[Chrysostom]

Hmm, I don't think you're getting to my own point, so let me spell it out first before you read my responses.

The word "allow" presumes that the government is already in control of everything and we citizens must ask for permission in order to do anything. Obviously this is an absurd suggestion when we're talking about consumer selection; that someone should not choose to purchase a hybrid because he is bigoted against truck drivers does not imply that the government force him not to do so.

But regulation can do good. As I mentioned, it starts to look like a good option in cases where a class has zero power. But modest use is best. The more robust way of fleshing it out -- the one I'm attacking -- looks like this: Each person is separated into "public" and "private" characteristics. Those that count as "public" are the guidelines which a company is "allowed" to use in hiring and firing; those that count as "private" are impermissible. This latter paradigm maps out everything in timeless totality, aiming at a centralized system; the former deals with the present context in the hope of engendering future possibilities.

In the case of the present thread's topic, "moral conduct" would be considered "private" and therefore impermissible in decisions of hiring and firing.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

But we are not discussing buying power. We are discussing employment.

Segregation and women's suffrage were your examples. Yes, they were not about employment, but I didn't mind talking about them. It would probably be better to drop them at this point.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

So women made terrible accountants and managers and researchers... until the law prevented sexual discrimination in hiring. Now all the successful companies have many women working for them.

So did women suddenly become skilled, or did companies survive just fine while discriminating against 50% of the population?

Obviously women were not worthless 100 years ago while today they are capable of being accountants or whatever. But that was a much broader cultural issue than employer discrimination -- most women didn't even want to get PhDs and MBAs to get the jobs you're talking about, so there weren't enough women qualified to be research scientists or whatever to be discriminated against. (My grandmother and a great aunt were basically junior accountants, by the way; they lacked the credentials to be accountants but they weren't discriminated against according to their abilities.)

In this respect, you're somewhat right to say that women did suddenly become skilled, not from lack of talent but lack of training and, to a lesser extent, desire. But the big change was the cultural shift in the self-understanding of women.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

I'm flaberghasted that your defense of unregulated discrimination is that illegal workers are exploited!

I hardly regard the employment of illegal immigrants as exploitation. I know many illegals who have risked much to help their family members immigrate illegally as well. Why? Because they were being offered opportunities, not exploited. Racism, stigma, and even government regulation have never been particularly effective at stopping this. And so I've seen it look like this dozens of times: You risk it all to become a roofer or dishwasher or whatever. Your children are legal citizens and get better jobs at a trade or even college. And soon enough, someone whose great-grandfather was discriminated against is now the boss. (Notice that there is a time component in there: You can't always get all the change you want right now. It can take time. The power of legislation is to make that change happen faster. When it's modest, it can push past entrenched obstacles that take way too much time. When it overreaches, it hurts future possibilities. It's just like borrowing money.)

Originally Posted by JerryLove

So the ADA and ERA are complete failures and society has not benifeted from them?!?

Regulations like the ERA and ADA can do considerable good for the reason that they combat the concentration of power against certain classes of workers. I said that at the beginning, and not just of this post. But it's best to be modest with them because such regulation can be circumvented and can, at other times, be a noose around your neck. I know a good number of small business owners in town and this is coming straight from their experience: Figure out the right lies to tell to be able to avoid hiring this guy because once he's hired you'll never be able to fire him because he's got protection. I can't tell you what happens from the balance sheets of a Fortune 50 company in this regard, because I know smaller folks (like myself) who find those inefficiencies in big corporate policy and government regulation and perform arbitrage. I would imagine, though, that the scale makes it much easier to cope with the regulation, as bigger corporations are normally more capable of dealing with regulation thanks to scale.

The point is not, NO regulation. The point is, not ALL regulation.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

I've been at least high enough in the totem pole to have direct reports in Citigroup, IBM, EDS, GM, Humana, and Budget. I've had discussions with vp-level at three of those (executives at two) and at least directors at all. I've also been aquainted with the executive-level operation of PlasmaTherm (now bought out, but a >$100m company).

What you are saying has zero relationship to my experience in fortune 50 companies, nor almost anywhere in business.

Where are you getting your position from? Please tell me it's something more than speculation or economic ideology.

It's what I do for a living, and the same as many of my friends. Broadly speaking, you find a problem that is a big money-sink, solve it, and profit off of your solution. (At least in theory, this is why a big corporation would employ consultants.) In my own case, I'm intimately aware of the foolishness of big corporations and government regulation alike, which again I take to go hand in hand, not primarily against each other. I've seen far too many terribly designed financial instruments turn against those who purchase them, and I've taken the other side of the trade. (Resources are in the hands of those who make worse decisions, but transfer into my hands if my judgment was better.) I've seen overreaching government regulations help create all sorts of craziness in stock markets, and I've taken the other side of the trade. (I'll smooth out the problems caused by regulatory over-reaching just as readily as the problems caused by corporate error.) Unfortunately I can't think of any examples from my entrepreneurial friends' businesses that I could make public, but they do similar things: Find big inefficiencies created by the bad judgment of corporate culture or government regulation, close the gap, profit.

I studied all kinds of balance sheets and came away very impressed with JPMorgan over against many other big banks; I really do think that if you hadn't had all the bailouts -- and even then, if JPM hadn't bought out WaMu -- that JPM would be crushing it today, and a bunch of smaller banks would have gained a bunch of market share. In that case, bad corporate cultures were reinforced by government intervention, precisely because the government had set out guidelines that these banks with huge real problems happened to meet (big corporations and big government go hand in hand, again). Even still, I was very impressed with the credit culture at most of the big depositary institutions, and I think that if they hadn't mixed up depositary banking culture with investment banking culture they would have done a lot better. (Again, the failures of corporations and government regulation go hand in hand: Congress allowed the merging of regulatory and investment banking, and Congress encouraged cross-pollination for the social good of getting mortgages for marginalized classes. Regulatory over-reaching did not work out well there, hand in hand with corporate failure.)

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by Chrysostom

Hmm, I don't think you're getting to my own point, so let me spell it out first before you read my responses.

The word "allow" presumes that the government is already in control of everything and we citizens must ask for permission in order to do anything. Obviously this is an absurd suggestion when we're talking about consumer selection; that someone should not choose to purchase a hybrid because he is bigoted against truck drivers does not imply that the government force him not to do so.

Emphasis added.

I would remind you that we are not discussing consumers: but rather employers.

But regulation can do good. As I mentioned, it starts to look like a good option in cases where a class has zero power. But modest use is best. The more robust way of fleshing it out -- the one I'm attacking -- looks like this: Each person is separated into "public" and "private" characteristics. Those that count as "public" are the guidelines which a company is "allowed" to use in hiring and firing; those that count as "private" are impermissible. This latter paradigm maps out everything in timeless totality, aiming at a centralized system; the former deals with the present context in the hope of engendering future possibilities.

In the case of the present thread's topic, "moral conduct" would be considered "private" and therefore impermissible in decisions of hiring and firing.

I worry then that you may be hacking at a straw man (I look forward to reading your response to my voting example: as I'm responding to this as I read (poor memory sometimes)). I don't think (perhaps Bryan excepted) that anyone has attempted to define what would and would not be allowed; nor how bright-line nor universal, nor rigidly-defended a standard might be.

Segregation and women's suffrage were your examples. Yes, they were not about employment, but I didn't mind talking about them. It would probably be better to drop them at this point.

The ERA directly addressed employment. There was significant discrimination in hiring against both groups for much of history.

As I read your previous comments: you believe that market forces would make companies which practiced discrimination which was not, in the end, tied to performance loose to other companies which would certainly appear without such discrimination.

Yet here we are with centuries of excluding the majority of the population by gender or race and no such events occurring. It seems pretty damning of your presumption.

Obviously women were not worthless 100 years ago while today they are capable of being accountants or whatever. But that was a much broader cultural issue than employer discrimination -- most women didn't even want to get PhDs and MBAs to get the jobs you're talking about, so there weren't enough women qualified to be research scientists or whatever to be discriminated against. (My grandmother and a great aunt were basically junior accountants, by the way; they lacked the credentials to be accountants but they weren't discriminated against according to their abilities.)

So then your argument fails if the discrimination employers practice is consistent with culture?!? Again: that seems to make my case for me.

In this respect, you're somewhat right to say that women did suddenly become skilled, not from lack of talent but lack of training and, to a lesser extent, desire. But the big change was the cultural shift in the self-understanding of women.

You really believe that? There was not a single woman in 200 years of American history with both the desire and the "ability to do the job" of, say, corporate CEO, military general, president?

I'm sorry. That just seems very dissonant with history as I understand it (and indeed human nature). Certainly there may be *more* women now who, because it's a viable course, express an interest: but you posit an almost complete lack.

I have to wonder where you think the women marching for suffrage came from, or the minorities fighting and dying for equal protection if not from desire?

I hardly regard the employment of illegal immigrants as exploitation. I know many illegals who have risked much to help their family members immigrate illegally as well. Why? Because they were being offered opportunities, not exploited.

You don't call taking advantage of someone's illegal status to pay them in illegally low wage under often regulation-defying poor working conditions "exploiting"?

I'm sorry John: but this thread seems rife with examples that tell me you and I have very different views of the world: if not also the English language.

Racism, stigma, and even government regulation have never been particularly effective at stopping this. And so I've seen it look like this dozens of times: You risk it all to become a roofer or dishwasher or whatever. Your children are legal citizens and get better jobs at a trade or even college.

Oh? How many black men were in GA universities in 1800 (centuries after black men were moved to the US)? Are you sure it's never been particularly effective?

And soon enough, someone whose great-grandfather was discriminated against is now the boss. (Notice that there is a time component in there: You can't always get all the change you want right now. It can take time. The power of legislation is to make that change happen faster. When it's modest, it can push past entrenched obstacles that take way too much time. When it overreaches, it hurts future possibilities. It's just like borrowing money.)

I see 300 years of America without regulation and no women, or black people, in power in the South. Then I see a war, and 150 years of reform, and a very different picture.

It's almost like the 150-years of changing laws had something to do with it.

Regulations like the ERA and ADA can do considerable good for the reason that they combat the concentration of power against certain classes of workers. I said that at the beginning, and not just of this post.

But you've adamantly opposed.

Aren't even smaller classes even more powerless?!?

But it's best to be modest with them because such regulation can be circumvented and can, at other times, be a noose around your neck. I know a good number of small business owners in town and this is coming straight from their experience: Figure out the right lies to tell to be able to avoid hiring this guy because once he's hired you'll never be able to fire him because he's got protection.

My family owned a restaurant in Key West for more than 50 years. I've personally fired people. I've never run into any difficulty like you infer.

My wife was fired last week (mind you: he'll be paying unemployment while she gets a new job because it was without cause). She has none of these alluded to protections.

The point is not, NO regulation. The point is, not ALL regulation.

To be blunt "well, duh!". Who said "all regulation" (and what does that even mean?).

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Chrysostom

I'm saying that's not enforceable. Putting in a limitation like this is just a restriction against those who can't hide their reasons well, not against unjust firings generally. Or put it another way -- should you be unable to lose your job just because of status or race or class or gender or hobbies or whatever? Because the stricter the policies against "discriminatory firing," the more you wind up with this result -- inability to fire someone (or even reject their job application) just because they are considered prime targets for discrimination.

i seriously doubt that someone would run into being unable to fire someone because they are in a protected class. If they aren't doing their job to standards then it would be easy to prove. And just because it is not enforceable doesn't mean we shouldn't have the law. Just having the law/regulation would prevent many people from doing it. We may not be able to catch those that violate it, but if it results in fewer cases of firing people for stupid reasons, then good.

[tlj009]

So you believe a society where a percentage of the population is unemployable because of teenage indescresions is a good thing? Well, we disagree there.

BTW: You don't mind if I find every embarrasing story and picture that I or a private detective can get of you (the bribes to high-school buddies should be fun), and then we put them all up on face-book, and then start pointing your empoyers to them?

And while we are at it, your kids teachers, your church members, etc? After all, you did do them... and you don't mind consequences. Are you sure no one at the party had a camera?

Perhaps there are some interesting opinions from you here on CGR that your current boss might find objectionable? Over 3,000 posts is a lot of potential gold.

It seems that the discussion has moved on a good bit, but if you can find anything please let me know. I will be very surprised and would very much like to know about it.

[Chrysostom]

Originally Posted by Bryan

i seriously doubt that someone would run into being unable to fire someone because they are in a protected class. If they aren't doing their job to standards then it would be easy to prove.

Two off the top of my head.

I always helped my wife grade tests -- math tests, since they don't require the judgment calls an elementary teacher makes, and since I enjoyed it. One year I started noticing huge problems with the tests. I'm talking about incomplete sentences that prevent the problem from making sense, errors throughout the answer key, and questions that are either insoluble or require very complex math to solve. It was difficult but I talked to Kelly about it, thinking that she was responsible for the tests. She said that the tests were all written by the grade level's math teacher. (This was Kelly's first year at this school, which is why things changed all of a sudden.) I said, they need to fire her, and I talked to the principal about it. She said they had already tried to fire the teacher but were sued for discrimination and had to re-hire her.

When I was in high school my father started bringing home work that he would type up on the computer, hours after he would normally have been finished. Why? His new administrative assistant was terrible, so he had to do things himself. I asked, Why don't you just fire her? Discrimination lawsuit. Oh.

I've also worked with/for employers who did outright discriminate against black employees, but they were clever enough to hide it well.

Or put it another way: A problem plaguing smaller school districts in TX is elevator compliance from the ADA. If you want to build a second story, you must have an elevator, even if you have a tiny school that's never had a child in a wheelchair and if you did you could just put him in a classroom on the first floor. If you want to build a stadium, you must have an elevator to the press box, even if only five people ever set foot up there and certainly not students. For a big school this can be an annoyance but is no so significant. For a small school, what happens?

So the lesson isn't, the government should never interfere in business practices. The lesson is, government regulation is a huge bomb that produces lots of collateral damage, so use it sparingly.

Originally Posted by Bryan

And just because it is not enforceable doesn't mean we shouldn't have the law. Just having the law/regulation would prevent many people from doing it. We may not be able to catch those that violate it, but if it results in fewer cases of firing people for stupid reasons, then good.

I agree, it doesn't mean the law definitely must not be there. Sometimes the law can work wonders, and in fact I'm glad that the law is there when it's operating well. But the response from my perspective is -- and this is why I took this angle in that first post -- if there is such a big problem with the judgment of one corporate culture, that's a big opportunity! Let's go arbitrage it! Asking the government to take care of things isn't so much on my radar when there's big money staring us in the face.

Here I guess the solution would be, go start a school staffed with a bunch of teacher who prowl Craigslist looking for casual sex. If they are really as good and trustworthy as all other teachers, the results will show it.

It's just like charity -- why do you think that those who are most vocal about government works for the poor give near-zero to the poor? Because when we get so focused on government intervention we miss the opportunities right under our noses. The government will do what it will do, and if we need an atomic bomb then it's time to talk to the government. But otherwise, I'm already too occupied with the opportunities standing in front of me.

[Chrysostom]

Originally Posted by JerryLove

Emphasis added.

I would remind you that we are not discussing consumers: but rather employers.

Right, I do see that. The reason I bring it up is basically this: Insofar as you can make the distinction, I think you'll be forced into one of two positions (and of course I could be wrong about that, but we'll see if you do answer). One, shore up the consumer/producer dichotomy alongside the private/public dichotomy. In this case, I suspect the workaround is contractors -- a further specialization of labor -- but that's just a suspicion. Two, give up the more robust dichotomies and therefore lose the self-evidence of that word "allow" when we talk about employers.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

I worry then that you may be hacking at a straw man (I look forward to reading your response to my voting example: as I'm responding to this as I read (poor memory sometimes)). I don't think (perhaps Bryan excepted) that anyone has attempted to define what would and would not be allowed; nor how bright-line nor universal, nor rigidly-defended a standard might be.

Right, so Bryan laid things out in terms of public vs. private, and that's the obvious place to go, though maybe not where you want to go. Personally I think it's a bit dubious to divide our lives into private and public, but that's just a guy who's not working for the weekend. (My attempt at a joke?) You haven't laid things out, so I've been trying to get you to put out some sort of apparatus like this that will give you the self-evidence of the word "allow." In the mean-time, I'm completely focused on the central example of this thread: Firing a teacher for soliciting casual sex through Craigslist.

With respect to that, I'll throw my hand on the table: My own conception of education is "moral" formation from first to last, so while I'm a fan of teaching math and literature and whatever, I think some sort of moral standards are just self-evidently necessary for good teachers. Obviously, this is not the conception of education prevalent in the contemporary US system. The guiding questions there are, (a) how can America maintain power and (b) how can this child make more money as an adult. That's not a gap I'm trying to bridge in this thread. But you can probably see that insofar as the government sets out guidelines as to what an entity can do, the government is defining that entity's identity. If schools can't make any moral requirements of their teachers, then schools must not be about moral formation. If schools can only judge based on standardized test scores, then the purpose of schools is to download the right data into children's heads, data selected specifically to encourage technological development. So the guidelines define the entity and do not allow that entity to think of itself in another way -- innovation is always guided top-down, never organic and bottom-up.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

The ERA directly addressed employment. There was significant discrimination in hiring against both groups for much of history.

Okay, I got confused based on the specific words then. Women's suffrage I was distinguishing from discrimination against women more generally, similarly with segregation. Since I was focused on, say, the right to vote, I didn't see how employers were the primary thing there. But now I get you.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

As I read your previous comments: you believe that market forces would make companies which practiced discrimination which was not, in the end, tied to performance loose to other companies which would certainly appear without such discrimination.

Yet here we are with centuries of excluding the majority of the population by gender or race and no such events occurring. It seems pretty damning of your presumption.

That's a bit more grand than where I'm trying to go. Maybe I could summarize with two main points:

1. Forget government, forget a perfectly tuned market machine. Those are big systems that bill themselves as big-picture puppet masters -- a bit bigger than me. What *I* can do -- and notice the question here is what I'm going to do, not what I think is good public policy, which are two entirely different questions -- is identify a huge opportunity staring me in the face and take it! It's not that I trust market forces to take care of everything, and it's not that I think government can't do anything -- it's that I am not the market or the government, but I can do what's right in front of me. And then, beyond that, I want people to be empowered and free to do the same in their own lives, especially my friends who are entrepreneurs. When the "little guy" abdicates his space, government and big chains can step right in there.

2. Government works like a big club. When you swing it, you get big things done, but anything in the way gets hurt, too. So, for instance, when there is a gigantic concentration of power against one group, it may well be worth government intervention to break that. This is why I said, a class with no capital can't exercise much power against big systemic obstacles. But once the big side effects of government intervention are realized, you don't want the government in control of everything. (I don't want "the market" in control of everything either, FWIW.) That is, whenever you start thinking in terms of "allow" -- where the government "allows" business practices and all others are restricted or banned -- government controls and defines all business in theory, and that means you swing the government's big club around everywhere, knocking over more stuff than it's worth.

Another example: Answers In Genesis readers are almost completely unrepresented in science departments. Should the government "allow" this? Presumably the answer is "yes," because Answers In Genesis is just downright bad science. Now, should the government "allow" schools to fire teachers for being white? If "no" then we've defined being white as irrelevant to being a good teacher. Take it a step further: Can moral character be allowed as a guideline? If the government is the one that makes the choice, then the government is the arbiter of what the institution is, what it is for. The government has determined what is good science and what is a good teacher. If one local institution thinks science or teaching can be something different from that, they had better prepare to suffer lawsuits for their innovation.

So the point is, insofar as we think in terms of government "allowing" this or that, the government is in theory defining everything out there.

Here's a case where I'm glad the government regulations were not enforced. In my hometown a white superintendent of schools would have created so much social unrest that even white elites were happy when all the top candidates were black. Local judgment that favored (functional) racial discrimination for employment decisions was in this case much more wise than a federal law.

That doesn't mean that there definitely shouldn't be laws. It just means, when you put laws into place, be ready for some collateral damage, not least because they will have no sensitivity for local contours.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

So then your argument fails if the discrimination employers practice is consistent with culture?!? Again: that seems to make my case for me.

No, the point is, government regulation of employment discrimination would just be a drop in the bucket at that time. (It was not a drop in the bucket later, after more cultural shifts.)

Originally Posted by JerryLove

You really believe that? There was not a single woman in 200 years of American history with both the desire and the "ability to do the job" of, say, corporate CEO, military general, president?

I'm sorry. That just seems very dissonant with history as I understand it (and indeed human nature). Certainly there may be *more* women now who, because it's a viable course, express an interest: but you posit an almost complete lack.

I have to wonder where you think the women marching for suffrage came from, or the minorities fighting and dying for equal protection if not from desire?

I think we're getting our wires crossed. I would distinguish "ability to do the job" not only from desire but also talent. I have no doubt that there were women 100 years ago who had the talent and even desire to be accountants or whatever. Like I said, exhibits A and B are in my family tree. Indeed, to go a step further, long before the ERA there were female lawyers, doctors, chemists, dentists, mayors, and so on in the US -- they had not only the talent and desire but the training and experience to be fully capable.

But it's also fair to say that just because you have the desire and talent doesn't mean you're necessary capable of doing the job at that time, and more importantly that you can prove that you're a safe bet. Here you mention some special cases, which can cause problems. A military general would need combat experience to move beyond desire and talent to capability, and women did not have that experience, so it is quite possible that there just weren't any American women in the 1800s who were more capable of being generals than the male generals we had, regardless of desire or talent. But this is a very unique case, so don't generalize from what I say here about generals to what I could say about accountants.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

You don't call taking advantage of someone's illegal status to pay them in illegally low wage under often regulation-defying poor working conditions "exploiting"?

I'm sorry John: but this thread seems rife with examples that tell me you and I have very different views of the world: if not also the English language.

I don't know, is it exploiting my cousin to pay him to work in environments where the death rate is high? I would say no, because not only is he not forced into it but he is seeking out the work. (He loves the excitement, and hazard pay is nice.) And my judgment is the same with many illegal immigrants: No doubt some are exploited, but not those I have seen, because not only is there no coercion but they seek out these jobs for themselves and their family members. That's not to say that my friend Girardo's favorite thing in the world was washing dishes with me. That's just to say, he was ecstatic to have the opportunity and the money. Was it exploitation for a US company to offer my friend Ali three times was he was making before for easier work? He was ecstatic when he told me about the new job, even though he was still making less than a US minimum wage. (He doesn't live in the US, if this was not clear.) I'm not ready to call something exploitation if somebody is excited about it, and remains excited years into the job.

When I think exploitation, I think of either tricks or oppressive working conditions, I don't think gratitude and excitement. What do you think of that makes this categorically exploitation?

Originally Posted by JerryLove

Oh? How many black men were in GA universities in 1800 (centuries after black men were moved to the US)? Are you sure it's never been particularly effective?

Back to the different views of the English language. The pronoun referred to what came before it: Stigma etc. were never particularly effective at stopping the employment of cheap labor, not at stopping further advancement. If you want examples from the 1800s there are a lot. E.g., the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1800s: Employers kept hiring Chinese immigrants despite the stigma and government regulation against it. (So, government regulation can create exclusion and marginalization just as easily as it can fight it, in the same way that "the market" can do good just as readily as it can do bad. I don't see a reason to privilege market or government over the other.) A powerful enough stigma can certainly prevent laborers from advancing any further into trades, education, etc. -- hence the lack of black men in 19th cent GA universities. (To be fair, though, it's not like abolition came straight out of government intervention. A combination of decades of living side-by-side with blacks and the advent of the Industral Revolution certainly had something to do with it, before government intervention. Of course, that doesn't mean that government intervention is inert, just that it's not everything.)

Originally Posted by JerryLove

I see 300 years of America without regulation and no women, or black people, in power in the South. Then I see a war, and 150 years of reform, and a very different picture.

It's almost like the 150-years of changing laws had something to do with it.

Right, so, government intervention is most effective for those with zero power -- that is, when you need to swing around a big club. Just like I said.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

But you've adamantly opposed.

Aren't even smaller classes even more powerless?!?

At the very beginning I wrote, "Of course, you can't have the means of production too centralized for this to work..." I have adamantly opposed the word "allow," not the possibility of the big stick.

Originally Posted by JerryLove

My family owned a restaurant in Key West for more than 50 years. I've personally fired people. I've never run into any difficulty like you infer.

My wife was fired last week (mind you: he'll be paying unemployment while she gets a new job because it was without cause). She has none of these alluded to protections.

I didn't know you got married. Congratulations! And, back on topic, apparently she's got too much integrity to file a petty lawsuit. Good for her. (FWIW, I've never seen anyone have trouble firing a woman, either; it was always racism. But that may just be my own location.)

Originally Posted by JerryLove

To be blunt "well, duh!". Who said "all regulation" (and what does that even mean?).

Probably at this point you already know what I'm going to say, but it's all in that word "allow."

[JerryLove]

John,

I'm gonna pick-and-choose a bit here: because (and I think this is mostly the fault of my own posting style) the amount of text sections is overwhelming. Let me know if I've accidentally glossed over something important or which answers something I ask / assert.

Despite the verbosity of what we already have: I want to address something you put to another poster:

She said that the tests were all written by the grade level's math teacher. (This was Kelly's first year at this school, which is why things changed all of a sudden.) I said, they need to fire her, and I talked to the principal about it. She said they had already tried to fire the teacher but were sued for discrimination and had to re-hire her.

Based on some of your other comments: I assume this was a "because she was black" suit.

Assuming for the sake of argument that being black had nothing to do with her being fired: This would seem to be support that the details of anti-discrimination civil laws need to be tweaked: not that the entire principle of them is flawed.

Or put it another way: A problem plaguing smaller school districts in TX is elevator compliance from the ADA. If you want to build a second story, you must have an elevator, even if you have a tiny school that's never had a child in a wheelchair and if you did you could just put him in a classroom on the first floor.

We agree completely. I've voiced a very similar complaint.

It's one thing to say that we must make reasonable accommodation; it's another to force specific methods of accommodation. (again though: this is a bad specific more than proof of a bad idea)

One, shore up the consumer/producer dichotomy alongside the private/public dichotomy. In this case, I suspect the workaround is contractors -- a further specialization of labor -- but that's just a suspicion. Two, give up the more robust dichotomies and therefore lose the self-evidence of that word "allow" when we talk about employers.

I just think that, in the end, principles must live side-by-side with realism. If GM doesn't hire red-haired employees: that will be visible. If you personally never go to the check-out-line with redheads; we'll never notice.

There are numerous examples of where standards go only so far up or down specifically because of the burden of compliance or enforcement (employers report all income to the IRS, but lottery locations only report winnings over a certain dollar figure). I think the same is true here... and I think the consumer arena is much muddier than the employment arena.

Right, so Bryan laid things out in terms of public vs. private, and that's the obvious place to go, though maybe not where you want to go. Personally I think it's a bit dubious to divide our lives into private and public, but that's just a guy who's not working for the weekend. (My attempt at a joke?) You haven't laid things out, so I've been trying to get you to put out some sort of apparatus like this that will give you the self-evidence of the word "allow." In the mean-time, I'm completely focused on the central example of this thread: Firing a teacher for soliciting casual sex through Craigslist.

Problem is: I don't entirely know where I fall on this particular case (in-so-far as either the reasonableness nor the desired legality).

I do know that there are clear cases where I would side with the employer (firing a spokesman for going on TV and calling your product junk).

I do know that there are clear cases where I would side with the employee (say: voting record)

I do know there are cases where "it depends" (not hiring men for your accounting job = bad. Not hiring men for dancer at your strip-club = fine).

So I think "some regulation" without having fully determined which and how.

Another example: Answers In Genesis readers are almost completely unrepresented in science departments. Should the government "allow" this? Presumably the answer is "yes," because Answers In Genesis is just downright bad science.

But I don't think science departments should fire someone for reading Answers In Genesis. I don't think discovering that you read it should constitute grounds nor cause to fire someone. I certainly would not (presuming that the person in question was putting out good work).

But no: I don't advocate quadriplegic fire-fighters.

That doesn't mean that there definitely shouldn't be laws. It just means, when you put laws into place, be ready for some collateral damage, not least because they will have no sensitivity for local contours.

I agree that there's a balance.

Hrm. tired. Let me know if something later was really important to something I responded to.