http://gawker.com/5893760/british-government-argues-that-christians-have-no-right-to-wear-crosses-at-work

interesting

3/16/2012 10:10:39 AM

I like the part where the Archbishop of Canterbury calls cross-wearers poseurs, ahahaha

3/16/2012 10:15:31 AM

We should have state religion here too.

3/16/2012 10:18:49 AM

This is what happens when you don't have freedom from religion.

3/16/2012 10:25:07 AM

Christian activists trying to trample on the rights of businesses to exercise their religious (or lack thereof) rights!

3/16/2012 10:38:23 AM

Well, what you wear at work is between you and your boss. Uniform, topless, cross, no cross. If your boss wants to be a dick and refuses to continue employing you unless you wear a bunny suit to cover up the cross, your option is to quit.

Life is a negotiation with the people around you about how you are going to live. If someone decides they no longer want to negotiate with you, you shouldn't have the right to force them.

3/16/2012 11:07:36 AM

Quote :

"Life is a negotiation with the people around you about how you are going to live. If someone decides they no longer want to negotiate with you, you shouldn't have the right to force them."

Even if they own literally everything and you starve as a result of not coming to an agreement

*nods sagely*

In a truly moral world, however, there is nothing we can do

*turns back toward the fire, lets out a puff of smoke from pipe. rubs forehead.*

3/16/2012 11:22:06 AM

They don't own you and the only way to own literally everything is to have stolen it. So your objection is silly.

In a statist world where the government has stolen everything it is impossible to not live as a slave. No shit sherlock.

3/16/2012 11:38:44 AM

Public authority is magic because anytime private authority does a bad thing it becomes public by definition checkmate liberals time to dismantle government

3/16/2012 11:46:37 AM

Criminals, known as private authority, can get away with a lot of stuff. Stealing cash from a bank vault for example. But only City Hall, or some other public authority, could steal the bank itself.

3/16/2012 1:05:55 PM

You're right and it's necessarily true, a handed down truth of deductive logic!

Man how couldn't I see it all before. Once I redefine every single word to the special, trimmed, technical sense in which you mean them, and jam my own head through my own ass (and out its own mouth), I see the light. It's perfectly cool for private authority to team up and determine literally anything about anybody's life, because it's either the best thing ever, or if it weren't, competition would edge it out in the free market.

FUCKING DUH PEOPLE

3/16/2012 1:48:13 PM

Quote :

"I like the part where the Archbishop of Canterbury calls cross-wearers poseurs, ahahaha"

that was pretty hilarious

3/16/2012 4:30:41 PM

^^ It is sad when people don't want to be your friend (or employer) anymore. But you aren't going to make things any less sad by putting a gun to their head.

3/16/2012 4:49:25 PM

Herp a derp I'm a Christian Scientist that means I don't believe in medicine or health care at all, and I'm strongly considering disbelieving in overtime pay and safety conditions either! Good thing running a business is like running a theme park for whatever stupid shit I believe!

3/18/2012 11:30:35 AM

And putting a gun to workers heads and forcing them to work for you would be a crime against humanity.

Or worse, electing you to congress to pass laws forcing employers to offer the health-coverage you approve of (no hospitals allowed, but prayer sessions are 100% covered).

3/18/2012 11:34:11 AM

Well then I'd like to revoke their taxpayer-funded police protection and deny their customers and suppliers access to our local, state, and national road systems.

3/18/2012 11:38:17 AM

^ Something you must worry about when the government has such monopolies. God help the individual that becomes unpopular. Even if the government does not choose to execute you themselves, they always have the choice of starving you to death.

3/18/2012 11:41:05 AM

Shitty roads and warlordism, vote for more deregulation today!

3/18/2012 12:05:56 PM

They've got the guns, so it is only right they get to do whatever they want, vote for more regulation today!

3/18/2012 12:22:14 PM

If you hate tolls now wait until you have to pay walmart to drive to charlotte.

3/18/2012 12:25:17 PM

Quote :

"They've got the guns, so it is only right they get to do whatever they want, vote for more regulation today!"

This sounds really scary until I actually consider the world you want to live in, one where force is exercised by a wide range of completely undemocratic, privately-financed warlords with not even a nominal obligation to respect anything resembling rights.

3/18/2012 12:30:45 PM

No, that would be your world. I'm the one arguing the government should respect our rights. Your the one arguing us having rights is pure anarchy and will kill us all.

3/18/2012 12:44:40 PM

Rights don't exist without reliable, equitable, consistent enforcement. Pluralizing the use of force among non-democratic private entities betrays every one of those. So quit whining about the government "having all the guns."

[Edited on March 18, 2012 at 12:48 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2012 12:47:44 PM

The thread is about whether the government should force employers to keep employing employees they no longer like employing. To do so would violate the employer's rights and therefore the government should not do it. As few employers has decided to start laying people off by shooting them, whether non-government agents also have guns or not is irrelevant to this thread.

3/18/2012 12:56:08 PM

Not everybody believes in the same set of extra-legal rights as you. This is just one story, we all know you believe employers shouldn't be subject to any laws governing the firing of people, be it for religion, gender, or race.

[Edited on March 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2012 1:01:20 PM

Quite right. Who you choose to associate yourself with and on what terms is fundamental to who you are as a human being. We should not be in the business of choosing who you can, cannot, or will be compelled to employ, marry, serve, befriend, engage business, have sex with, or believe in*.

That such a policy might have bad outcomes in the short-term is an insufficient argument for violation.

* given all the usual provisos: that all parties are transacting without violence or fraud and without committing violations against non-transacting third parties.

[Edited on March 18, 2012 at 1:17 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/18/2012 1:12:58 PM

^ You seem to be under the impression that businesses have always been like they are now. They only reason our business environment even remotely has a sense of equity and fairness compared to other places is public intervention.

Battle of Blair Mountain

Quote :

" The Battle of Blair Mountain was the result of economic exploitation of workers during a period of social transformation in the southern West Virginia coalfields. Beginning in 1870-1880, coal operators had established a system of oppression and exploitation based around the company town system. To maintain their domination and hegemony, coal operators paid "private detectives" as well as public law enforcement agents to ensure that union organizers were kept out of the region. In order to accomplish this objective, agents of the coal operators used intimidation, harassment, espionage and even murder"

If you think businesses are able to operate without gov. regulations and rules, you're not only grossly ignorant of history, and the realities of humanity, you're dumb as a brick.

3/18/2012 1:40:43 PM

Yes, intervention such as prosecuting people for "intimidation, harassment, espionage and even murder". Why do you insist on pretending I am in favor of murder?

3/18/2012 3:38:40 PM

Why are you advocating the rape and murder of innocents?

3/18/2012 3:56:52 PM

Virtually all major atrocities in history: perpetrated by government.

"But guys, theoretically - without government - private individuals and groups would do really bad things. I mean, we've never tested it or anything...but trust us."

You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. To protect our freedoms, we need eradication of civilian populations, the holocaust, mass famine directly caused by state policies, drug wars, etc. That's the sacrifice we have to make so that government can save us from Wal-mart, ridiculously low prices, and rising standard of living. So far, government is doing a bang up job.

3/18/2012 4:55:07 PM

The awful events you list were carried out by people in a position of power. Saying they were "perpetrated by government" is border line retarded.

With that being said I wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft carry out the mass genocide of Linux users with highly paid mercenaries.

3/18/2012 7:13:29 PM

Just happens to be that the position of power in every listed example just happened to be government?

In a state of anarchy, private actors perpetrate mass slaughter always in pursuit of one goal: becoming government agents.

Microsoft cannot slaughter its enemies without first being assured that doing so will render it the new defacto government.

For example, if Microsoft did as you wish and slaughtered Linux users then tried to carry on its commercial business as if nothing happened, it would soon find itself run out of business as its workers quit to escape the violence, customers ran for safety, and the reigning Government tried to destroy the competition.

Meanwhile, a warlord or Chicita banana have no qualms about such violence because they don't want to be private actors anymore, they want to get their way by defeating their rivals to become government.

3/18/2012 7:34:55 PM

How many people have to consolidate power to be called a governmnet in your anarchist dystopia?

2 people join forces and kill someone: Well, there's the government being evil again.

3/18/2012 7:51:09 PM