You have the right to free speech

[taterguy]

As long as . . .

You're not dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights.

This has been a public service announcement, without guitars.

[Vickers]

1. I miss Joe Strummer.

:(

[madmax]

2. Yes, but you may have to also 'ask for permission'. nt

[zeemike]

3. Well as long as it is not in your employment contract.

Then all rights are null and void....you see rights have become fungible.

[The_Commonist]

5. Do you have a job, Mike?

Do you actually work for a living?
Do you have an employer?
Do you have the "right" to go into work each morning and tell your employer to go fuck himself, that he's a total twinkie little asshole who's wife is a horse-faced slut who sucked your dick last night while your employer's mother watched? I mean, you have free speech and all, so you should be able to say those things without consequence, right?

Or more realistically... you have free speech... so you should have the "right" to go to your company's competitor across the street and tell them what your sales figures are, how much you pay your suppliers, what the salaries are for the top salespeople and executives, how your company sales training works, and the bank account numbers for where all your company revenues go. Right? I mean, you have free speech! It's in the frikkin' Constitution!! Anything short of having the right to say those things is fascism!!!

Right?

[pipi_k]

6. Amazing, really...

How many people think they have the right to say whatever the hell they want to others they dislike, either individually, or as a group...as long as those others don't hold any REAL power over them. Like....their employers.

Rant and rave at old people in restaurants and stores.

come here and brag about it.

Get kudos and ego strokes.


exercise Free Speech against their bosses?

oops...

Suddenly "principles" don't matter so much anymore.

[BeFree]

7. In Other Words - IOW

Is Mike a slave, or not?

Sure, he has free speech and the government is forbidden from taking action against anyone for telling anyone to blow off.

Yes, when you become a slave to someone so that you can have comforts, you give away to your boss any right of free speech, but it is none of the government's business.

[zeemike]

11. i am self employed.

And there is no comparison to having the freedom to insult your boss and having the right to think and donate to the political party of your choice....none at all
Nor is there any comparison between you giving away company information to a competitor...it is well within THEIR rights to make sure you don't do that....none of these are in your fundamental rights to free speech or freedom of association.
The difference is that if you do the above you are infringing on THEIR rights and if they restrict your political actions they infringe on YOUR rights.

[The_Commonist]

12. Ah! So you are not an absolutist after all...

That's good to know, because there are all kinds of shades of gray.

Nobody put a gun to Keith's head and made him sign that multi-million dollar contract. He did it willingly, probably with some high-paid lawyers going over it with a fine-toothed comb.

And yes, calling your boss an asshole, giving away company secrets and donating to your favorite candidates are comparable, in that if your employment depends upon you not doing any of those things and you sign a contract to that effect and then break that contract, there may be consequences.

I'm not saying that MSNBC is right, or consistent. Only that companies can and do put all sorts of restrictions on their employees behavior. If you take the job, you gotta play by their rules. If you don't like the rules, don't take the job.

You don't have freedom of speech or assembly in the workplace. You can scream about that all you want, and you will still be wrong. The government cannot make laws to curtail those freedoms, but companies can and do. Maybe capitalism needs an overhaul. Until that happens, this is the reality of it...

[ThomCat]

13. You're still assuming that it was in KOs contract that he couldn't

donate money. That hasn't been shown to be true anywhere. In fact, it has been stated in several places online that NBC fixed their policy to get KO. Their policy didn't apply to MSNBC employees until they decided it was a way to get KO, and then suddenly they decided it did, gotcha!

And, wow, people are going along with it and believing it just because a big corporation is saying it's so. If a corporations says it's true then it must be true. There is no need to wait for proof.

[The_Commonist]

14. Well then there is that...

The principle still applies when people scream "free speech" where it isn't relevant.
If Keith's contract didn't say that, and they're just fucking with him, the truth will out.

[zeemike]

15. I don't think you get the point at all.

doing all those things you say harms the contractor and infringes on his freedom....and they are well within their rights to insist that their employees don't do that....and even fired for doing them.
But this is not like that at all....he gave money to a political party...had no effect on his company and posed no harm to them....and making such restrictions on them violates the letter and spirit of the law of free speech.

But you know what?...I don't care why Keith signed that contract or what was in his mind when he did it....and it does not matter....what is wrong is that it is a violation of his rights under our own constitution and putting it in a contract makes if void for those reasons....you cannot sign away your rights guaranteed under the constitution.

But we can agree on this...capitalism does need an overhaul...and there are many that can envision something beyond capitalism or any of the ism's of the past.

[mrcheerful]

4. That started going out the window the year Reagan took office after Nixon

went on record with how dirty hippies ruined his VN war effort. Then there was JR who decided free speech zones needed to be used so those pesky liberals could be kept far away from JR. Btw, I remember the 1968 police riot in Chicago where anti war protesters were arrested and don't forget Kent state were protesters and innocent by standers were gunned down while expressing free speech. Yet that didn't stop anyone from exercising there free speech rights. The right has a long history of attacking free speech unless it is used for right wing causes.

[taterguy]

8. It started long before Nixon. Ask Eugene Debs.

[mrcheerful]

9. Yeah but I saw the Nixon years as well as Lenny Bruce and others who were

censored then jailed for demanding free speech. Then there was the pro union organizers of the 1930's, Woody Guthrie comes to mind and he got beat up a few times for exercising free speech.

[taterguy]

10. Woody made the mistake of speaking out down South

Hilarity did not ensue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ffn1uflbs