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…
… She wasn’t fired lmao. People don’t read.
She was given a 5 day suspension.
Don’t read? More like can’t read!
I dunno, I decided to react to something while only informed by other uninformed comments. It was a poor choice.
Agreed. I work in healthcare. As healthcare workers we are obligated to treat any patients regardless of their political affiliation or background. I just provided services to a guy the other day with a huge swastika tattooed on chest. Ive administered care to prisoners, bully/aggressive patients, racists, sexists, and others I would not normally would not align myself with. It does not mean i support anything my patients do or their viewpoint. You cannot have people determining on their own that they are not doing their job because x,y,z especially with more public services involved. It is a very slippery slope
You cant make exceptions for some circumstances without the effects/consequences extending to other cases for opposite side as this commenter noted. All mail legally needs to be delivered, even in Canada. Props to the postal worker for trying to stand up for what they believe but agreed they should lose their job for it.
Providing necessary healthcare is vastly different than providing hate-speech mailers. I’m OK with the post office having a rule about not delivering mailers with blatant misinformation and/or hate-speech aimed against marginalized minority groups.
There is a gigantic difference between being forced to provide healthcare for people, regardless of political affiliation, and being forced to disseminate political propaganda and misinformation, regardless of political affiliation.
The people have rights, the flyers do not. So while I agree that the postal worker had a duty to deliver the flyer per federal law, I disagree that anyone should be allowed to freely send hateful propaganda and rhetoric to every mailbox. It’s just that making a fair law around that is difficult.
You cannot have it both ways.
Ban the delivery of messages containing hate towards a group based on their identity.
Let me try to twist this rule.
The delivery of materials informing women of abortion resources is now prohibited as this represents hate towards foetuses on the basis of their unborn status and advocates for killing them.
The delivery of materials promoting diversity in hiring and criticising the makeup of the boards of directors of large companies as being overwhelmingly white and male is now prohibited as this represents hate against white male executives.
You see, the issue is that you cannot guarantee that the person interpreting the rule you want to impose will think the same way you do.
A fetus is not a person. There, twist untwisted.
Nope.
I’m a person who doesn’t agree with you and I find myself in the position to interpret the rule. Therefore, I am interpreting the rule in my favour. A foetus is a person. The articles will not be delivered.
Hopefully this makes the argument a bit more clear . In this hypothetical scenario, a malicious person who disagrees with you is in charge of interpreting the rule. You have no power here and none of your arguments will convince them otherwise.
The only thing you can do is design a system that is robust enough that the damage that can be done by that malicious person.
You say a foetus is not a person. That person says “nuh uh”. But they are in charge and you are not, so their interpretation stands and you have to suck it and now you regret giving that organisation the power to make that determination.
You can think of it all in terms of game theory. You get to write the rules, then I, a malicious entity, get to play by your rules, and you can only stand and watch. Once you put your pen down, I am in charge.
Now you can see that in this game, you would want to write rules that constrain what I can do as much as possible.
You need to be born to be a person. Otherwise where do we set the limit? Maybe for medical reasons, we should set it at a certain number of weeks, but for non medical reasons should be considered the moment of birth. Otherwise when does it become hatred? Can I say “I hate fetuses under 4 weeks” but not “I hate fetuses of 12 weeks”?
Following that logic, someone could consider masturbation as a crime, and menstruation too.
Well, you see, I am a malicious entity that doesn’t need to listen to your logic. All I need is the power that you have given me.
For your rules, since I am the malicious entity in charge, I can just say “I’m right, you’re wrong”, and there is nothing you can do about it.
But what I said can’t be twisted. To be a person you must be born.
There is no interpretation there. A fetus is not a person because it hasn’t been born.
A group of living persons.
I agree, humans won’t stop stochastic terrorism, because enough humans don’t give a shit, and they’re fine with people dying because they’re not white and heteronormative.
That’s why I don’t feel attached to humanity, and I don’t class myself as one.
I class myself as a humanity!
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 kinda wish they did for junk mail. God please stop sending me 200 page catalogs trying to sell me boomer clothes.
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.
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.
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
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 not about having it both ways. This is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty. We do not need to tolerate intolerance nor should we.
Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. So the postal worker’s decision to not spread a life-threatening targeted disinformation campaign was a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
We should not base our decisions on what fascists will do. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to infiltrate and undermine all of our systems and intuitions and bend the rules to do whatever they want. We should instead focus our efforts on preventing bad-faith actors such as fascists from overturning our democracy and instituting a christo-fascist dictatorship.
Also, I’m aware this happened in Canada. We should want to see the same thing happen this November 5th in the US when fascists attempt to overturn our democracy. We should want people in positions of leadership and power to say no.
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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.
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?
This way of thinking is problematic. Freedom of speech is a social contract and hate speech is a violation of that contract.
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.”
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.
Yeah like I agree with the thought but the mail is kinda sacred.
yep. Don’t fuck with the mail.
Especially in the times we are in right now.
Which is why these carriers, as much as I sympathize with not wanting to deal with the hateful messages, need to be punished severely and swiftly.
We shouldn’t punish people for standing up to fascists. Fascists are acting in bad faith and bad faith actors will abuse any system no matter what. We should focus on defending our institutions from infiltration by bad actors and refuse to tolerate intolerance.
and part of defending those institutions is punishing bad behavior, regardless of how much you might agree with it or think its righteous.
Because the carrier does not get to dictate who gets what mail. Their job, the entire basis of the institution, is to deliver the mail on their appointed route, regardless what it is, regardless to whom it is to.
You arguing that each postal carrier has some intrinsic right to not deliver mail they find objectionable is arguing for the destruction, not the defense, of the US Postal Service.
regardless of how much you might agree with it or think its righteous.
It’s got nothing to do with me or righteousness. This is about strategic decisions to defend life and liberty from bad faith actors such as fascists.
regardless what it is
Not if it’s dangerous to the people it’s being delivered to. We do not want dangerous substances or bombs sent in the mail.
You arguing that each postal carrier has some intrinsic right to not deliver mail they find objectionable is arguing for the destruction, not the defense, of the US Postal Service.
No, I am arguing that we as a society should refuse to tolerate intolerance. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. The success of this targeted disinformation campaign would put trans people in a life-threatening situation. By refusing to spread this disinformation campaign, this Canadian woman made the strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
Here in the US, the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement is attempting to takeover our democracy this November 5th. Depending on the outcome of the election we me all soon find ourselves in the position of this woman. Acts of civil disobedience might be the last line of defense to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not allow our institutions to be the instruments of our destruction. edit: typo
You can drown your post in as much honey sweetened words as you want.
You are still, ultimately, arguing for the destruction of our institutions by trying to give the people you agree with special privilege to do wrong that you agree with.
It is not the postal carriers job to censor or filter the mail. It is their job to deliver it.
Flip the story around.
Its now a right wing mailman refusing to deliver stuff that he doesn’t like.
My argument would be the same, That they would need to be punished severely to protect the institution of the US Postal Service, in order to prevent other bad actors from doing more of the same and destroying it from the inside.
I highly doubt you’d mount such stalwart and furious defense of a right wing mail carrier, as you are right now.
You are as much a cancer and threat to our institutions as all the other bad actors.
Fascists subverting the mail for their own ends to the detriment of other groups’ liberties would be a form of intolerance which we should not tolerate. That is what the fascists were doing in Canada without evening needing to infiltrate the mail service. We should prevent them from doing this if it happened here in the US. To do otherwise would be to be complicit in our own destruction. We should not put our institutions above our liberties. Our institutions are meant to be for our benefit and not tools for fascists to destroy us. To put it another way, standing up to fascists does not make us fascists.
Your argument gets into a common neoliberal talking point about our institutions. That they are infallible and that any attempt at systemic change would destroy them. So in my argument I’m going to talk about US institutions more broadly for a bit. My point is that our institutions are deeply flawed and without systemic change we will lose them.
Our democracy, our market economy, and our mail service are all essential institutions. However our political, economic, and public institutions are flawed. Our democracy is comprised of anti-democratic institutions such as the Senate and the Electoral College. These allow for minority rule and routinely prevent popular legislation that is supported by the majority of the population. Our economy is in the death throes of late-stage capitalism. The owner class has extracted so much wealth from the worker class the only way from them to gain more wealth is to form an oligarchy around a christo-fascist dictator. And our mail system uncritically allows for the spread of life-threatening disinformation campaigns on well researched and understood topics. Not only do these disinformation campaigns threaten groups of people they threaten our democracy as well.
Our society is a fundamentally useful tool that benefits around 340 million people. If we categorically refuse to improve upon it will eventually self-destruct. The way we are living is not sustainable or equitable. The MAGA movement is the direct result of the material conditions of late-stage capitalism that have been allowed to fester for 40 years thanks to neoliberalism. The fascist movement will only grow unless we are willing to introduce systemic change to the society that spawned it.
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.
I feel like there’s a “law as it currently exists” thing versus the ideal. The law as it currently exists makes it illegal to discriminate based on content. This has historically been an important vector for, say, allowing civil rights activists to send essays to be published in newspapers. But much as it was illegal to deny a gay couple their marriage license, it ought be somehow made illegal to spread damaging lies about trans people in order to stir up a hate campaign.
In this case I’d say that 5 days fully paid suspension is probably an appropriate consequence for this rule-breaking, and could only be made more appropriate if it actually included tickets to spend those days someplace warmer and friendlier than that part of Canada and a knowing wink from the postmaster general.
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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.
Protestors and counter protestors both have a right to express their views
No. For a just, tolerant, and civilised society to exist, intolerance can’t be tolerated..
Which is why both sides have the right to protest, criticize, and argue over their respective viewpoints.
If we attempt to ban certain forms of speech that don’t, say, immediately incite violence, then what we end up doing is allowing the intolerant people to force society to become intolerant by censoring opposing viewpoints, as long as they’re given any degree of control over the legislative process around what speech is allowed.
We have freedom of speech, but not mandated respect for the beliefs you say with that speech. While they’re free to say it, everyone is free to say anything they wish against it, to not listen to it, and to drown it out.
Society can already be intolerant of the intolerance without opening the door to legislation that could mandate intolerance of tolerant speech. We don’t have to legislate intolerant speech away to counter its usage.
Banning gender affirming care is a direct threat to trans people. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments and banning it denies trans people the fundamental right to exist. Refusing to spread a life-threatening disinformation campaign in Canada or hypothetically in the US is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
We do not need to tolerate intolerance. Nor should we. Tolerance is a social contract or peace treaty. When one group, such as fascists, break that contract, they are no longer protected by that social contract.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
A person’s freedoms do not end when they break laws, rather there are no laws against our freedoms. A person’s freedom to swing their arm ends at another person’s nose. The freedom of speech ends where a person’s right to exist begins. Allowing fascists to trick people into banning lifesaving medical treatments isn’t speech we should protect. As it infringes on the right of those people to exist who depend on those lifesaving medical treatments.
In the US, we are a nation of freedoms. We write laws to protect those freedoms. When the laws infringe upon our freedoms we change the laws.
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.
This is the paradox of tolerance. We resolve the paradox your argument is describing by reframing our concept of tolerance. When viewed as a social contract or peace treaty, we are able to tolerate each other and can refuse to tolerate intolerance. Under tolerance as a social contract, everyone in society agrees to be tolerant. If one group, say fascists, choose to be intolerant to any other group, the fascists are no longer protected by the agreement.
Thus we can reject fascist intolerance and bigotry while still tolerating each other. We can reject hate speech and targeted life-threatening information campaigns against lifesaving medical treatments while still enjoying free speech.
Also, fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to undermine our institutions for their gain no matter what we do. So our efforts should instead go to preventing bad-faith actors like fascists from taking power.
Hypothetically (because I’m interested and not trying to start an argument) would you ban the delivery of leaflets for a pro Trans party that was authoritarian?
P.S. I agree with you points :)
A different analogy would be a right wing person refusing to deliver left wing mail. Example might be something for a ‘Woke’ support group.
Another could be, Atheists refusing to deliver religious letters of Christmas cards.
My point is , we can’t leave it to individuals to decide these things in isolation.
We should ban any disinformation campaign that we as a society, through research and study, know to be a disinformation campaign.
We should ban any hypothetical authoritarian pro-trans party and their leaflets because they’re an authoritarian party.
We shouldn’t ban something for being woke because woke is now a fascist taking point to demonize the left and something being woke is not a real basis for something to be harmful.
There is a difference between personal mail and disinformation campaign leaflets. No one should be banning Christmas cards unless they are part of a targeted disinformation campaign to deny people the fundamental right to exist.
We as a society have chosen to leave this to individuals. This November 5th, the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement, is attempting to takeover our democracy. People in positions of leadership and power saying no to fascists attempting to subvert the results of the election may be all that stands between us and that christo-fascist takeover.
It would be better if there were systems in place to stop disinformation campaigns, but in this Canadian woman’s case, her civil disobedience was the only system in place. We might soon find ourselves in her position. Where civil disobedience is the only recourse to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies. So we should not discount civil disobedience out of hand.
Also, fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to undermine our institutions for their gain no matter what we do. So our efforts should instead go to preventing bad-faith actors like fascists from taking power.
I am copying this here, because it’s what refutes your argument’s central point. We should not factor in what fascists will do into our decision making process. Fascists will try to destroy our way of life no matter what we do. So instead of worrying about trying to appease fascists, which has never worked, we should focus on keeping fascists out of power. If the fascists takeover our democracy, we aren’t getting it back for free. So we should want individuals to engage in civil disobedience to prevent fascists from taking power and enacting their policies. To do otherwise would make us complicit in our own destruction.
Freedom of speech rests on the foundation of the truth. If we elevate lies to the level of the truth we will lose our freedom of speech. There is no utility in tolerating intolerance. In humoring a known disinformation campaign we do not dissuade the fascists, who are always looking to see what they can get away with. Nor do we safeguard our liberties, but instead lay the groundwork for them to be taken away. If we let the fascist decide what is true then it is the fascists who decide what we speak.
Good points. I agree with the paradox of tolerance and your other points.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. This type of discussion is why in use social.media but it is rare to get past the partisan brigading.
Civil disobedience is an interesting point in this case. Personally, I probably would have acted as this Canadian woman did.
What I am struggling with is understanding what counts as a disinformation campaign. I read in your post that you’d answer this as a society and with research however, if you were put in charge of this research tomorrow, do you have a draft definition of a disinformation campaign?
I ask as I try to see the world in black and white and steer clear of the grey however, this is rarely possible.
Free speech being a good example. It’s either a 1 or 0.
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I was thinking more about the “can’t force me to make a cake for a gay wedding” thing
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.
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.
That. What this parent did was a laudable act of civil disobedience. Unfortunately, the post office did what they had to do.
They don’t have to. Our democracy has the capacity to change for the better. We should push for this change going forward.
edit: This story is about Canada, but they are also democracy. The US should learn from this woman’s example.
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.
People have to the right to make strategic decisions defend life and liberty. This would be like refusing to spread a disinformation campaign to ban birth control. Abortion is lifesaving healthcare and reproductive freedom. Choosing to defend that is not an arbitrary decision but who we are as a freedom loving democracy.
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No, this would be like refusing to spread a disinformation campaign designed to ban lifesaving medical treatments provided by said pharmacist. It’s not a personal belief, but a strategic decision to defend life and liberty. Banning gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. Tolerating intolerance should not be a part of anyone’s job description.
Pharmacists can get away with that. The mail person is a federal employee and doesn’t have that luxury.
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.
I’m not sure you have very strong political, moral, and ethical opinions
We’re an ordered society. We elect leaders who adopt laws and ordinances. Who the hell am I to throw that out the window and instead tell people they have to follow my will.
just following orders
Motherfucker I work in development. Telling someone they can’t have their pool equipment pad in the side setback or that front-yard fences have to be 80% transparent isn’t exactly sending them to the gas chamber.
so you’re saying you’re not faced with the choice handing out hundreds of fliers spreading vile hate speech incentivising violence against trans people
Government employees providing government services have to provide them to everyone. It isn’t a private business where you can just refuse service because you don’t like someone or their message.
What if the postal worker thinks abortion is murder. Should they be allowed to refuse to deliver mail for Planned Parenthood or the ACLU?
If a county clerk is opposed to homosexuality should they be allowed to refuse to issue a marriage license to a gay couple?
Yep. This is part of the “Do the job” deal.
Because I’m sure we’ll be up in arms if a religious Postal worker elected to not deliver mail for religious reasons.
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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
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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A targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign like this is easily discernible from a personal letter. A person’s right to a apolitical, uninterrupted mail service should not supersede a group’s right to exist. A ban on gender affirming care, which was the goal of this disinformation campaign, would deny trans people the right to exist. The postal service should make the strategic decision to defend life and liberty by not spreading disinformation campaigns.
The article is about events in Canada.
Regardless, we are facing similar problems in the United States. Fascists are infiltrating positions that oversee elections. We would do well to learn from this woman’s example.
We should not tolerate intolerance. Banning gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. We should make the strategic decision to defend life and liberty and not spread targeted life-threatening disinformation campaigns. Nor should we base our actions off what fascists will do. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith factors will attempt undermine any system or institution that they can infiltrate. We should focus our efforts on preventing bad-faiths actors from taking power.
“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.
this is a phrase I’ve started to turn around in a trans-affirming way: god doesn’t make mistakes, do you really think he couldn’t conceive of a trans person?
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.
We should not fire people for standing up to fascism.
And the next postal worker who wont deliver a flyer on birth control or how to vote because its goes against what they believe? Should they not be fired for standing up for that? Their job is to deliver the mail not judge what someone receives. I get garbage in the mail all the time and know exactly what to do with it. I throw it in the trash.
If Canada Post still wants it delivered, they can make that happen without requiring their workers to be exposed to hateful or discriminatory messages.
Last I checked, mail can be sent in envelopes.
This is not about personal belief, but who we are as a society. We should want to live in a society where the fundamental rights of people to exist should be upheld.
Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. We should make the same strategic decision this Canadian woman did when she refused to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign and instead defend life and liberty.
We should not tolerate intolerance. It’s not enough to individually throw this away in the trash when a disinformation campaign could mislead the public into denying a group of people the fundamental right to exist.
Nor should we worry about what fascists would do. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will always attempt to infiltrate and upend systems and institutions for their own ends. Instead our efforts should go to preventing bad-faith actors, like fascists, from taking over our democracy. Stopping the spread of disinformation campaigns is part of how we do that.
I will not tolerate a religious fool or some other kind nutbar deciding they don’t have to deliver my mail because is offends them. As a result of that position I will not tolerate some morally justified person from doing the same no matter the reason. Fire anyone who can’t do their job and leave their opinions at home.
I will not tolerate a religious fool or some other kind nutbar deciding they don’t have to deliver my mail because is offends them.
Good, we should not tolerate intolerance.
As a result of that position I will not tolerate some morally justified person from doing the same no matter the reason.
This has nothing to do with morality. This is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty. We should defend ourselves and not be complicit in our own destruction.
Fire anyone who can’t do their job and leave their opinions at home.
Facts aren’t opinions. We know gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. Abortion is a lifesaving medical treatment. Bans on abortion denies people reproductive freedom.
We should not fire people who stand up to fascists. This November 5th, in the US, we will decide if we continue to be a democracy or will allow fascists to replace our democracy with a christo-fascist dictatorship. We should want people in positions of leadership and power to say no to fascists who attempt to subvert our democracy for their own ends.
You are kinda sad.
I am joyful and hopeful because I love democracy. But it is ok to be sad.
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.
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.
People have the capacity to identify intolerance. We should want them to use that ability when it comes to targeted disinformation campaigns that will ban lifesaving medical care. A ban on gender affirming care will deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. Postal workers should make the strategic decision to defend life and liberty and not spread life-threatening disinformation campaigns.
Would you say the same if someone “strategically” tossed my planned parenthood mail? Or should postal workers just deliver my mail?
I would say that tossing your planned parenthood mail is a form of intolerance. Which is just as unacceptable as a disinformation campaign to ban planned parenthood in order to deny healthcare and reproductive freedom to individuals.
People aren’t allowed to shout fire in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire. This basic premise doesn’t change because of the medium of communication. People shouldn’t be allowed to spread dangerous disinformation via the mail.
We shouldn’t be concerned with what bad faith actors, such as fascists will do, when making our decisions. Bad faith actors will seek to infiltrate and undermine our institutions and systems no matter what we do. Our energy should be spent preventing bad faith actors from infiltrating our institutions.
So your argument seems to boil down to “it’s okay for postal workers to toss things I don’t like but not things I like”.
Can you see how this isn’t defensible at all?
This basic premise doesn’t change because of the medium of communication. People shouldn’t be allowed to spread dangerous disinformation via the mail.
WHO DECIDES what is dangerous disinformation? Your postal workers? I feel like you’re not really thinking this through.
We as a society need to decide that we know to be dangerous disinformation is not allowed to be transferred over the mail. We know gender affirming care and abortion are lifesaving medical treatments. We know that a ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. We know banning abortion denies people reproductive freedom. This Canadian woman made an important first step with her civil disobedience. We as a society should follow her example and make the strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
Here in the US, we have an election this November 5th. Fascists in the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement, are planning to takeover our democracy. Civil disobedience may soon be the last line of defense to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies.
What’s indefensible is fascist intolerance. We should not be complicit in our own destruction.
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!
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It is not a moral concern, but a strategic decision. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. So refusing to spread a life-threatening disinformation campaign is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
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.
We should all have the right to reject intolerance. Otherwise we will not have a society that is capable of tolerating anyone. This wasn’t a personal letter. It was a targeted disinformation campaign designed to ban lifesaving medical treatments. The disinformation campaign infringed on a group of people’s right to exist.
Then, the post office or individuals can challenge the entity in court to stop them from sending out the campaign.
Or legislators can pass a bill that gives very tight definitions of content that can be refused at the facility.
But each postal worker taking into their own hands what to toss just seems like the wrong solution.
Having systems in place to prevent the spread of disinformation campaigns would be preferable. However, in the US we are in the verge of a christo-fascist takeover of our democracy. We may all soon find ourselves in the position of this Canadian woman. Acts of civil disobedience may be the last line of defense in preventing the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not dismiss her actions out of hand. Actions like hers may soon save people’s lives.
It’s good actually that the mail doesn’t censor based on viewpoint
A disinformation campaign designed to ban lifesaving medical treatments isn’t a viewpoint we need to respect. The success of such of a campaign would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist.
I’m not saying we need to respect it, but the mail shouldn’t censor materials based on viewpoint.
Not censoring isn’t “respect”, it’s the minimum a free people should expect from their government.
This is referred to as the paradox of tolerance. The idea that we have to tolerate intolerance is an incorrect resolution of the paradox. We can solve the paradox by reframing tolerance as a social contract or peace treaty.
In this framing, everyone agrees to tolerate each other. If a group, such as fascists, decide to be intolerant to another group the fascists have broken the social contract of tolerance. The fascists are no longer covered by the protections of the social contract of tolerance and in the case of this disinformation campaign, their speech is not protected.
This is the minimum that freedom loving people should expect from their democracy. We should tolerate everyone, but not tolerate intolerance. Fascists do not have the right to deny groups the fundamental right to exist with their speech.
To be clear, gender affirming care is a collection of life saving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. That Canadian woman’s refusal to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign was a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
The idea that we have to tolerate intolerance is an incorrect resolution of the paradox.
But I’m saying we shouldn’t tolerate intolerance. You’re the one saying we have to.
But I’m saying we shouldn’t tolerate intolerance. You’re the one saying we have to.
The opposite is in fact true. The fascists have breached the social contract of tolerance with their disinformation campaign. If they are not going to follow the agreement, then they are not protected by it. In other words, standing up against the fascists does not make us fascists. We should strategically defend our lives and liberties as needed. To do otherwise would make us complicit in our own destruction.
The fascists have breached the social contract of tolerance with their disinformation campaign
I don’t think there was ever a “social contract” where we agreed that you couldn’t send things through the mail that weren’t socially determined to be “true”, but if we ever did, you’re violating the compact by describing gender reassignment treatment as “lifesaving” when the best evidence on the issue is that it’s neutral at best.
That is just straight up false. Stop spreading hateful misinformation.
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.
Except this would be like a disinformation campaign to ban birth control. Abortion is lifesaving health care and is reproductive freedom. So taking actions against such a disinformation campaigns is not a moral qualm, but a strategic decision to prioritize life and liberty. This is exactly the kind of strategic thinking we need people in positions of leadership and power to take to prevent a christo-fascist takeover in the upcoming election on November 5th.
Disgusting as it is, she has a job to perform and has no authority to determine what mail is sent. This shit needs to be stopped at the source, not by a mail carrier. Either do you job or step aside.
Whenever laws get broken, it’s constantly “I was just doing my job”.
The Postal office can find someone else to do that delivery.
You don’t know how long they’ve been working there. And that directly puts their family at potential harm.
It’s her job to deliver the mail. The only law broken here is her refusal to deliver it. You don’t get to cherry pick the mail system.
If she won’t deliver the mail, she needs to be fired. Period.
The SS at Auschwitz were also “doing their job”
I love this discussion because it’s a complex issue.
I suppose I stand on the side that maybe she should have just delivered them. It’s just words and individuals can throw garbage in the bin pretty easily. I sure as shit wouldn’t want anybody filtering my mail.
OTOH, “got a job to do” is a weak justification for unethical behaviour.
Put me down 3:2 in favour of delivering the things I guess.
It is a complex issue and deserves a full conversation. It’s hard to say what I would do in her shoes, but it probably would be to copy a personal letter a bunch of times. The context of the letter would, of course, be a general warning about circulating hate speech mail trying to misinform people, and be wary of what you read.
Hot take bud, where do you draw the line with that?
Can a transphobic postal carrier refuse to deliver anything they disagree with also? Shouldn’t they be able to decide what mail you get based on their beliefs as well?
Or are you a hypocrite that thinks that rules should only be broken because you disagree with them.
Oh, and please don’t go to Nazis when you feel someone disagrees with you. It’s immature, it’s irrelevant to the discussion, and it’s foolish as hell.
Pro trans material isn’t putting people in harm’s way
Huge difference bud
People with strong religious beliefs believe that it does. They believe that even allowing people to see that LGBTQ+ people can be accepted leads to an acceptance of sin, and risks condemning a soul to hell. Even if it’s bullshit, they still believe that real harms are being done.
You’re wrong here bud. No matter how you feel about it. You’re wrong. It’s her job to deliver mail. Even if she disagrees with it.
And for the record- they will tell you that trans rights puts people in harms way as well- even if we both disagree- belief is belief at the end of the day- and someone is choosing to take the law into their own hands based on that belief.
She should be fired.
I’m done arguing this with people that don’t understand how federal laws work on the most basic of levels.
Maybe not fired for a first offense. That’s a bit extreme imo.
In a different scenario, what would you think if it was UPS or another private company worker instead of federal?
She could argue it’s self defence technically. As we all know what shitfuckery advertising like that leads to…
She’s probably been delivering the mail for decades. Just not some bigoted advertising.
It’s not my job to pull down Nazi sticker crap or clean it up, but I do.
Yes management should reject that delivery, but she also has a right not to put her family in harm’s way.
Jesus christ, no, she can’t argue that it’s self defense. What is the imminent risk of physical harm to the mail carrier here? Self defense only applies to cases of immediate physical harm, and that’s just not this. At best there’s an argument to be made for very, very indirect harms.
This is every bit as dumb as arguing that someone waving a Nazi flag means that you can self-defense them to death because they’re going to hurt someone eventually.
It’s not my job to pull down Nazi sticker crap or clean it up, but I do.
Good, and you should. But that’s you acting in your personal capacity, not as an agent of the gov’t.
So should a bigoted transphobe mail carrier be allowed to deny mail from a source depicting trans rights as a positive thing?
Does this work both ways?
Or is it only that the law should be broken because you disagree with it. You don’t get to cherry pick federal laws bud. That’s not how it works.
What? The flyers promote the discrimination and criminalisation of a minority group, versus your example which would be promoting minority rights.
Those aren’t comparable.They’re 100% comparable when you understand how federal law works. Learn it- then come back here and we can discuss whether or not a mail carrier has the right to decide what mail you get.
Until then, I don’t think you can carry your side in this discussion.
Well I’m not too well versed on Canadian federal laws as I’m a bit further south. So I looked into discrimination laws in New Brunswick, Canada and found this Human Rights Act
Some parts that could be relevant;
The New Brunswick Human Rights Act is the provincial law that prohibits discrimination and harassment based on 16 protected grounds of discrimination.
The Act prohibits discrimination in the following five areas under the provincial jurisdiction: Employment (includes job ads and interviews, working conditions, and dismissals); Housing (e.g. rent and sale of property); Accommodations, services, and facilities (e.g. hotels, schools, restaurants, government services, libraries, stores, etc.); Publicity; and, Professional, business or trade associations (e.g. Nurses Association of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Teachers’ Association, New Brunswick College of Physicians, etc.).
Publicity includes any publications, displays, notices, signs, symbols, emblems that show discrimination or an intention to discriminate against any person or class of persons
Not a lawyer or expert, but that seems to apply at least superficially. Maybe a bit of a stretch. But it helps that the fliers were full of factually wrong and hateful anti-trans myths. And freedom of speech has limits, even federally.
ETA: However, mail carriers are probably exclusively covered by federal law, and the federal Canadian Human Rights Act
only seems to specify discrimination and not harassment. I do think it’s too much of a stretch to say this would be covered by any federal lawsFinal edit: ok I read more. This is the closest thing I could find from the federal Human Rights Act
12 It is a discriminatory practice to publish or display before the public or to cause to be published or displayed before the public any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that (a) expresses or implies discrimination or an intention to discriminate, or (b) incites or is calculated to incite others to discriminate
If I am misinterpreting it, please let me know. I think it could be used as an argument tho
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then you should resign
People in positions of leadership and power should stand up to fascists. We are heading into a crucial election on November 5th where a christo-fascist movement, known as MAGA, is attempting to overturn our democracy. Anyone in the position to say no to fascists who has the inclination to do so should should stay in that position for the upcoming election and say no to fascists.
ROFL.
You’re on the wrong side of history on this one, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about this. People who would otherwise agree on most things can have disagreements. That’s what is so great about democracy.
Absolutely agree, (on the we can discuss it part, not the wrong side of history part)
Worse people have thrown better mail away for worse reasons.
Relevance?
No matter a person’s job, everyone should reject intolerance. This was a disinformation campaign designed to ban gender affirming care, a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. Such a ban would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. Postal workers should make the strategic decision to defend life and liberty by not spreading such disinformation campaigns.
If you cannot perform the job, don’t apply for the job. If it is going to contain things you disagree with- stay away and get a safer job.
It’s not other people’s problem what someone else can or cannot tolerate.
It has nothing to do with competency. We as a society should reject intolerance. It is very much the fascists problem that we do not tolerate their intolerance. The fascists have broken the social contract of tolerance and thus, in this case, their speech should not be protected by the social contract of tolerance.
