"What message does the company taking a position send to its employees who have strongly-held beliefs on the opposite side of the issue?"
It's a double-edged sword. The bill would prevent employers from enforcing anti-gay standards on their employees. Those against the bill aren't against having employers force their opinions on their employees, they just don't want to be the employees given the proverbial shaft (even though the bill's passage would be far less harmfull to heterosexual workers than the current situation is to homosexual workers). They're working against a bill that would empower an employee to challenge their employer by... challenging their own employer?
Just because those beliefs are "strongly-held" and happen to be in the numerical majority doesn't make it right, and this argument is simply a poor, hand-waving attempt to justify their actions, their attempt to use the power of the majority to trample the rights of the individual for no other reason than because it is in their favor.
After all, without this bill's passage, Microsoft would be within their rights to fire all their heterosexual employees for no other reason than because of their sexuality. But the homophobes against the bill don't care about this aspect because their majority status gives them an advantage, an advantage they'd lose with the passage of this bill.
"I think that it's healthy for corporations to set a tone for it's workers that focus on cultivating a work environment focused on productivity and cooperation."
... by continuing to allow them to fire employees for reasons that have nothing to do with either productivity or cooperation? Riiiiight...
"He explains that Microsoft wanted to focus on fewer legislations and that the anti-discrimination bill was one of the bills that they didn't have the resources to follow."
I am truly afraid to ask which ones are getting more focus. UberDMCA? USA PATRIOT 2?
"He goes on to explain how though he personally supports the bill, a lot of employees and shareholders don't."
You mean the share-holders weren't aware of MSFT's hiring practices before they purchased the stock? Their problem, not his. Heck, a lot of stock holders are probably in favor of MSFT skirting around anti-trust laws, but that doesn't make it right.
And as for the opinion of his employees, they're hypocrites if they feel that way. The bill is about preventing employers from doing whatever they want for any reason, feelings of the employees be damned. If they were against the bill and, therefore, truly in favor of employers being able to walk all over their employees for any reason, then they don't have a moral leg to stand on trying to dictate the practices of their employer.
"Finally, he raises the question on whether corporations should get involved in social issues."
Intellectual property laws aren't a social issue? I'd say there are more people downloading MP3s in the world than there are homosexuals, closeted or otherwise.
Yes, because we apparently owe it to the species to be productive little cogs in the greater machine that is society.
I envy the "stupid" because nobody ever expects or demands anything out of them. They're never berated about how they're not meeting their potential or have responsibilities hoisted upon them that they just don't want. They don't have to water down their resume to ensure they don't get stuck with some high-pressure, supervisory position they don't want. They don't have to put up with the incessant feelings of failure for not meeting what is expected of them (though, of course, if those feelings were true, they'd have an incentive stop being so lazy, right?).
Thanks to the fact that I'm not afforded an excuse, I'm stuck with a family I feel I must distance myself from in order to avoid both their and my feelings of shame for not ammounting to anything, I have old friends I don't talk to any more because of the difficulty in trying to find common ground when you're the only one without a college degree and a "real job," and workmates I hold at arms length, lest they learn more about me and try to promote me.
Golly gee, it's so easy to be smart and lazy. God damn it, I'd fucking trade a limb to be "stupid!"
No no, let's give Microsoft some credit here. "It just works" is actually a modification of the line their tech support folks give when asked why a certain bug^H^H^H"feature" happens and behaves the way it does:
"Anyone who's watched their broadcasts probably has noticed their tendencies to focus on the East and West Coasts even when the middle of the country is receiving severe weather."
TWC is paid for by commercials. Most people live on one of the coasts. Advertisers want their commercials to be viewed by the most people. TWC aims for where the most people live. It's called "following the buck" and is one of the reasons I'm not all that keen on relying solely on private industry to produce weather forecasts.
... just as soon as they build their own space launch facilities.
If I'm not allowed to see the benefits of what my tax dollars are paying for, than neither should they. That means no more access to NOAA satellites and no more help paying for Kennedy Space Center and the heavy-lift rockets they need for their geosynchronus launches.
I'm feeling generous, I'll let taxpayer-funded NORAD tell them if and when Something Bad is about to happen to their satellites, but beyond that...
Without my money going to NOAA, these for-pay services would still be stuck with nothing but ground-based radar, to the point where I doubt they'd even spring to pay for off-shore buoys (where'd the profit be?). And that means things like not being able to see hurricanes until it's too late.
They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways, but I'm sure they'll get it anyway. Thanks, Congress!
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. The majority of the people in this country voted for a born-again president and a majority of born-again folks in the House of Representatives. The Senate, while perhaps not as democratic as the other chamber of Congress and the White House, are all still elected directly by the people.
It might be nice to pin this all on "The Man," but "The Man" was put there by the people, including you and everybody around you. This is the nature of democracy, just ask anybody from Aristotle to Tocqueville.
"what the hell does a software company have to do with promoting gay rights?"
Simple: businesses own politicians, or at least effective lobbyists. Without somebody paying a lobbyist to push in an equal and opposite direction, the only people the politicians are hearing now are the born-agains and their lobbyists.
Give it a few weeks. In a country where the majorities in 11 states enacted constitutional amendments aimed against them, I figure it's only a matter of time until a truly democratic process does exactly what you're talking about.
"Nothing that goes on in China is out of Beijing's control."
Sorry to get all foil-hat on you, but that's what they want you to think. There are 1.2 billion people living in China and only so many of them are members of the Beloved Party, let alone the People's Liberation Army. Beijing rules more by intimidation than by true force of arms. The system works by both coming down hard on small, select groups while keeping the majority happy enough to keep from being a threat. There's nothing Beijing can really do against a series of generally popular protests distributed throughout the country.
The crackdown in Tiananmen Square didn't happen because the PLA is that powerful, but because the student's were short-sighted enough to stay gathered in a single, easy-to-surround target (namely Tiananmen Square).
"Once you do that, its not TOO much more difficult to see why the Chinese would/are doing such things."
Except this has gotten out of Beijing's control. Protesting is one thing, but rioting is something completely different and not something the Beloved Party would want anything to do with right now. They're in enough trouble with their recent legislation against Taiwan that they don't need to be damaging relations with Japan quite to this degree right now.
"only making the link because the game is Japanese."
In case you haven't noticed, that's pretty much how the rioters have been operating. They've been trashing Japanese cars, reguardless of who's driving them, and attacking Japanese factories, reguardless of who's working in them. You're trying to apply logic to mob mentality, and it just doesn't work that way.
"Nintendo has the most to gain by releasing a console based on Linux."
WTF? If I wanted to play games on something with an operating system, I'd be playing on my PC.
What would be the point in putting Linux on the console? Increase overhead in order to lessen the performance of the games? Remember how many games used WinCE on the Dreamcast?
"The federal constitution only trumps in areas where it allows itself to. This is not one of those areas"
The original poster pointed out that the freedom of speech is involved (something you didn't really bother trying to refute). The First Amendment denies the national legislature the ability to regulate speech. The Fourteenth Amendment passed the very same restrictions onto the state legislatures. Article VI specifically states that the national constitution trumps anything the state governments may do. And the text of the Texas Constitution even consents to this preemption. If the State of Texas is using this to discriminate between "types of speech," then it is a violation of the Constitution of the United States, whether you want it to be or not.
"The US constitution is not relevant here. State issue. Stay out."
US Constitution, Article VI, Section 2:
This Constitution (...) shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
US Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States(.)
Texas Constitution, Article 1, Section 1:
Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States(.)
The issue of states' rights has been passed around in Washington and used whenever it was politically expedient by all sides. Little reguard has been given the concept in and of itself, and it has only been brought up as a means to an end, by both Republicans and Democrats trying to protect some favored state law from federal preemption.
Baseless claims like yours, aside from being obviously wrong to anybody who's even so much as glanced at either constitution, ultimately serve to harm the cause of states' rights by making all of its proponents look like fools or even hyprocites. If you're in favor of decency laws, you should at least have the nerve to aruge for them on their own merits and not try to hide behind something else.
So... you don't think those sites should at least get permission from the victim's next of kin?
It's OK to be up in arms when the government violates your privacy by publishing video they recorded of you, but you shouldn't feel the same way when someone else does the same thing, especially when it involves using your death for their own gain?
Or does the fact that these executions are suppoed to be anti-American make everything better?
As I pointed out in my shameless plug, if Article I, Section 8 is seen as taking power away from the states at the same time it gives it to Congress, what's the point in having Section 10?
Also, the exact same language is used in the Sixteenth Amendment. How does that not prevent states from enacting their own income taxes?
Slashdot Mirror
"Rednecks in Alabama finally decide to stop fighting over who makes a better truck, Ford or Chevrolet."
Um... Dodge.
Never underestimate the power of the diesel!
"Stairs have not been a problem for Daleks since 1988,"
I've heard it said that real Daleks don't climb stairs, they level the building.
It's a double-edged sword. The bill would prevent employers from enforcing anti-gay standards on their employees. Those against the bill aren't against having employers force their opinions on their employees, they just don't want to be the employees given the proverbial shaft (even though the bill's passage would be far less harmfull to heterosexual workers than the current situation is to homosexual workers). They're working against a bill that would empower an employee to challenge their employer by... challenging their own employer?
Just because those beliefs are "strongly-held" and happen to be in the numerical majority doesn't make it right, and this argument is simply a poor, hand-waving attempt to justify their actions, their attempt to use the power of the majority to trample the rights of the individual for no other reason than because it is in their favor.
After all, without this bill's passage, Microsoft would be within their rights to fire all their heterosexual employees for no other reason than because of their sexuality. But the homophobes against the bill don't care about this aspect because their majority status gives them an advantage, an advantage they'd lose with the passage of this bill.
"I think that it's healthy for corporations to set a tone for it's workers that focus on cultivating a work environment focused on productivity and cooperation."
... by continuing to allow them to fire employees for reasons that have nothing to do with either productivity or cooperation? Riiiiight...
"The worst people should be fired, regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation."
Unless they're card-carrying union members.
"He explains that Microsoft wanted to focus on fewer legislations and that the anti-discrimination bill was one of the bills that they didn't have the resources to follow."
I am truly afraid to ask which ones are getting more focus. UberDMCA? USA PATRIOT 2?
"He goes on to explain how though he personally supports the bill, a lot of employees and shareholders don't."
You mean the share-holders weren't aware of MSFT's hiring practices before they purchased the stock? Their problem, not his. Heck, a lot of stock holders are probably in favor of MSFT skirting around anti-trust laws, but that doesn't make it right.
And as for the opinion of his employees, they're hypocrites if they feel that way. The bill is about preventing employers from doing whatever they want for any reason, feelings of the employees be damned. If they were against the bill and, therefore, truly in favor of employers being able to walk all over their employees for any reason, then they don't have a moral leg to stand on trying to dictate the practices of their employer.
"Finally, he raises the question on whether corporations should get involved in social issues."
Intellectual property laws aren't a social issue? I'd say there are more people downloading MP3s in the world than there are homosexuals, closeted or otherwise.
Yes, because we apparently owe it to the species to be productive little cogs in the greater machine that is society.
I envy the "stupid" because nobody ever expects or demands anything out of them. They're never berated about how they're not meeting their potential or have responsibilities hoisted upon them that they just don't want. They don't have to water down their resume to ensure they don't get stuck with some high-pressure, supervisory position they don't want. They don't have to put up with the incessant feelings of failure for not meeting what is expected of them (though, of course, if those feelings were true, they'd have an incentive stop being so lazy, right?).
Thanks to the fact that I'm not afforded an excuse, I'm stuck with a family I feel I must distance myself from in order to avoid both their and my feelings of shame for not ammounting to anything, I have old friends I don't talk to any more because of the difficulty in trying to find common ground when you're the only one without a college degree and a "real job," and workmates I hold at arms length, lest they learn more about me and try to promote me.
Golly gee, it's so easy to be smart and lazy. God damn it, I'd fucking trade a limb to be "stupid!"
No no, let's give Microsoft some credit here. "It just works" is actually a modification of the line their tech support folks give when asked why a certain bug^H^H^H"feature" happens and behaves the way it does:
It just does.
To quote the professor in that particular episode, "Take that, causality!"
"Anyone who's watched their broadcasts probably has noticed their tendencies to focus on the East and West Coasts even when the middle of the country is receiving severe weather."
TWC is paid for by commercials. Most people live on one of the coasts. Advertisers want their commercials to be viewed by the most people. TWC aims for where the most people live. It's called "following the buck" and is one of the reasons I'm not all that keen on relying solely on private industry to produce weather forecasts.
"we here at NOAA provide many other products and services that have nothing to do with the National Weather Service."
Yeah, like the National Hurricane Center!
... just as soon as they build their own space launch facilities.
If I'm not allowed to see the benefits of what my tax dollars are paying for, than neither should they. That means no more access to NOAA satellites and no more help paying for Kennedy Space Center and the heavy-lift rockets they need for their geosynchronus launches.
I'm feeling generous, I'll let taxpayer-funded NORAD tell them if and when Something Bad is about to happen to their satellites, but beyond that...
Without my money going to NOAA, these for-pay services would still be stuck with nothing but ground-based radar, to the point where I doubt they'd even spring to pay for off-shore buoys (where'd the profit be?). And that means things like not being able to see hurricanes until it's too late.
They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways, but I'm sure they'll get it anyway. Thanks, Congress!
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. The majority of the people in this country voted for a born-again president and a majority of born-again folks in the House of Representatives. The Senate, while perhaps not as democratic as the other chamber of Congress and the White House, are all still elected directly by the people.
It might be nice to pin this all on "The Man," but "The Man" was put there by the people, including you and everybody around you. This is the nature of democracy, just ask anybody from Aristotle to Tocqueville.
</BITTER CYNICISM>
"what the hell does a software company have to do with promoting gay rights?"
Simple: businesses own politicians, or at least effective lobbyists. Without somebody paying a lobbyist to push in an equal and opposite direction, the only people the politicians are hearing now are the born-agains and their lobbyists.
"Atleast people are allowed to be gay in USA."
Give it a few weeks. In a country where the majorities in 11 states enacted constitutional amendments aimed against them, I figure it's only a matter of time until a truly democratic process does exactly what you're talking about.
"Why not do actual piracy on the high seas? There's more liquor and women that way."
In fact, forget the piracy!
"Nothing that goes on in China is out of Beijing's control."
Sorry to get all foil-hat on you, but that's what they want you to think. There are 1.2 billion people living in China and only so many of them are members of the Beloved Party, let alone the People's Liberation Army. Beijing rules more by intimidation than by true force of arms. The system works by both coming down hard on small, select groups while keeping the majority happy enough to keep from being a threat. There's nothing Beijing can really do against a series of generally popular protests distributed throughout the country.
The crackdown in Tiananmen Square didn't happen because the PLA is that powerful, but because the student's were short-sighted enough to stay gathered in a single, easy-to-surround target (namely Tiananmen Square).
"Once you do that, its not TOO much more difficult to see why the Chinese would/are doing such things."
Except this has gotten out of Beijing's control. Protesting is one thing, but rioting is something completely different and not something the Beloved Party would want anything to do with right now. They're in enough trouble with their recent legislation against Taiwan that they don't need to be damaging relations with Japan quite to this degree right now.
"only making the link because the game is Japanese."
In case you haven't noticed, that's pretty much how the rioters have been operating. They've been trashing Japanese cars, reguardless of who's driving them, and attacking Japanese factories, reguardless of who's working in them. You're trying to apply logic to mob mentality, and it just doesn't work that way.
"Nintendo has the most to gain by releasing a console based on Linux."
WTF? If I wanted to play games on something with an operating system, I'd be playing on my PC.
What would be the point in putting Linux on the console? Increase overhead in order to lessen the performance of the games? Remember how many games used WinCE on the Dreamcast?
"EB has a strong and well-developed program in customer service and sales training"
"We won't give you the DS you pre-ordered unless you also buy our protection plan" counts as 'well-developed customer service program?'
I'm sorry, but may they both burn in hell.
"The federal constitution only trumps in areas where it allows itself to. This is not one of those areas"
The original poster pointed out that the freedom of speech is involved (something you didn't really bother trying to refute). The First Amendment denies the national legislature the ability to regulate speech. The Fourteenth Amendment passed the very same restrictions onto the state legislatures. Article VI specifically states that the national constitution trumps anything the state governments may do. And the text of the Texas Constitution even consents to this preemption. If the State of Texas is using this to discriminate between "types of speech," then it is a violation of the Constitution of the United States, whether you want it to be or not.
Does the Texas State House have the same filters on the internet connections in their members' offices?
US Constitution, Article VI, Section 2:US Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1:Texas Constitution, Article 1, Section 1:The issue of states' rights has been passed around in Washington and used whenever it was politically expedient by all sides. Little reguard has been given the concept in and of itself, and it has only been brought up as a means to an end, by both Republicans and Democrats trying to protect some favored state law from federal preemption.
Baseless claims like yours, aside from being obviously wrong to anybody who's even so much as glanced at either constitution, ultimately serve to harm the cause of states' rights by making all of its proponents look like fools or even hyprocites. If you're in favor of decency laws, you should at least have the nerve to aruge for them on their own merits and not try to hide behind something else.
So... you don't think those sites should at least get permission from the victim's next of kin?
It's OK to be up in arms when the government violates your privacy by publishing video they recorded of you, but you shouldn't feel the same way when someone else does the same thing, especially when it involves using your death for their own gain?
Or does the fact that these executions are suppoed to be anti-American make everything better?
As I pointed out in my shameless plug, if Article I, Section 8 is seen as taking power away from the states at the same time it gives it to Congress, what's the point in having Section 10?
Also, the exact same language is used in the Sixteenth Amendment. How does that not prevent states from enacting their own income taxes?