It’s one of those moral quandaries.

Let me get this straight. You are spouting McCarthyism and Ruslan is the one who’s out of date? Oh, my mortal salts, but that one is rich!

In that case, Aron, we’ll just have to shun, scorn, flame and bully you until you capitulate. Besides, if you agree with Dan Z it will only irritate him.

I knew that there were some ignorant people in this world, but someone nearly 40 years out of date takes the cake.

According to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, Section 703 (f), it is indeed LEGAL to deny people jobs or remove them from their jobs for associating with the Communist Party or Communist-associated groups.

You want to try again, skippy?

If you’ll give my posts another glance, you’ll see I am on your side :)

(A least to an extent).

Link please.

This is a lovely idea or ideal but it would be far better manifested in practice. That is not the case with all who take this oath. Some believe that they have the right to exert their hate agenda despite their employment positions and exploit their positions to push their own personal hate agendas. It is these individuals that need to be weeded out.

Yes the racist affiliations are a matter of importance here in America and his access to that information is a worry towards national security.

Here on Earth Racism is more than just a word.

Let me respond to various people as shortly as possible:

“Those in public sector jobs are especially restricted (if not legally than socially, because the public can and does excercise its right of free expression too). The issue appears to be where those limits are drawn, and in this case I agree it is a fuzzy one.”

The restrictions on government employees are not fuzzy. They are contained in the Hatch Act which prohibits certain political activities. There really isn’t much grey area. Note that this guy hasn’t been accused of violating the Hatch Act.

Thus you cannot invoke a nebulous ‘higher standard’ for DoD employees. It’s not nebulous. If he has violated the Hatch Act, I won’t support him. But if he has not then he has every right of expression and association the same as every other citizen. Is this controversial?

“No Dan I do not agree that a Federdal government employee has the right to go around espousing Neo Nazism or White Supremacy.”

He hasn’t been accused of that. The only substantive claim about this guy is that he is VP of a local Republican club. The other claims are vague ‘associations’. We do not know that he approves of (or even knows of) the views of all the people he is being linked to.

” what you need to further understand is that if this was a Muslim with associations to radical groups he would be out of that position so fast.”

I think you will find that there is a single standard for all persons without regard to race, religion, etc. The standard is “membership in a group dedicated to the violent overthrow of the US government.” There different ways of phrasing it, but this is the fundamental standard.

“someone working in a defense research lab should not be involved with organizations that seek to secede from or overthrow the US government.”

No one has accused the guy of that.

” If we, the citizen paymasters, cannot be confident that he will not deploy weaponized Clostridium bacteria at the intersections of major cities, for example, then we have a right to demand inquiry into his fitness for the position.”

Yes, but in my last post, I pointed out that this has already been done (if we are correct that this guy is a federal employee with a ‘high’ clearance). The standards for a National Security position are not a joke. No drug use. No criminal record beyond a rare speeding ticket. No financial problems. No serious mental health problems.

What I like to say is “Everyone I work with is an upright citizen, and can prove it.”

“Since you have claimed to mirror this guy’s lifestyle”

I said I was in a similar position. That is, I’m a DoD civilian in the R&D community. As many people here know (not Reynardine) I am far left rather than far right.

I’m so far left that I will defend the rights even of people I disagree with.

DAnZ

@ Dan Z

I’m an Army civilian. The motto of the U.S. Army is “This We’ll Defend.” As a Civil Servant, you aren’t your garden variety civilian. You took an Oath and pledged your loyalty to defend this country and it’s citizens equally, regardless of whatever views or opinions against certain citizens you may hold.

Since you have claimed to mirror this guy’s lifestyle, I won’t pose this question to you since the answer would more than likely be disingenious, but you cannot really believe anyone would believe that this guy, with his racist associations, won’t eventually make the decision or manifest the motivations to carry out his racist beliefs later on in life. Truth be told, racist history is against him.

Just because he’s isn’t actively “courting publicity, running for office or acting as a spokesman for anyone”, all of that doesn’t matter because it has been proven, time and time again, that any racist activity is incompatible with government service and values.

You cannot do things in your private life that put you in a conflict of interest — just as I cannot do private business with a municipal contractor, someone working in a defense research lab should not be involved with organizations that seek to secede from or overthrow the US government.

Yes I agree and because of this it should be deemed a threat to national security because it most definitely is just that.

Even President Obama was asked to disassociate himself from his previous very controversial reverend that was deemed to be politically radical.

Federal Employees are held to a higher and different standard than others who may get away with this foolishness in the some private sector positions.

So I do not understand your shame, but seriously question how you can believe that someone with affiliations to a radical supremacists group should be afforded more or different liberties than those that would be granted to anyone else in that position such as a Muslim American…

I bet your position would seriously change if a Muslim was there helping to design bombs and having questionable affiliations with radical groups of Islam.

Then how fast would you come to his aid saying that he has a right to free expression regardless of his profession?

If he wants to be a Neo Nazi or affiliated with some other group such as that which promotes hate and divide then let him do it somewhere flipping burgers but not while taking tax payer money in a government position that is paid by the hard labor of both whites and minority Americans. I believe that the public has a real problem with that.

And the public would have a bigger problem with the fact that he is working with explosives while subscribing to hate groups. It is a serious conflict of interest that does not serve our government or its people well.

We can not afford to have anti-government nazis working in the defense industry. It is bad enough that we have a bunch of them in the military.

Finally someone who has stated the truth and I so agree with this statement.

Those in public sector jobs are especially restricted (if not legally than socially, because the public can and does excercise its right of free expression too). The issue appears to be where those limits are drawn, and in this case I agree it is a fuzzy one.

So, you are right. I do consider myself progressive, I do feel obligated to defend the rights of everyone (including bigots) and yes I would like to see him hounded out of his job by every progressive activist organization in the country. And I hope he is.

He is perfectly within his rights to be a bigot, and I am perfectly within my rights to express my opinion about it. I would most certainly write a letter to Walmart if I heard an employee use a racial slur, and I would also expect the person to be fired. Why? because racists are bad for business. If a cop, or a bus driver, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a garbage collector, or a sports icon was racist, I would do the same.

Should the defense industry be any different?