Pretty much anyone defending the postal worker here on the basis of what she did being “right” is missing the generalisation that must be made. If it’s okay for postal workers to refuse to deliver mail containing viewpoints they disagree with, that means it’s okay for bigoted postal workers to refuse to deliver mail from or to LGBT organisations. It means it would be okay for pro-life postal workers to refuse to deliver parcels containing birth control pills or flyers containing information about abortion services.
You cannot have it both ways. If you make a rule that there are cases when it is acceptable for postal workers to destroy or refuse to deliver mail, it will be used by the other side against you.
I think she is a legend for what she did and I think USPS was absolutely right to fire her for it.
I hope the mail goes back to being apolitical and that she experiences a soft landing and strong launch career-wise
This happened in Canada
Then he’s extra right that the USPS did nothing wrong here.
Well, then I hope she becomes Duchess of Canada. (I don’t know how things work up there)
Well, maybe I’d know that if I’d read the article. Did you ever consider that I was being lazy and vocal while uninformed?!
I don’t know why I’m making it seem like this is your fault, but I hope you’ve learned your lesson
Ha, let that be a lesson to them! They won’t soon again make the mistake of, uh, letting you be ill-informed? Hmm…
Well said. It’s great she stood up for what she believes in, but aside from common-sense exceptions like trafficking/bombs, couriers can’t have a say over what they deliver.
I’ll bite. Treating fascist flyers and LGBTQ+ flyers as the same thing is bullshit. Acting like the only fair thing to do is treat someone refusing the LGBTQ+ flyers the same as this person refusing to spread fascist flyers is bullshit. Reasons matter and it’s bullshit that society has normalized stripping the context and nuance out of situations in the name of “fairness”. She shouldn’t have been punished. We don’t have to generalize, we’ve been conditioned to generalize because it reinforces the status quo. It’s ridiculous that people refuse to acknowledge the threat of fascism in actionable ways because it’s “”“”““unfair””“”“”
Also, it’s not ok for people to refuse to deliver medication on ideological grounds for an entirely different reason than it is to refuse to disseminate fascist propaganda. Postal workers wouldn’t know they’re delivering abortion medication in the first place as it’s sealed in (at the very least) an envelope that does not provide a description of the contents in a way that would reveal abortion medications over any other medication.
It is not a matter of fairness. I don’t give a shit about fairness. You are fundamentally making the same argument that the other person has tried to make in vain. I will explain the problem again using a rhetorical game for your benefit, but I will not engage in an argument with you, as you lot tend to make the same arguments ad nauseum. You will receive at most one response from me.
We’ll play a simple mind game here. Let us pretend that you are on the side of good, and I am on the side of evil. Remember, this is just a rhetorical game here. We will take turns in an office which you have granted the power to censor the post. While you are in power, you can write a rule that determines what is and is not acceptable material for delivery. You can write any rule you want, constrained only by the fact that the rule must be interpretable without relying on some external oracle (i.e. “articles deemed inappropriate by @BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee are prohibited” is not allowed as a rule) After that, you leave office and it’s my turn in office. While in office, I will have the power to interpret the rule in any way I like, constrained only by the English language. After you have left office, all powers of interpretation are given to me (until I leave office).
Your goal is to write a rule that filters out all of the content that you deem “fascist”. My goal will then be to apply, interpret, and bend your rule to filter out benign or left-wing content.
Remember, the goal of this exercise is to prove to you that it is impossible to design such a rule that can adequately restrain the use of the power you have given this office without also giving me the power to censor articles you think are acceptable. If you do not wish to play this game or reply with anything other than a proposed rule, I will link to the explanation I gave the other person and there will be no more responses from me after that.
If you want to play, reply with your proposed rule. I will reply with a way to interpret it in such a way that can be used to censor unintended articles.
Not who you replied to, but let me give it a try if you don’t mind.
• All promotional mail must clearly state the organization it was created by and its intent. • Claims made to support that intent must be followed by evidence from an independent and peer reviewed journal, study, or survey from within the past 20 years and clearly cite those sources. • And must provide at least one source that disagrees with the claim if one exists.
If I can’t stop fascists sending mail, I’ll make sure the recipient has some tools and knowledge to debunk their bullshit. Also it will filter out low effort bullshit, and make factually wrong discrimination more difficult.
This one’s easy.
I’ll pretend not to notice material that violates these rules coming from fascist organisations while applying them with strict scrutiny to non-fascist organisations. When someone objects, I’ll tell them to fill out a long form, wait 6-8 weeks for processing, and then after that I’ll send a warning letter to the fascist organisations telling them that they had better stop breaking the rules or else I’ll send them another letter! !I’ll challenge every source cited by the non-fascists as not independent while accepting low-quality garbage sources cited by the facists.
Ah, well if enforcement is part of the thought experiment then that’s only a couple extra amendments. The clear enemy of fascism is democracy;
• Enforcement is led by an oversight committee that is democratically elected by the general population every four years
• The oversight committee is overseen by an AI trained in intellectual honesty, ethics, and democracy
• The AI is periodically trained and updated by Doug, a Minnesota resident who answers Survey Monkey questions on his opinion of ethics and democracy and is unaware of the consequences of his responses. Only the AI knows. No one else must know. Human bias has been conquered and postage peace has been achieved.
The rules of this game specify by that no external oracle is allowed.
But I understand what you’re saying. Leaving law enforcement decisions to AI is problematic in its own right, however I don’t really have the time to go into depth about that. Mostly it has to do with the fact that AI will have the same biases as the data it was trained on, and in many cases, also the subconscious biases of the people who designed or trained it.
Yeah Doug was just a tenuous reference to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’s secret Ruler of the Universe.
I agree, AI is problematic. In theory, that could work in my favor if I train it to be secretly biased towards my beliefs, and put in safeguards to prevent it from being retrained or removed. But I imagine in the real world that would fail spectacularly.
No system can be perfect with imperfect humans and bad actors at its core, and I don’t really think AI should have any power over humans. Sorry, I kinda brought this down a rabbit hole away from the original point of the post lol
The sword. A literal sword of Damocles, above “tHe MaLiCiOuS eNtITy”. Is that what you need to hear to feel you’ve won? The divine rights of kings and the paradox of tolerance to meet the same end, there’s a solution to your Gordian Knot.
Now hit me with the defeatist game theory take against the groups that already would take everything.
Are we allowed to kink shame whatever this is?
I’m an anarchist, rules aren’t really my thing. There is no rule to perfectly encapsulate the problem, I’m aware of that. As a matter of fact, I’m so aware that my ideological framework for understanding the world around me is opposed to the very concept of writing such a rule. Human information analysis and synthesis, as well as their resulting actions are infinitely complex and unpredictable. You’re setting me up for an impossible task in an attempt to pull one over on me and make your point. I agree with your point. I disagree with how it should be handled.
That woman exercised her autonomy to act in the best interest of her community. Her community should be the only ones judging her actions. Not some duckweed manager, and certainly not laws. If her community found her actions unacceptable, then they should be the ones to determine how her wrongs are righted. I very much doubt most people in town would take issue with what she did. We can argue back and forth about what her community would think all night but neither of us truly know. She did.a good thing and she shouldn’t be punished for it
It’s their right to not do a task that is not agreeable with their views. Sure it’s against company rules and can lead to a reprimand and or discharge.
This is a hyperbole but this can be equated to a soldier not following an unlawful command by their superior.
That seems like a very backwards way to talk about “rights”. They don’t have the right to infringe upon the rights of others, which is the reason they face legal consequences for doing so.
It’d be like me saying “I have the right to kill indiscriminately, and the state has the right to punish me for it,” instead of simply “I don’t have the right to kill indiscriminately.”
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It’s not you who decides if something is hate speech or not, and it’s not the postal worker either. And something being moral doesn’t make it lawful.
This way of thinking is problematic. Freedom of speech is a social contract and hate speech is a violation of that contract.
generalization that must be made
No such generalization has to be made, what?
If you make a rule
Why does saying someone did the right thing require you to make a rule?
I understand where they are coming from, but its not their job to dictate what mail gets delivered.
and it opens the door for right wingers to do the same if they do not get serious punishment for this.
This is a non technical example of why we want net neutrality.
As terrible as the flyers are, personal political and religious beliefs should not be enforced in any way at a workplace.
Functionally this is similar to that county clerk that refused to issue marriage certificates to same sex couples. Can’t be supportive of one and not the other without being hypocritical.
Personally, I think refraining from distributing genocidal propaganda is pretty functionally dissimilar to being a bigot.
I don’t want to come off as abrasive and I don’t want to assume any ill-intent on your part, but it’s fucking frustrating hearing takes like this as a trans person. Equating the refusal to participate in a hateful disinformation campaign to refusing to marry a gay couple is deifying the liberal concepts of law & order at the expense of human decency. It is not hypocrisy to support anti-fascist actions whilst denouncing fascist actions, even if they express those actions in a similar fashion. For example, I largely support Just Stop Oil’s disruptive protests, whereas I would be disgusted if fascists defaced artworks by spray-painting swastikas all over. Is that hypocritical?
Again, sorry if I come on strongly in this comment, my frustrations are definitely from society at large rather than your comment, but having your right to exist being framed as a “political belief” is frankly exhausting.
That’s like saying if you support gay rights protestors, you have to also support nazi protestors, or you’re being hypocritical. You’re looking at things on the wrong axis.
Yeah that’s exactly correct. Protestors and counter protestors both have a right to express their views, regardless of what I think of those views. As long as they don’t violate any laws in the process. That is literally one of the pillars the US is built on for instance. I don’t have to agree with you to defend your right to say those things I disagree with. The right to that freedom of expression is literally the 1st Amendment in the US.
I don’t know what the limits are on speech in Canada, but they’re likely similar, just not as extremely biased towards protection. The US defends too much honestly.
That doesn’t mean that your opinions and expressions are immune from controversy or disagreement. And speech is limited in certain circumstances, like direct threats. That’s not what’s happening here though.
It’s why I would argue that it’s a duty of care not to distribute as it spreads hate and hurt in the community and workplace. Probably wouldn’t fly in the US though.
Who decides what is hurtful though?
If it is the person delivering the leaflets then a Nazi postal worker can decide not to deliver postal votes as they see democracy as hurtful to their cause.
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I was thinking more about the “can’t force me to make a cake for a gay wedding” thing
As others have said it’s a government position and it’s delivering mail. I’m not sure if Canadian law, but in think that’s a pretty severe crime in the US.
What if the person didn’t want to deliver medicine because they believed that god will heal everything?
While the mail is hateful, it needs to be delivered.
Also consider that someone paid for the flyers and paid to have them mailed. So this guy is effectively robbing them of two different transactions.
To be clear, I don’t support the flyers in any way, but what the guy did was wrong.
Canada isn’t under the jurisdiction of American law.
That one too. Although that was a private business, not a governmental organization.
The postal worker in question doesn’t own Canada Post.
While I have the utmost sympathy for her, if a postal worker is picking and choosing what mail is to be delivered the entire concept of the post office becomes moot.
Yeah. I have very strong political, moral, and ethical opinions.
I’m also a government employee, and those opinions disappear when I’m performing my duties. I enforce rules I find idiotic all the damn time and let people get away with bullshit that should be illegal. They’re not my rules.
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I think your panel concept sounds like a horrible idea. Have the state look through everyone’s mail and decide if they want to allow your mail through or not? I’m sure that would definitely only work well and wouldn’t be used against the people you designed it to protect.
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The thing you should do is crush that hate organization, not screen every flyer that goes through the mail
Good. This is the same as a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription due to personal beliefs. You took a job knowing what it would entail.
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Their free speech is bad. OK.
What does that have to do with delivering the mail as the carrier takes an oath to do ?
Or was professionalism in the civil service bullshit from the start ?
Their free speech is bad. OK.
Yeah, hate speech is bad. IDGAF about your free speech when that speech is “I think this group I don’t like should be eliminated or removed from society.”
If this were a conservative refusing to deliver liberal info you’d call the refusal free speech itself and argue firing her is illegal - so y’all can sit the fuck down.
So a pharmacist should be allowed to refuse selling e.g. birth control, due to personal beliefs? Everyone can just decide who they want to service for any reason, right?
the post office is right to punish her for not doing her job, but she is also right to sacrifice her job for an act of civil disobedience. they are both right. the only person who’s a piece of shit here is the one sending the mail.
Yes. Exactly. But that’s the original point: you accept the job with the understanding that, if you find a particular aspect of the job to be against your morals, and you refuse to perform your job due to your morals, that you may be disciplined and/or fired.
The wrinkle here is that pharmacists have some degree is 1a protections (in the US) because their objections are on religious grounds rather than humanist ones. That makes firing them difficult, because it can be argued that it’s religious discrimination. An obvious solution would be to require them to refer the person to another pharmacy, so that they aren’t violating their religion, but pharmacists are arguing that’s compelled speech that still violates their 1a rights.
nobody should ever be granted special privileges based on religion or political beliefs. the postal service and the pharmacy face the same moral circumstances in these two scenarios.
civil disobedience is still disobedience. you do it because you believe its right, and you accept the consequences.
AFAIK, no one has rights based on political beliefs. But in the US, people have religious liberty granted to them under the constitution, within some fairly loose limits, and discriminating against people in employment based on their religious requirements is not legal. There’s the issue of ‘reasonable accommodations’; if I’m Muslim, then a company denying me the ability to pray several times each shift is almost certainly religious discrimination.
Yes, I agree that we should view religion as a choice rather than an inherent quality, but that’s not the way the constitution is.
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Pharmacists can get away with that. The mail person is a federal employee and doesn’t have that luxury.
At some point we have to recognize that these organizations are delivering blatant misinformation and hate-speech. That is, speech designed to “other” an already minority group of civilians.
These postcards accuse teachers of “pushing transgenderism” and describe gender-affirming medical care as “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
This hateful and divisive rhetoric has real effects on trans people just trying to live their lives, and one should not be forced to participate in the dissemination of said hate-speech propaganda. I’m glad that they just suspended her, and ended up paying her for the days missed after she came back.
I, for one, am sick an tired of being delivered hate-speech in the mail. Some of the republican mailers I get are littered with the same hateful misinformation. It does nothing but foment anger towards an already marginalized minority group. It’s wrong, and the post office should refuse to deliver it.
That actually happens? I can’t say I’ve ever gotten hateful misinformation in the mail (and no, I don’t want to find out). My snail mail is mostly spam, with the occasional bill that doesn’t want to be electronic. More than half the time, it all goes directly in the recycle bin.
I, for one, am sick an tired of being delivered hate-speech in the mail. Some of the republican mailers I get are littered with the same hateful misinformation. It does nothing but foment anger towards an already marginalized minority group. It’s wrong, and the post office should refuse to deliver it.
Honestly, a part of me likes getting this mail just so I can easily identify the morons in my state.
"Oh, this person running for senator thinks aliens are coming to eat your dog in Ohio? Well… I now know they’re bad. *trashes mail*
Just so people can judge for themselves…
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The article is about events in Canada.
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“God doesn’t make mistakes.” This has to be the best argument I have ever seen. Just wow… Can’t god also solve the 3x+1 problem? Would be useful.
Don’t wear Glasses or use viagra as God intended.
Good to see that conservatives are focused on the widespread problems that really matter to people internationally and not just down here in the US!
/s
I don’t disagree in therory but there is no way we can let postal workers have a say in what they can or cannot deliver. Fire them for doing it and move on.
This is hateful shit.
Unfortunately, they have the same argument as Kim Davis for not doing their duty.
They both refuse to do their duty due to moral concerns.
Hate speech doesn’t get protected under free speech. These aren’t the same.
In the US, it is. In Canada (assuming this applies to Canada - I don’t know), I don’t know if you want postal workers deciding what is or isn’t hate speech.
Under US law, there is absolutely no “hate speech” exception to the 1st amendment. This has been ruled on repeatedly.
This is in Canada.
…Which is why I specified US. (Yes, I know where NB is.)
Most of the people here are arguing from a US perspective, esp. since the original source largely reports on US news, and reports on news from a US perspective.
Fun geographical place names time: there’s also a New Brunswick in New Jersey and a New Brunswick in Indiana, and there’s also a New Jersey in New Brunswick and an Indiana in Ontario. There’s also an Ontario in California. But wait, there’s also a California in Ontario. This is where our geographical journey ends for now.
I have no idea what the fuck you just did to my brain, but I want my money back.
I saw the Grumman LLV mail truck in the thumbnail and just assumed US. I had no idea you guys used them too. Neat!
Yes it does/yes it is.
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I’m just here to watch people who cheered and defended the lady who wouldn’t marry a gay couple suddenly care about government employees doing their job regardless of opinion.
I agree but this logic cuts both ways.
The people that disliked the courthouse lady shouldn’t be too surprised or upset now that the shoe’s on the other foot.
No I still believe actions have consequences, I’m saying either they do or they don’t and people who want to play it both ways need to STFU.
However, while of course you can’t police what goes out in an envelope, I don’t think these materials should have been allowed to ship. Of course, while they say little Billy knowing the 2 guys next door are in love is too much for his fragile little brain the “won’t someone think of the kids” crowd don’t bat an eye at little Billy running down to the mailbox and pulling out a fearmongering postcard about genital mutilation.
Tolerance may end with Intolerance, but idk how I feel about postal workers having the right to decide what does and does not get mailed.
It’s good actually that the mail doesn’t censor based on viewpoint
People can refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple.
People get punished for not delivering hate mail.
Why is it so easy for hatred to do things but so hard for decency to push back?
Because typically “decency” doesn’t use a 2x4 with nails driven through it to get the point across…
🎵 but the taaaahms they are a chaaaaangin’ 🎶
While I sympathize… That’s fair. Same as the people working in pharmacies and refusing to hand out birth control. If you have moral qualms about your job, find another job.
i assume there are federal laws on delivering mail to people, considering that like. That shits important sometimes.
