The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgiving

[bronconick]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Yeah, my buddy works at Social Security, so he's not allowed to get political on social media or anything. Kim Davis sure as **** shouldn't be allowed either

 

[joecct]

Yeah, my buddy works at Social Security, so he's not allowed to get political on social media or anything. Kim Davis sure as **** shouldn't be allowed either

1st Amendment? Or is the prohibition only while at work?

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

You don't seem to understand that certain places make you waive your rights.

Flying requires you to waive your right to be searched. Just like when you act as a representative of the government in a nonpartisan position, you give up some of your first amendment rights.

 

[unofan]

1st Amendment? Or is the prohibition only while at work?

I've applied for public sector jobs where you can't publicly take any political stance or donate money to any campaign; you can vote and you can caucus with one of the parties and that's it.

You waive certain rights when they conflict with essential job functions. If the job requires you to do X or not do Y, you either suck it up or don't take the job.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Yeah, my buddy works at Social Security, so he's not allowed to get political on social media or anything. Kim Davis sure as **** shouldn't be allowed either

1st Amendment? Or is the prohibition only while at work?

You don't seem to understand that certain places make you waive your rights.

Flying requires you to waive your right to be searched. Just like when you act as a representative of the government in a nonpartisan position, you give up some of your first amendment rights.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, or don't understand the debate you guys are having, but I think the prohibitions on political activities that you or some of your friends in public sector jobs are talking about aren't so much "waivers" of your first amendment rights, or the like, but in fact stem from either state or federal laws intended to help you, your friends or other employees in the public sector.

Going back to the old "Tammany Hall" days, and probably before, it was pretty common for politicians in power to condition public employment jobs on "contributions" to their campaigns, or in exchange for "get out the vote" efforts done at the barrel of a gun. Congress passed the Hatch Act, and many states followed suit, placing limits on political activity for those with public employment jobs to protect employees from these strong arm tactics.

To any of your friends who complain about this "waiver" of their rights, you should tell them to be thankful. The alternative ain't pretty.

 

[unofan]

Maybe I'm wrong about this, or don't understand the debate you guys are having, but I think the prohibitions on political activities that you or some of your friends in public sector jobs are talking about aren't so much "waivers" of your first amendment rights, or the like, but in fact stem from either state or federal laws intended to help you, your friends or other employees in the public sector.

Going back to the old "Tammany Hall" days, and probably before, it was pretty common for politicians in power to condition public employment jobs on "contributions" to their campaigns, or in exchange for "get out the vote" efforts done at the barrel of a gun. Congress passed the Hatch Act, and many states followed suit, placing limits on political activity for those with public employment jobs to protect employees from these strong arm tactics.

To any of your friends who complain about this "waiver" of their rights, you should tell them to be thankful. The alternative ain't pretty.

The point we're making is they can be waived, and it's no different than waiving your right to your religion or right to conscientiously object on the job.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Let let me see if I can rephrase and make sure we're on the same page:

You're arguing Kim Davis doesn't lose her right to be a conscientious objector simply by virtue of her position as an elected official. If her moral code conflicts with her job duties, she doesn't resign, and the system isn't setup to fire her (at least in any reasonable speed), then that's the system's fault and not her concern, and she has no moral obligation to mitigate or avoid the situation in the interim.

I disagree. I believe being a public servant requires people to give up certain rights. At the bottom, civil servants give up privacy rights, and some give up political rights (some positions are nonpartisan and prohibit partisan activity). At the top are soldiers, who basically sign their whole lives away. Somewhere in the middle are elected officials. I think people lose their right to object to the duties of their job so long as said employment is itself voluntary. So a draftee can conscientiously object, since he's coerced. The army accommodates that by assigning him to non combat roles. A volunteer cannot, since he signed up willingly. I don't see how the fact that the military can court martial him for doing so makes the initial objection morally ok when he placed himself in that situation in the first place.

I guess I'm trying to see if there's any situation where you think a person ever loses the right to be a conscientious objector.

I'd also ask if you think Wallace standing in front of the school doors was an act of conscientious objection. Or if President Obama actually pulled any of the stunts flaggy and his ilk accuse him of doing, but said he was obligated to do so by his moral code, would that also be kosher because the system, in theory, could impeach him?

I'm not blowing this off, BTW. I'm still thinking it through. I thought my initial distinction between individual ethical choices and socially-constructed concepts like rights covered this, but you're very smart so if it didn't then I'm being unclear.

I'll try it this way: my point here is that there is a difference between what we can insist upon from a "man in the world," and what a person can choose to do as a "man in himself." Rights and liberties and laws are all political constructs for the social realm. They're important because they bound what we can expect of our fellow beings and what we can rightfully coerce them to do and still be a good society. They are, broadly, the "social contract."

But rights, liberties and laws are only useful data for the personal ethical conscience. They're good things to take into account, but they're in no way causal of personal conscientious behavior. At most they're a landscape that the conscience has to operates in -- at the extreme, their codification creates the "brute facts" that link our actions with consequences on us (mostly through social prohibitions). All of that is useful information, but it doesn't speak to what I'm trying to get at.

I'll take your conscientious objector hypothetical. I probably agree with you that a volunteer can be rightly cashiered by the military tribunal for claiming conscientious objector status (this seems to me to be a matter of the contract he signed with the army -- I'm only 98% sure because some part of me wants to allow for the fact that the soldier's attitudes could evolve over time but I don't want to press that since it's not relevant to what we're talking about). What I'm saying is a soldier can make an ethical stand that he's a conscientious objector, knowing full well that he's going to be hauled into court and found to be in the wrong vis a vis the law. The difference here is between law and, for lack of a better word, "right." Rights, liberties, and law are cute and all, and they govern how we reward/punish each other socially, but they have nothing to do with "right" from the perspective of an individual.

Which is a long winded way of saying what I said before, so I'm not sure I'm adding any more information for you. Orval Faubus is engaging in an act of personal conscience by calling in the AK guard to block the integration of Little Rock schools. From the perspective of rights, law and government, he's doing everything wrong and is vulnerable to all the punishments the state can saddle him with. And, of course, he's also a big fat bigoted jerk. But neither of the latter two conditions speak to the former. The same is true for Davis.

BTW, I haven't heard anything about her this week. I assume licenses are being granted. How did they work it out, or is she back in the slammer?

 

[LynahFan]

The point we're making is they can be waived, and it's no different than waiving your right to your religion or right to conscientiously object on the job.

I'm not sure how one could waive his right to religion. What does that even mean?

I think about it similarly to the 5th amendment right not to testify during your trial. That right is absolute and inviolable, but if you freely choose to testify, then you have completely waived that right. You don't get to pick and choose which questions to answer. Same thing for Kim Davis. She has the right to choose which marriages to participate in or endorse - right up until she freely chooses to become a county clerk. At that point, that right is completely waived, and she must perform her complete duties under the law. She doesn't get to pick and choose marriages any more than a defendant gets to pick and choose questions.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

The point we're making is they can be waived, and it's no different than waiving your right to your religion or right to conscientiously object on the job.

So I assume this universal waiver of a right to object that public employees grant as part and parcel to holding a public position applies equally to public school teachers assigned the obligation to recite the pledge or grant a moment of silence at the beginning of a school day, refuse to salute the flag as part of the pledge, or refuse to teach creationism as part of their high school science classes?

I disagree with you. I do think they have a right to object. I do believe that if a public employee is told to do something that they think is nonsense, they can say so and refuse to do it.

Now, that said, I think their refusal to do as instructed can and should be considered part of whether they retain their position, or, in the case of the military, are punished in accordance with refusals to follow orders. But I don't believe anyone is compelled to blind disobedience.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Why in the world would a school teacher necessarily have to give up the same rights as a clerk (or a firefighter or Secretary of State)?

Here's a hint on where to draw the line: if SCOTUS tells you to do it, it's not nonsense.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Why in the world would a school teacher necessarily have to give up the same rights as a clerk (or a firefighter or Secretary of State)?

Here's a hint on where to draw the line: if SCOTUS tells you to do it, it's not nonsense.

I'm just replying to unofan's post which suggests that when you take a public sector job, which a teacher certainly is, that "if the job requires you to do X, or not do Y, you either suck it up or you don't take the job."

I've applied for public sector jobs where you can't publicly take any political stance or donate money to any campaign; you can vote and you can caucus with one of the parties and that's it.

You waive certain rights when they conflict with essential job functions. If the job requires you to do X or not do Y, you either suck it up or don't take the job.

Just curious if that mandate applied to all public sector jobs, regardless of whether the objection falls on the right or the left. As I noted, I don't think you give up your objection rights.

As I posted before with respect to Davis, my view is that if she doesn't want to issue the licenses on a religious basis, have her assistant do it. But if I'm her employer, I keep her refusal in mind in terms of her job retention.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

As I posted before with respect to Davis, my view is that if she doesn't want to issue the licenses on a religious basis, have her assistant do it. But if I'm her employer, I keep her refusal in mind in terms of her job retention.

I think the problem here is that her employer is the people of her county, and they may think she's the bee's knee's for doing this.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

I think the problem here is that her employer is the people of her county, and they may think she's the bee's knee's for doing this.

Maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure. First, it's one of the few counties in Kentucky that had some blue in it the last election. I think there may be a small college there or something.

Second, most people get sick of low grade public officials like this one grandstanding, and not doing their job, or complaining about their job.

My first reaction upon hearing the story was the same as yours, given it's Kentucky. But now I'm not so sure.

 

[LynahFan]

I'm just replying to unofan's post which suggests that when you take a public sector job, which a teacher certainly is, that "if the job requires you to do X, or not do Y, you either suck it up or you don't take the job."

Yes, but you're doing so disingenuously, by implying that we can't ask this one government employee to give up this one right without asking all government employees to give up all rights, which is nonsense.

Each government employee should either suck up the Xs and Ys appropriate for his position or not take the job. Very simple.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure. First, it's one of the few counties in Kentucky that had some blue in it the last election. I think there may be a small college there or something.

Second, most people get sick of low grade public officials like this one grandstanding, and not doing their job, or complaining about their job.

My first reaction upon hearing the story was the same as yours, given it's Kentucky. But now I'm not so sure.

Even if they love her God fearin' ways, as soon as the county starts accruing fines she's going to lose whatever popularity she's got. Hopefully there's already a class action coming their way.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Yes, but you're doing so disingenuously, by implying that we can't ask this one government employee to give up this one right without asking all government employees to give up all rights, which is nonsense.

Each government employee should either suck up the Xs and Ys appropriate for his position or not take the job. Very simple.

I'm not asking anyone to give up anything.

First it was unofan, and now you who take the position that a public/government employee either has to do what is required of their job or not take it. In other words, there is no right to raise a "conscientious" objection as a public/government employee. Do your job and don't ask questions.

I just wanted to know if the same held true for teachers. Teachers have been told to teach, or participate in, a lot of nonsense over the years, and some of them have very bravely stood up and said no. Just curious if the posters on this board feel the same way about them as they do about Davis.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

I'm not asking anyone to give up anything.

First it was unofan, and now you who take the position that a public/government employee either has to do what is required of their job or not take it. In other words, there is no right to raise a "conscientious" objection as a public/government employee. Do your job and don't ask questions.

I just wanted to know if the same held true for teachers. Teachers have been told to teach, or participate in, a lot of nonsense over the years, and some of them have very bravely stood up and said no. Just curious if the posters on this board feel the same way about them as they do about Davis.

I know I do.

Conscientious objection is explicitly allowed for in DoD policy (“A firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” DOD 1300.6), so that's a terrible analogy. Unless there's some sort of similar "out" clause written into the job requirements for county clerks and teachers, then they should quit or do their (entire) jobs. If they are found not to be doing their jobs, then their supervisors should fire them where that is applicable and there should be some sort of provision for removing elected officials who refuse as well.

Turning down a potential job due to your beliefs is a moral stand. Voluntarily quitting a job due to your beliefs is a moral stand. Keeping a job and then petulantly refusing to perform some of the required duties just makes you an run-of-the-mill putz - there is nothing moral about that.

 

[unofan]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

I'm not sure how one could waive his right to religion. What does that even mean?

I think about it similarly to the 5th amendment right not to testify during your trial. That right is absolute and inviolable, but if you freely choose to testify, then you have completely waived that right. You don't get to pick and choose which questions to answer. Same thing for Kim Davis. She has the right to choose which marriages to participate in or endorse - right up until she freely chooses to become a county clerk. At that point, that right is completely waived, and she must perform her complete duties under the law. She doesn't get to pick and choose marriages any more than a defendant gets to pick and choose questions.

I said it inartfully (yay for texting from a cell phone in a hotel room). But you can waive your right to exercise your religion by your job choice. An NFL player will have to play on Sundays, for instance, even if his religion otherwise prohibits working on the Sabbath. He can choose his religion or his job, but no judge in the world is going to say the NFL will have to accommodate that aspect of his religion.

 

[unofan]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

So I assume this universal waiver of a right to object that public employees grant as part and parcel to holding a public position applies equally to public school teachers assigned the obligation to recite the pledge or grant a moment of silence at the beginning of a school day, refuse to salute the flag as part of the pledge, or refuse to teach creationism as part of their high school science classes?

I disagree with you. I do think they have a right to object. I do believe that if a public employee is told to do something that they think is nonsense, they can say so and refuse to do it.

Now, that said, I think their refusal to do as instructed can and should be considered part of whether they retain their position, or, in the case of the military, are punished in accordance with refusals to follow orders. But I don't believe anyone is compelled to blind disobedience.

As I said before, there's a sliding scale. Not all public employees give up all rights; most simply give up some privacy in so much as their salaries and e-mails are/can be made public. Elected officials give up more by virtue of their position and oaths of office.

Again, Kim Davis' oath may not explicitly say she pledged to uphold the Constitution, but I believe most people would likely agree that's an implied condition upon all elected officials. She is specifically going against the Constitution. I think a key point is that it's not debatable at this point - SCOTUS specifically ruled on this issue. It's not like she can claim it's a grey area.

Public school teachers don't take oaths, to the best of my knowledge. So they're more in line with your librarian than the mayor or a soldier.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS VIII - I am certiorari we'll be arguing until Thanksgivin

Reciting the pledge isn't a job requirement.