this company would be on-topic but general discrimination issues in the country are exactly just as valid as general immigration policy or general tax policy) but the impact the discussion has on inter-employee relations and conflict. A political topic where strongly opposing co-workers can express their opinions, disagree, shrug, and go on working without the disagreement affecting their cooperation is obviously okay to discuss, but if the discussion of some topic results in employees conflicting for those non-directly-work-related political reasons, or in some employees not expressing their opinion because conflict would be imminent, then that topic is harming work and it would be reasonable to require to put it aside. Because letting it be (or, worse, the employer taking on one of the sides) would be de facto creating a hostile work environment for one or the other groups (whichever happens to be the less dominant at that particular workplace, it definitely cuts both ways), and that's simply not acceptable.
- GeneralMayhem 5y ago
  >if roughly half of the country (or your state) vote for one candidate and roughly half for the other, then it should imply that the opinions of both of these camps are roughly equally valid from the perspective of the society. Or, it implies that roughly half of society is wrong. More than one genocidal dictator was originally elected by popular vote. We do not need to take as a premise that equal support implies equal value. >those people may be your neighbours and your colleagues and they have the same right to be there as you do See, this is exactly the problem. Right-wing cultural opinions tend to define certain groups of people as not having the same right to be there. You cannot simultaneously advocate for tolerance and be totally okay as just a minor difference of opinion with the other side saying that some people should be thrown out.
nradov 5y ago
Your opinion is not valid. Guns aren't necessarily political. Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event?
- throway98752343 5y ago
  Imagine your coworker talks all the time about how they love guns, how many guns they have, and how good they are at shooting. Then they talk about how they have a concealed carry permit and how it's even legal in your area for them to carry guns at work. And one time after a few happy hour beers they said that their ancestors used to shoot people like you. But not you obviously, you're a great coworker, they like you. No direct threat. Not political. Still creepy as hell.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    It depends on the tone. If their point is why the right to be armed is important for minorities and that unequal rights in this regard helped allow historic injustice, I don't think it would be creepy. It would be somewhat political though.
- tha0xb2 5y ago
  >Guns aren't necessarily political. Guns are absolutely 100% political. Their existence is political, and one political party doesn't want them to exist. >Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event? Yes, because it's a privilege to be able to shoot guns. Also, guns trigger me, so please do not talk about subjects which disproportionately affect minorities, like guns. Does this sound familiar?
- tha0xb2 5y ago
  Before you flag, comment why: >Guns aren't necessarily political. Guns are absolutely 100% political. Their existence is political, and one political party doesn't want them to exist. >Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event? Yes, because it's a privilege to be able to shoot guns. Also, guns trigger me, so please do not talk about subjects which disproportionately affect minorities, like guns. Does this sound familiar?

jlawson 5y ago

When you say, "all opinions are equally valid", what does the word "valid" mean? It seems to be this word is doing a lot of work and if you explore this your position will quickly collapse. Opinions are generally about moral issues - what we should do, what goals we should pursue. They are not about positive facts like "how many people live in America". In the arena of goal-setting there are indeed no objective facts. It is equally valid to want to pursue a global caliphate where all women are slaves to the men who own them and all gay people and apostates are executed, as it is to want to pursue a global social justice utopia (however you could even describe such a thing). There is no objective standard to reject either goal. There are simply preferences. What's more prefereable? Killing an unborn fetus at 3 months development, or obligating a mother to carry it to term? Why? How can you possibly say that your preference is objectively true? It obviously isn't. If you think your preferences are objectively more right than others, you need to explain what part of the nature of the universe makes it so. (Incidentally religious people have this explanation - it's because the creator of the universe declared that these are the best preferences.) If you want more reading, you can look up the difference between positive and normative beliefs. Your goal here is just to set up a system where the people with power, who happen to agree with your preferences, get permission to punish people who disagree with their preferences. This is 100% a belief conditioned on the fact that you know that people like you have the power. If the people with power disagreed with you you'd be a free speech advocate (as people of your opinion were a few decades ago). There is in fact no way to objectively set up a policy of "Allow the right opinions, and punish the wrong ones" and it's childish to say you can.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
GeneralMayhem 5y ago
Oh, yes, those poor persecuted right-wingers. They only have checks notes the Senate, the Supreme Court, and most of the state legislatures to defend them. Whatever will they do? >It is equally valid to want to pursue a global caliphate where all women are slaves to the men who own them and all gay people and apostates are executed, as it is to want to pursue a global social justice utopia. Imagine being this enlightened. I wasn't making a legal argument, I was unabashedly making a moral one. You're free to start your own tech company where only right-wing speech is allowed. That doesn't change my opinion that the right wing, especially the sort of right-wing culture warrior who doesn't want "politics" at work, is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Your best argument for your beliefs is that it is not literally illegal to hold them. I don't disagree, but I also don't think that's exactly a winning argument.

lliamander 5y ago

> First, you're implying that all opinions are equally valid. That is... I'll be polite and simply call it nonsense. I agree the idea opinions are all equally valid is nonsense. It's also very likely we disagree in many of our political opinions. At the end of the day we still share this society. Unless your plan of saying my opinions are "unwelcome" includes forcing me out of this society, how do you expect that to play out?

josephg 5y ago
Yep. The point of using our words is so that we don’t have to use our fists. When debate fails, the result isn’t agreement. The result is violence.

BackBlast 5y ago

Politics at work is still politics at work. I'm generalizing a bit here for sake of the point. There is a large amount of people advocating that other people with leanings and opinions should have their services, contracts, and professional relationships cancelled. Based on their personal politics. This cuts both ways. If companies can rightfully do that to customers, then it is also legit for them to do it to employees. The relationship is the same by type, the content of the topics is of the same type.

duped 5y ago
Where do you draw the line between "personal politics" and "fundamentally wrong?" In the 1950s and 1960s some people felt the line was segregation. The problem is when human decency is equated to "personal politics" (or vice versa). Some of the lines are obvious to me, but others are more blurred. At the end of the day, reasonable people can work around those fuzzy boundaries without issue.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Many of the people on both extremes of “I want only work, never politics, at work; the world was perfect in 1948” and “work is an ideal place to bring my politics into, because others cannot escape hearing me and my crusades” are quite incapable of working around those fuzzy boundaries without issue.
- BackBlast 5y ago
  For starters, if you can define a specific known crime being committed by a specific person. It is fundamentally wrong and you absolutely should bring it up at the right time and place. If your accusations are about groups and the actions committed aren't specific actionable crimes that you are aware of, you're very likely in politics and/or advocacy. Human decency is a very nebulous term when it comes right down to it. What I find right or wrong may not match what you find right or wrong. Without an agreed upon objective measure you can't define who is actually right - regardless of how clear or blurred the lines appear to you. Without that objective measure, especially if debate skills are bad and participants are low on listening and high on fallacies, then it's really just an unproductive shouting match.

suetoniusp 5y ago

"Gay people should have rights". What "rights" currently are being denied to gays? Honest question

wildrhythms 5y ago
Why nitpick over what is clearly an example? But to indulge, prior to the Obergefell ruling, 31 U.S. states held statues banning same-sex unions. That was just 5 years ago.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  And employment discrimination was legal in some states less than a year ago.
edoceo 5y ago
--Protected-- These groups in USA have some subtle, hard to prove discrimination. If you're not in the group it's hard to even perceive and/or understand (it's why the issue is so hot-button). Like all those prospect-hires who never got a call back - as they weren't "a cultural fit for our company" on record. But maybe (and heres the nearly impossible part to prove) the hiring manager didn't like them cause they /sounded gay/ or /was a bitch/. Edit: you downvote cause you don't think it happens or because you don't like reading about how it happens?
- ixacto 5y ago
  It would be possible to say that one was not hired about all groups, including White Christian men. This happens a lot but no one talks about it for some reason. E.g. we didn’t really feel that Mr. Ciswhitechristan was a great cultural fit because we are trying to foster a diverse and equitable workplace and we need more protected groups. /s
  - edoceo 5y ago
    Yes. My point. But using reference to who I replied to, who was not asking about the group from your example. Folk use hard to decipher corp-speak as a mask for their bigoted bullshit.

PeterisP 5y ago

While there are all kinds of radical opinions, in USA there are two quite clearly established camps of mainstream opinion, and it does seem reasonable that if roughly half of the country (or your state) vote for one candidate and roughly half for the other, then it should imply that the opinions of both of these camps are roughly equally valid from the perspective of the society. One gets a bit more votes and gets to decide policy, then another gets a bit more votes and gets to decide different policy, but ultimately both groups are part of the society and the workforce, and they should be able to coexist and cooperate while working in a single company. Whatever your stance is on the "left" and "right" topics, people who hold and express the exactly opposite stance, an opinion that you consider invalid and who likely consider your opinion on that political topic invalid in return, those people may be your neighbours and your colleagues and they have the same right to be there as you do, what's sauce for goose is sauce for gander. And the main criterion for the eligibility of a discussion IMHO is not the relevance of the political topic to workplace (IMHO the target of employer's political dollars are just as valid topic as employer's religious mission, i.e. not at all, and specific discrimination of specific employees in this company would be on-topic but general discrimination issues in the country are exactly just as valid as general immigration policy or general tax policy) but the impact the discussion has on inter-employee relations and conflict. A political topic where strongly opposing co-workers can express their opinions, disagree, shrug, and go on working without the disagreement affecting their cooperation is obviously okay to discuss, but if the discussion of some topic results in employees conflicting for those non-directly-work-related political reasons, or in some employees not expressing their opinion because conflict would be imminent, then that topic is harming work and it would be reasonable to require to put it aside. Because letting it be (or, worse, the employer taking on one of the sides) would be de facto creating a hostile work environment for one or the other groups (whichever happens to be the less dominant at that particular workplace, it definitely cuts both ways), and that's simply not acceptable.

GeneralMayhem 5y ago
>if roughly half of the country (or your state) vote for one candidate and roughly half for the other, then it should imply that the opinions of both of these camps are roughly equally valid from the perspective of the society. Or, it implies that roughly half of society is wrong. More than one genocidal dictator was originally elected by popular vote. We do not need to take as a premise that equal support implies equal value. >those people may be your neighbours and your colleagues and they have the same right to be there as you do See, this is exactly the problem. Right-wing cultural opinions tend to define certain groups of people as not having the same right to be there. You cannot simultaneously advocate for tolerance and be totally okay as just a minor difference of opinion with the other side saying that some people should be thrown out.

nradov 5y ago

Your opinion is not valid. Guns aren't necessarily political. Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event?

throway98752343 5y ago
Imagine your coworker talks all the time about how they love guns, how many guns they have, and how good they are at shooting. Then they talk about how they have a concealed carry permit and how it's even legal in your area for them to carry guns at work. And one time after a few happy hour beers they said that their ancestors used to shoot people like you. But not you obviously, you're a great coworker, they like you. No direct threat. Not political. Still creepy as hell.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  It depends on the tone. If their point is why the right to be armed is important for minorities and that unequal rights in this regard helped allow historic injustice, I don't think it would be creepy. It would be somewhat political though.
tha0xb2 5y ago
>Guns aren't necessarily political. Guns are absolutely 100% political. Their existence is political, and one political party doesn't want them to exist. >Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event? Yes, because it's a privilege to be able to shoot guns. Also, guns trigger me, so please do not talk about subjects which disproportionately affect minorities, like guns. Does this sound familiar?
tha0xb2 5y ago
Before you flag, comment why: >Guns aren't necessarily political. Guns are absolutely 100% political. Their existence is political, and one political party doesn't want them to exist. >Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event? Yes, because it's a privilege to be able to shoot guns. Also, guns trigger me, so please do not talk about subjects which disproportionately affect minorities, like guns. Does this sound familiar?