Phinn: DeaH: Why would you trust all businesses more than your government?

No one trusts all businesses.  People trust some businesses more than others, and different people put a different value on their level of trust when dealing with various companies.  Anyone can choose to stop doing business with any business for any reason.  There are alternatives.

Governments, by definition, permit no such choice.  They claim a monopoly as the arbiter of the use of force as to the entire landmass within its declared borders, as though they are the owner of every square inch of it all, and some types of authority (esp. as to money) over any person they deem to be a US citizen wherever he might go.

Forcing other people to accept the employment of drug users is wrong.  Freedom of association is a basic human right.

Phinn: vygramul: Phinn: DeaH: Why would you trust all businesses more than your government?

No one trusts all businesses.  People trust some businesses more than others, and different people put a different value on their level of trust when dealing with various companies.  Anyone can choose to stop doing business with any business for any reason.  There are alternatives.

Governments, by definition, permit no such choice.  They claim a monopoly as the arbiter of the use of force as to the entire landmass within its declared borders, as though they are the owner of every square inch of it all, and some types of authority (esp. as to money) over any person they deem to be a US citizen wherever he might go.

Forcing other people to accept the employment of drug users is wrong.  Freedom of association is a basic human right.

So a company can, as part of its employment, require you surrender certain rights?

If they can force you not to do drugs, can they force you not to vote Republican? (Enforced by having you fill out absentee ballots in front of them.) After all, freedom of association is a basic human right, and they don't want any Republicans around.

Do you know how I know you've never worked at a Hollywood studio?

Phinn: vygramul: Phinn: vygramul: Phinn: DeaH: Why would you trust all businesses more than your government?

No one trusts all businesses.  People trust some businesses more than others, and different people put a different value on their level of trust when dealing with various companies.  Anyone can choose to stop doing business with any business for any reason.  There are alternatives.

Governments, by definition, permit no such choice.  They claim a monopoly as the arbiter of the use of force as to the entire landmass within its declared borders, as though they are the owner of every square inch of it all, and some types of authority (esp. as to money) over any person they deem to be a US citizen wherever he might go.

Forcing other people to accept the employment of drug users is wrong.  Freedom of association is a basic human right.

So a company can, as part of its employment, require you surrender certain rights?

If they can force you not to do drugs, can they force you not to vote Republican? (Enforced by having you fill out absentee ballots in front of them.) After all, freedom of association is a basic human right, and they don't want any Republicans around.

Do you know how I know you've never worked at a Hollywood studio?

You mean like Clint Eastwood?

And Reagan! Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Wow, you all have certainly proven that all of Hollywood's corporate power structure is equally welcoming and enthusiastic about hiring non-Leftists.

Has it occurred to the Fark Brain Trust that these anecdotal counter-examples are memorable and noteworthy precisely because Hollywood is overwhelmingly Leftist?

Phinn: vygramul: Phinn: vygramul: Phinn: vygramul: Phinn: DeaH: Why would you trust all businesses more than your government?

No one trusts all businesses.  People trust some businesses more than others, and different people put a different value on their level of trust when dealing with various companies.  Anyone can choose to stop doing business with any business for any reason.  There are alternatives.

Governments, by definition, permit no such choice.  They claim a monopoly as the arbiter of the use of force as to the entire landmass within its declared borders, as though they are the owner of every square inch of it all, and some types of authority (esp. as to money) over any person they deem to be a US citizen wherever he might go.

Forcing other people to accept the employment of drug users is wrong.  Freedom of association is a basic human right.

So a company can, as part of its employment, require you surrender certain rights?

If they can force you not to do drugs, can they force you not to vote Republican? (Enforced by having you fill out absentee ballots in front of them.) After all, freedom of association is a basic human right, and they don't want any Republicans around.

Do you know how I know you've never worked at a Hollywood studio?

You mean like Clint Eastwood?

And Reagan! Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Wow, you all have certainly proven that all of Hollywood's corporate power structure is equally welcoming and enthusiastic about hiring non-Leftists.

Has it occurred to the Fark Brain Trust that these anecdotal counter-examples are memorable and noteworthy precisely because Hollywood is overwhelmingly Leftist?

Except you're changing the subject. Answer the question: should a company be able to force its employees to vote a certain way?

You're also committing another fallacy. I asked if a corporation should be able to FORCE its employees to vote a certain way, NOT be able to EXCLUDE Republicans. Just like drug users have to stop or be fired, can a Re ...

Phinn: vygramul: Almost none. But that's not the question. The question is whether they should be able to, and if not, why they can do that with other rights.

I'm not sure what you're saying, since the way you phrase this is unclear.  As I understand it, your question is: Should an employer be allowed to force an employee to vote a certain way lest the employment be terminated?

My best answer is this: I can't answer your question because it's nonsense.

It's a nonsense question because refusing to employ (or continue to employ) someone, who is employed at will, by the mutually-voluntary agreement of both parties, is not force.  No one can be rightfully compelled to associate with any other person, or be prohibited from associating with someone on a mutually-voluntary basis, especially as to an economic trade between them.  Adult relationships are voluntary.

When you, or your agents acting on your behalf (whom you call "the government"), attack someone for exercising his right of free association, then you are the one using force.  You have no rightful power to say what other people are allowed to do, or not to do, when they are acting within their rights and not attacking anyone or stealing anything, under the purported penalty of your retaliation.  Since you do not have that power, then you cannot delegate that power to someone else to do it for you.

Not even the Hollywood studios, the major publishers, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, the New York Times or CNN are in any way obligated to hire anyone they don't want to hire, for any reason, apart from the explicit contractual promises they make to their employees.

Phinn: What kind of Cartoon Imagination World do you live in where employers, who are not subject to laws against political discrimination (and therefore have no reason to hide their political expectations), would routinely go to the trouble of hiring employees who disagree with the company politically, only to "spring" this voting demand on them after they're hired?

You've never hired anyone for anything, have you? Never tun a business with more than 5 employees, right?

It's actually expensive and wasteful to hire people you don't want or plan to keep around. And what would motivate employers to do this, in this cartoon-world of yours where employers look for ways to mind-fark their employees? So they can get their jollies? Do you honestly see this Secret Surprise Drug Test being a common practice?

Phinn: Companies began drug testing employees because of government -- before government destroyed the right of free association, an employer could decide on his own if an employee was too erratic, unreliable or unproductive to continue the relationship.

With the advent of governmental intrusion on employment privacy, employers were "penalized" (i.e., attacked by the State) if they terminated someone "wrongfully." They had to use objective scientific testing in order to defend themselves against lawsuits and EEOC attacks.

The other governmental threat came from personal injury law -- drug-using employees cause more industrial and traffic accidents. Government courts do not allow employers or executives of companies to evade the costs of the harms caused by their rogue underlings. (Obama, as the chief executive of the federal bureaucracy, however, accepts none of the responsibility of "rogue underlings" that private employers are forced by government to accept.)

If Soros wants to eliminate the valuable employees in a newly bought company, that's his stupidity to deal with. His more-rational competitors will out-compete him.

The only meaning of "force" that I am using is the one the government uses when it defines its criminal law. It means violence or the threat of future violence.

You have no right to use force to compel someone to employ, or to continue to employ, or to conduct any other kind of business with you, against his will. Likewise, you have no right to force someone to work for you. (We call that "slavery.") That is an act of aggressive violence, no matter how much you try to sanitize it.