Anti-Smoking Fascists won't hire smokers

[mad cow]

I'm sure that daily fellatio would not be written up into any formal agreement.

Suppose the Employee demands daily fellatio,you got a problem with that?
I don't,so long as it's a voluntary agreement.

 

[Working Poor]

How come you are still alive after 48 years of smoking?

Maybe they forgot to believe what the TV says.

 

[donnay]

Suppose the Employee demands daily fellatio,you got a problem with that?
I don't,so long as it's a voluntary agreement.

What if he told you to stand on your head 10 minutes every hour and then do the hokey-pokey? Seriously, people who think employers have a right to make an employee do whatever they want is ridiculous. With that mentality what makes them any different than a slave owner?

 

[mad cow]

What if he told you to stand on your head 10 minutes every hour and then do the hokey-pokey? Seriously, people who think employers have a right to make an employee do whatever they want is ridiculous. With that mentality what makes them any different than a slave owner?

Then I wouldn't come to terms.
What if somebody you wanted to mow your lawn told you he would do it for $50/hour and if you stand on your head 10 minutes every hour and then do the hokey-pokey?

Would you hire him?In both cases,both parties can demand whatever the hell they want.
Don't like the deal,don't do the deal!

 

[Anti Federalist]

Suppose the Employee demands daily fellatio,you got a problem with that?
I don't,so long as it's a voluntary agreement.

Of course I do...another poster in this thread used the word that best describes this:

Extortion.

 

[mad cow]

Of course I do...another poster in this thread used the word that describes best describes this:

Extortion.

So do you got a problem with sex between consenting adults or just a problem if one side or the other is paying for it?
Do you think sex between consenting adults if one side or the other is paying for it is impossible without extortion?

 

[PRB]

smokers, like homophobes, racists, felons, vegetarians, are not a protected group.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

A voluntary transaction means all parties involved trade voluntarily. If it isn't voluntary by all parties, it is somethimg other than Liberty.

Right!

Free, or unfree; that is the question.

As for me, I choose freedom.

Others clearly will prefer that others be unfree, in order to further one or more of their pet preferences or as an attempt to prevent one or more paranoid fears they possess.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Do tobacco companies fascists ever hire anti-smokers?

 

[Anti Federalist]

So do you got a problem with sex between consenting adults or just a problem if one side or the other is paying for it?
Do you think sex between consenting adults if one side or the other is paying for it is impossible without extortion?

The person being extorted is NOT giving consent.

Whether it is fellatio, a piss test, having the IT deparrtment set up surveillance cameras in the home to monitor for compliance, it is, at least if it was me, done under protest.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Others clearly will prefer that others be unfree, in order to further one or more of their pet preferences or as an attempt to prevent one or more paranoid fears they possess.

That's exactly what the statists told me when I said that the anti - DUI/MADD crackdown in the eighties would eventually lead to roadside checkpoints and breath tests and prison.

Even I was not paranoid enough to imagine that they would start strapping people down and taking their blood by force.

To say that mandatory random blood tests, or 24/7 in home employee surveillance, as conditions of employment, would not be adopted by wide swaths of business and industry is naive and shortsighted.

Even worse, is to fail to recognize that such actions, adopted across the board, are a serious erosion of personal liberty.

Big Business can and will oppress you just as surely as Big Government will.

When the two collude together to oppress the people, it is called fascism.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

I don't believe in corporate slavery any more than any other kind of slavery. I think there may be a missing variable. The correct computation of individual value. If a company wants to say 'no smoking, ever' it should cost them a great deal more in salary because the employees are selling a part of themselves.

If some guy said "I am going to pay you $20,000 a week to stand on your head 5 minutes a day and do the hokey pokey," then I'm probably taking the job, saving up for a year, and then quitting to pursue my dreams.

Employees should be free to voluntarily choose these kinds of sub-tyrannic jobs if they want to, but you will never find me in one. I think the trick to making this kind of thing work is how do you evaluate the right cost for all these 'extra powers' the corps want, and convince everyone to hold out for more money?

I dunno, trying to add categories to the discrimination laws is not the solution. You have individual rights on BOTH sides of this question getting crushed. Maybe JillyJane Barnum never smoked a day in her life and she loves having the freedom to make more money by working for a company who only hires non-smokers.

I am a smoker myself, so it's not like I'm trying to make the world pleasent for myself.

If there were some mechanism in the market to ensure that these workers willingly submitting themselves to tyranny were getting appropriately compensated for that act it might prevent it from overtaking everything on account of it being too expensive. What is the value of a life? 3x a 'normal' salary minimum, I should think. With the liberty to walk away at any time.

I don't actually know the answer, I can only speculate. But I can clearly see the imposition of tyranny and the restriction of liberty on both sides of this debate. I don't want to restrict the liberty of the smokers, but I also do not want to restrict the liberty of Miss JillyJane Barnum to work where SHE pleases, y'know?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

That's exactly what the statists told me when I said that the anti - DUI/MADD crackdown in the eighties would eventually lead to roadside checkpoints and breath tests and prison.

Because one of your fears came true does not mean that all of your fears are realistic.

Your fears of.... well, everything you have posted on this thread -- are unrealistic.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Because one of your fears came true does not mean that all of your fears are realistic.

Your fears of.... well, everything you have posted on this thread -- are unrealistic.

Why?...it's not like it hasn't happened before.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

I'm sure that daily fellatio would not be written up into any formal agreement.

But leaving that aside, let us assume that performance standard is being met.

Everything that I've heard so far has stated, "that means nothing, the employer can pretty much do whatever he wants, regardless of how meaningless, vincdictive, pointless or oppressive."

This prompted a realization. We can all agree that employment is a contract. But the employer-employee contract differs from a contract between two business entities, between a customer and a business, or even for an independent contractor.

In practice, the so-called standard employment "contract" is open-ended on the employer's side. They can, and do, change the terms at any time they want. What kind of contract is that? "Hey, we now require you to give a urine test." When and where was that contract change agreed upon?

 

[Anti Federalist]

seriously AF did you have a really bad experience as a cabin boy or something?

Just wanted to add to this...

You've been here just as long as I have, and in seven years now, I think I have made it pretty clear that I hate,above all things, the petty, vindictive, arbitrary and oppressive wielding of power, simply for power's sake.

10,000 "Dead Dog Shot by Cops" stories don't lie.

We can mumble into our beards all we want about how an employer holds no "power" over you, but we all know that is bullshit.

Yeah, walk away from your job because you refuse to submit to some outrage...and watch the state take your kids because you're now living in your car.

 

[DamianTV]

This prompted a realization. We can all agree that employment is a contract. But the employer-employee contract differs from a contract between two business entities, or even for an independent contractor.

In practice, the so-called standard employment "contract" is open-ended on the employers side. They can, and do, change the terms at any time they want. What kind of contract is that? "Hey, we now require you to give a urine test." When and where was that contract change agreed upon?

Much like the Terms and Conditions of a Credit Card contract. They will state in the contrat that they are permitted to change the contract at any time, but the "cardholder" is never recognized as having the same power. Just like Employment. Just like School. Just like Prison. The people who make the rules do not have to abide by those same rules.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Why?...it's not like it hasn't happened before.

Again showing the importance to our movement of historians. Most of what people believe politically is based not on philosophy, not on economics, but on what they think that "history has taught us."

For example: What happens if you don't go attack some dictator in a foreign country? Well then next year the risk is that once again you won't attack him. And then you don't attack him again. This is appeasement, right? That's what Chamberlain did. And so then before you know it you have another Hitler. This is what "history has taught us." Right?

Revisionist history is extremely important. It can change a person's whole outlook on any number of issues. We need more good historians, and we need to promote and get into better circulation the high-quality historical work that has already been done.

As for this issue, I believe that I would differ with you in regards to most of what you know about labor history, business history, the "robber barons" of late 1800s America, the historical behavior of unions, and other historical topics along those lines. This is because most of what you know about these things are either distorted or completely false, drawn from a very one-sided and self-serving version of history that you were served in the government school camps you attended.

People -- not just you, AF, not just Brian4Liberty and DamianTV, but almost all people -- have a completely unrealistic view as to the power of corporations. This is taught in the schools, and reinforced in nearly all media, literature, and other artistic expression, as well as news, documentaries, popular biographies and histories, and other non-fiction. The Big Corporation is always the villian. Everywhere and always we encounter Evil Lord Business: Mr. Potter, Lex Luthor, Cruella De Vil, Mr. Burns. An actual study was done that showed that if there is a businessman or -woman character in a murder mystery TV show, guess what? Chances are he did it.

This attitude is deep-rooted in our culture. I am not going to excise it from you over an internet forum. I never convince anyone of anything! Even simple things! I accept that. I'm just not very persuasive.

So understand that I respect your thoughts, and that working from the givens you are working with (namely: that Big Business and specifically The Boss is overwhelmingly more powerful than those he associates with; that he is an almost omnipotent Goliath while the employee or the customer is the little guy, the bug under his feet waiting to be squashed at his discretion) your position is not an unreasonable one. It is just that I happen to be working from a different set of givens, a superior set in my view (of course), which leads me to a different conclusion.

My conclusion also has the perk of being beautifully consistent and elegant. Everyone may associate with whomever they want. Period. That is so logical, so seemingly irrefutable, it just makes you want to agree with it, doesn't it?

Regardless, here is my trump card: Government Doesn't Work. Even if you think that there is a problem with employers having too much power, asking their employees to do unreasonable things, making them too close to serfs or slaves for comfort, even if that's what you immovably think, it does not follow that the solution to that is [cue trumpet fanfare]:

More government intervention!

Government does not work. When we use the government to try to solve a problem, usually it just makes that problem even worse! The problem can't get any worse? You'd be surprised! You'd be surprised how bad the employer-employee relationship and power dynamic could get, if the government just puts its mind to it. So let's instead seek voluntary solutions that might actually have at least some small chance of working. Let's leave the government out of it, since trying to use government to solve our problems simply doesn't work.

 

[Anti Federalist]

You honestly think that my view of employer/employee relationships is based on Disney cartoons?

Scrooge McDuck and Cruella Deville?

C'mon, now you're just insulting me.

You honestly believe that, in order to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families, people have not had to work under oppresive and dangerous conditions?

I've had it happen to me, personally, where I was given the choice of being fired or doing something ridiculously unsafe and borderline unlawful. If I had, and something had gone wrong, guess who would have gone to jail...not you, and not some shoreside cocksucker giving the orders...me, that's who.

Some of the very first regulations on business came about in my line of work, specifically in the wake of a series of horrendous steamship explosions, where shoddy maintence and unrealistic schedules, pressured crews into making errors or lead to spectacular and deadly mechanical failure. (See SS Sultana)

Same thing with the railroads...and the coal mines. (That was particularly nasty, whole families murdered by semi-official coal company enforcers, for stepping out of line)

Now, here we are, 150 years later, and living under one of the most oppressive and heavy handed regulatory regimes in history, 100 SWAT raids a day bringing us into compliance, millions of laws that can never be fully complied with and a surveillance state that will surely enslave us all.

All because people could not agree on balance, the respect of individual rights and the individual, and a reasonably safe working environment.

That's what a "fuck 'em all, I'll do whatever I damn well please" attitude towards employees has gotten us.

How much better off we all would be today, had people sat down and negotiated, without government interference, the conditions of employment?

But to say that there was not a problem is to a turn blind eye toward real history.

Again showing the importance to our movement of historians. Most of what people believe politically is based not on philosophy, not on economics, but on what they think that "history has taught us."

For example: What happens if you don't go attack some dictator in a foreign country? Well then next year the risk is that once again you won't attack him. And then you don't attack him again. This is appeasement, right? That's what Chamberlain did. And so then before you know it you have another Hitler. This is what "history has taught us." Right?

Revisionist history is extremely important. It can change a person's whole outlook on any number of issues. We need more good historians, and we need to promote and get into better circulation the high-quality historical work that has already been done.

As for this issue, I believe that I would differ with you in regards to most of what you know about labor history, business history, the "robber barons" of late 1800s America, the historical behavior of unions, and other historical topics along those lines. This is because most of what you know about these things are either distorted or completely false, drawn from a very one-sided and self-serving version of history that you were served in the government school camps you attended.

People -- not just you, AF, not just Brian4Liberty and DamianTV, but almost all people -- have a completely unrealistic view as to the power of corporations. This is taught in the schools, and reinforced in nearly all media, literature, and other artistic expression, as well as news, documentaries, popular biographies and histories, and other non-fiction. The Big Corporation is always the villian. Everywhere and always we encounter Evil Lord Business: Mr. Potter, Lex Luthor, Cruella De Vil, Mr. Burns. An actual study was done that showed that if there is a businessman or -woman character in a murder mystery TV show, guess what? Chances are he did it.

This attitude is deep-rooted in our culture. I am not going to excise it from you over an internet forum. I never convince anyone of anything! Even simple things! I accept that. I'm just not very persuasive.

So understand that I respect your thoughts, and that working from the givens you are working with (namely: that Big Business and specifically The Boss is overwhelmingly more powerful than those he associates with; that he is an almost omnipotent Goliath while the employee or the customer is the little guy, the bug under his feet waiting to be squashed at his discretion) your position is not an unreasonable one. It is just that I happen to be working from a different set of givens, a superior set in my view (of course), which leads me to a different conclusion.

My conclusion also has the perk of being beautifully consistent and elegant. Everyone may associate with whomever they want. Period. That is so logical, so seemingly irrefutable, it just makes you want to agree with it, doesn't it?

Regardless, here is my trump card: Government Doesn't Work. Even if you think that there is a problem with employers having too much power, asking their employees to do unreasonable things, making them too close to serfs or slaves for comfort, even if that's what you immovably think, it does not follow that the solution to that is [cue trumpet fanfare]:

More government intervention!

Government does not work. When we use the government to try to solve a problem, usually it just makes that problem even worse! The problem can't get any worse? You'd be surprised! You'd be surprised how bad the employer-employee relationship and power dynamic could get, if the government just puts its mind to it. So let's instead seek voluntary solutions that might actually have at least some small chance of working. Let's leave the government out of it, since trying to use government to solve our problems simply doesn't work.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Scrooge McDuck and Cruella Deville?

No, I didn't mention Scrooge McDuck, because Scrooge is actually a sympathetic character -- in fact, generally the protagonist. Scrooge McDuck is one of the very rare and refreshing exceptions to the rule, along with Cash McCall and of course all of Ayn Rand's characters.

But no insult was intended at all! I merely named the examples that came to mind, which speaks, I suppose, to my childishness, and does not imply any on your part. The anti-business bias is found throughout all fiction and all non-fiction. From Oliver and The Christmas Carol to Of Mice and Men, (there, are those examples high-brow enough for you?) the anti-capitalist mentality is strong and near-universal.

You honestly believe that, in order to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families, people have not had to work under oppressive and dangerous conditions?

No, actually I honestly do not believe that. Thanks for asking! I'm glad I could clear up that misunderstanding. I can see why you'd think I was wrong, and maybe even crazy, if you that is what you thought I believed!

I've had it happen to me, personally, where I was given the choice of being fired or doing something ridiculously unsafe and borderline unlawful. If I had, and something had gone wrong, guess who would have gone to jail...not you, and not some shoreside cocksucker giving the orders...me, that's who.

Let us be glad that you were man enough to realize that responsibility for your actions lies with you, and no one else, and acted accordingly. Why you would still hold a grudge about it, though, I don't know. You need to take an even more empowered attitude. You run your own life. No one can take that away from you. So they asked you to do a reckless and bad thing. So what? Good for them! They are not the boss of you. No one is.

I could tell you even more detailed stories, about much worse bosses than you've likely ever had. Men with some real problems; "serious issues" as they say. They did some really over-the-top things. Treated people really unbelievably poorly. But you know what? I don't hold anything against them. I worked there with my eyes open. I benefited from the association. I run my life. I take full responsibility for it. The whiny path is the loser's path. Also known as the blame path, the pointing-fingers path, the "he did me wrong" path.

Some of the very first regulations on business came about in my line of work, specifically in the wake of a series of horrendous steamship explosions, where shoddy maintence and unrealistic schedules, pressured crews into making errors or lead to spectacular and deadly mechanical failure. (See SS Sultana)

Same thing with the railroads...and the coal mines. (That was particularly nasty, whole families murdered by semi-official coal company enforcers, for stepping out of line)

That is, indeed, the myth. The extremely deep-seated, hard-to-dislodge, anti-business myth. But a myth it is. If only Paul Harvey were around to tell us in his wonderful way "the rest of the story."