Pretty much anyone defending the postal worker here on the basis of what she did being “right” is missing the generalisation that must be made. If it’s okay for postal workers to refuse to deliver mail containing viewpoints they disagree with, that means it’s okay for bigoted postal workers to refuse to deliver mail from or to LGBT organisations. It means it would be okay for pro-life postal workers to refuse to deliver parcels containing birth control pills or flyers containing information about abortion services.
You cannot have it both ways. If you make a rule that there are cases when it is acceptable for postal workers to destroy or refuse to deliver mail, it will be used by the other side against you.
I think she is a legend for what she did and I think USPS was absolutely right to fire her for it.
I hope the mail goes back to being apolitical and that she experiences a soft landing and strong launch career-wise
This happened in Canada
Then he’s extra right that the USPS did nothing wrong here.
Well, maybe I’d know that if I’d read the article. Did you ever consider that I was being lazy and vocal while uninformed?!
I don’t know why I’m making it seem like this is your fault, but I hope you’ve learned your lesson
Well, then I hope she becomes Duchess of Canada. (I don’t know how things work up there)
Agreed. I work in healthcare. As healthcare workers we are obligated to treat any patients regardless of their political affiliation or background. I just provided services to a guy the other day with a huge swastika tattooed on chest. Ive administered care to prisoners, bully/aggressive patients, racists, sexists, and others I would not normally would not align myself with. It does not mean i support anything my patients do or their viewpoint. You cannot have people determining on their own that they are not doing their job because x,y,z especially with more public services involved. It is a very slippery slope
You cant make exceptions for some circumstances without the effects/consequences extending to other cases for opposite side as this commenter noted. All mail legally needs to be delivered, even in Canada. Props to the postal worker for trying to stand up for what they believe but agreed they should lose their job for it.
Providing necessary healthcare is vastly different than providing hate-speech mailers. I’m OK with the post office having a rule about not delivering mailers with blatant misinformation and/or hate-speech aimed against marginalized minority groups.
You cannot have it both ways.
Ban the delivery of messages containing hate towards a group based on their identity.
Let me try to twist this rule.
The delivery of materials informing women of abortion resources is now prohibited as this represents hate towards foetuses on the basis of their unborn status and advocates for killing them.
The delivery of materials promoting diversity in hiring and criticising the makeup of the boards of directors of large companies as being overwhelmingly white and male is now prohibited as this represents hate against white male executives.
You see, the issue is that you cannot guarantee that the person interpreting the rule you want to impose will think the same way you do.
A fetus is not a person. There, twist untwisted.
Nope.
I’m a person who doesn’t agree with you and I find myself in the position to interpret the rule. Therefore, I am interpreting the rule in my favour. A foetus is a person. The articles will not be delivered.
Hopefully this makes the argument a bit more clear . In this hypothetical scenario, a malicious person who disagrees with you is in charge of interpreting the rule. You have no power here and none of your arguments will convince them otherwise.
The only thing you can do is design a system that is robust enough that the damage that can be done by that malicious person.
You say a foetus is not a person. That person says “nuh uh”. But they are in charge and you are not, so their interpretation stands and you have to suck it and now you regret giving that organisation the power to make that determination.
You can think of it all in terms of game theory. You get to write the rules, then I, a malicious entity, get to play by your rules, and you can only stand and watch. Once you put your pen down, I am in charge.
Now you can see that in this game, you would want to write rules that constrain what I can do as much as possible.
You need to be born to be a person. Otherwise where do we set the limit? Maybe for medical reasons, we should set it at a certain number of weeks, but for non medical reasons should be considered the moment of birth. Otherwise when does it become hatred? Can I say “I hate fetuses under 4 weeks” but not “I hate fetuses of 12 weeks”?
Following that logic, someone could consider masturbation as a crime, and menstruation too.
Well, you see, I am a malicious entity that doesn’t need to listen to your logic. All I need is the power that you have given me.
For your rules, since I am the malicious entity in charge, I can just say “I’m right, you’re wrong”, and there is nothing you can do about it.
But what I said can’t be twisted. To be a person you must be born.
There is no interpretation there. A fetus is not a person because it hasn’t been born.
I agree, humans won’t stop stochastic terrorism, because enough humans don’t give a shit, and they’re fine with people dying because they’re not white and heteronormative.
That’s why I don’t feel attached to humanity, and I don’t class myself as one.
Well said. It’s great she stood up for what she believes in, but aside from common-sense exceptions like trafficking/bombs, couriers can’t have a say over what they deliver.
I kinda wish they did for junk mail. God please stop sending me 200 page catalogs trying to sell me boomer clothes.
It’s their right to not do a task that is not agreeable with their views. Sure it’s against company rules and can lead to a reprimand and or discharge.
This is a hyperbole but this can be equated to a soldier not following an unlawful command by their superior.
That seems like a very backwards way to talk about “rights”. They don’t have the right to infringe upon the rights of others, which is the reason they face legal consequences for doing so.
It’d be like me saying “I have the right to kill indiscriminately, and the state has the right to punish me for it,” instead of simply “I don’t have the right to kill indiscriminately.”
This way of thinking is problematic. Freedom of speech is a social contract and hate speech is a violation of that contract.
If it’s okay for postal workers to refuse to deliver mail containing viewpoints they disagree with, that means it’s okay for bigoted postal workers to refuse to deliver mail from or to LGBT organizations.
Wrong. You are describing two separate things and arbitrarily deciding that they are equal actions. Preventing hate speech from being circulated is a moral act, while hatefully censoring benign communications is not.
It’s not you who decides if something is hate speech or not, and it’s not the postal worker either. And something being moral doesn’t make it lawful.
As terrible as the flyers are, personal political and religious beliefs should not be enforced in any way at a workplace.
Functionally this is similar to that county clerk that refused to issue marriage certificates to same sex couples. Can’t be supportive of one and not the other without being hypocritical.
That’s like saying if you support gay rights protestors, you have to also support nazi protestors, or you’re being hypocritical. You’re looking at things on the wrong axis.
Yeah that’s exactly correct. Protestors and counter protestors both have a right to express their views, regardless of what I think of those views. As long as they don’t violate any laws in the process. That is literally one of the pillars the US is built on for instance. I don’t have to agree with you to defend your right to say those things I disagree with. The right to that freedom of expression is literally the 1st Amendment in the US.
I don’t know what the limits are on speech in Canada, but they’re likely similar, just not as extremely biased towards protection. The US defends too much honestly.
That doesn’t mean that your opinions and expressions are immune from controversy or disagreement. And speech is limited in certain circumstances, like direct threats. That’s not what’s happening here though.
It’s why I would argue that it’s a duty of care not to distribute as it spreads hate and hurt in the community and workplace. Probably wouldn’t fly in the US though.
Who decides what is hurtful though?
If it is the person delivering the leaflets then a Nazi postal worker can decide not to deliver postal votes as they see democracy as hurtful to their cause.
This is the paradox of tolerance. We resolve the paradox your argument is describing by reframing our concept of tolerance. When viewed as a social contract or peace treaty, we are able to tolerate each other and can refuse to tolerate intolerance. Under tolerance as a social contract, everyone in society agrees to be tolerant. If one group, say fascists, choose to be intolerant to any other group, the fascists are no longer protected by the agreement.
Thus we can reject fascist intolerance and bigotry while still tolerating each other. We can reject hate speech and targeted life-threatening information campaigns against lifesaving medical treatments while still enjoying free speech.
Also, fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to undermine our institutions for their gain no matter what we do. So our efforts should instead go to preventing bad-faith actors like fascists from taking power.
Hypothetically (because I’m interested and not trying to start an argument) would you ban the delivery of leaflets for a pro Trans party that was authoritarian?
P.S. I agree with you points :)
A different analogy would be a right wing person refusing to deliver left wing mail. Example might be something for a ‘Woke’ support group.
Another could be, Atheists refusing to deliver religious letters of Christmas cards.
My point is , we can’t leave it to individuals to decide these things in isolation.
We should ban any disinformation campaign that we as a society, through research and study, know to be a disinformation campaign.
We should ban any hypothetical authoritarian pro-trans party and their leaflets because they’re an authoritarian party.
We shouldn’t ban something for being woke because woke is now a fascist taking point to demonize the left and something being woke is not a real basis for something to be harmful.
There is a difference between personal mail and disinformation campaign leaflets. No one should be banning Christmas cards unless they are part of a targeted disinformation campaign to deny people the fundamental right to exist.
We as a society have chosen to leave this to individuals. This November 5th, the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement, is attempting to takeover our democracy. People in positions of leadership and power saying no to fascists attempting to subvert the results of the election may be all that stands between us and that christo-fascist takeover.
It would be better if there were systems in place to stop disinformation campaigns, but in this Canadian woman’s case, her civil disobedience was the only system in place. We might soon find ourselves in her position. Where civil disobedience is the only recourse to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies. So we should not discount civil disobedience out of hand.
Also, fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to undermine our institutions for their gain no matter what we do. So our efforts should instead go to preventing bad-faith actors like fascists from taking power.
I am copying this here, because it’s what refutes your argument’s central point. We should not factor in what fascists will do into our decision making process. Fascists will try to destroy our way of life no matter what we do. So instead of worrying about trying to appease fascists, which has never worked, we should focus on keeping fascists out of power. If the fascists takeover our democracy, we aren’t getting it back for free. So we should want individuals to engage in civil disobedience to prevent fascists from taking power and enacting their policies. To do otherwise would make us complicit in our own destruction.
Freedom of speech rests on the foundation of the truth. If we elevate lies to the level of the truth we will lose our freedom of speech. There is no utility in tolerating intolerance. In humoring a known disinformation campaign we do not dissuade the fascists, who are always looking to see what they can get away with. Nor do we safeguard our liberties, but instead lay the groundwork for them to be taken away. If we let the fascist decide what is true then it is the fascists who decide what we speak.
Good points. I agree with the paradox of tolerance and your other points.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. This type of discussion is why in use social.media but it is rare to get past the partisan brigading.
Civil disobedience is an interesting point in this case. Personally, I probably would have acted as this Canadian woman did.
What I am struggling with is understanding what counts as a disinformation campaign. I read in your post that you’d answer this as a society and with research however, if you were put in charge of this research tomorrow, do you have a draft definition of a disinformation campaign?
I ask as I try to see the world in black and white and steer clear of the grey however, this is rarely possible.
Free speech being a good example. It’s either a 1 or 0.
Personally, I think refraining from distributing genocidal propaganda is pretty functionally dissimilar to being a bigot.
I don’t want to come off as abrasive and I don’t want to assume any ill-intent on your part, but it’s fucking frustrating hearing takes like this as a trans person. Equating the refusal to participate in a hateful disinformation campaign to refusing to marry a gay couple is deifying the liberal concepts of law & order at the expense of human decency. It is not hypocrisy to support anti-fascist actions whilst denouncing fascist actions, even if they express those actions in a similar fashion. For example, I largely support Just Stop Oil’s disruptive protests, whereas I would be disgusted if fascists defaced artworks by spray-painting swastikas all over. Is that hypocritical?
Again, sorry if I come on strongly in this comment, my frustrations are definitely from society at large rather than your comment, but having your right to exist being framed as a “political belief” is frankly exhausting.
I was thinking more about the “can’t force me to make a cake for a gay wedding” thing
As others have said it’s a government position and it’s delivering mail. I’m not sure if Canadian law, but in think that’s a pretty severe crime in the US.
What if the person didn’t want to deliver medicine because they believed that god will heal everything?
While the mail is hateful, it needs to be delivered.
Also consider that someone paid for the flyers and paid to have them mailed. So this guy is effectively robbing them of two different transactions.
To be clear, I don’t support the flyers in any way, but what the guy did was wrong.
Canada isn’t under the jurisdiction of American law.
That one too. Although that was a private business, not a governmental organization.
The postal worker in question doesn’t own Canada Post.
While I have the utmost sympathy for her, if a postal worker is picking and choosing what mail is to be delivered the entire concept of the post office becomes moot.
Yep. This is part of the “Do the job” deal.
Because I’m sure we’ll be up in arms if a religious Postal worker elected to not deliver mail for religious reasons.
She should have taken them and deliver straight to rubbish bin.
I don’t believe that the Government being able to destroy mail containing viewpoints it deems objectionable is a power they should have.
There should be no tolerance for the enemy of tolerance.
I don’t disagree with this statement.
My issue with the policy proposal that follows is that the people in charge of determining what is intolerant will not necessarily be on your side.
And that’s where trouble brews. This rule only works when good, knowledgeable, and tolerant people are in charge of administering it. And God knows that this does not always describe the people actually in charge
That’s not what the word tolerance means, at all.
Yeah? In what way?
What have we become? Like, maybe we should be lifting our citizens up and not denigrating them? Maybe. I’m not with the government anymore. What do I know?
Freedom only applies to cakes apparently
Canada Post is legally obligated to deliver whatever meets the postal regulations and has proper postage affixed to it.
Yes, and the decision about what they deliver isn’t up to the delivery driver.
But it’s up to the delivery driver to refuse it. Canada Post certainly has more than one deliverer, right?
Any worker can refuse any task, of course.
They’ll just have to be prepared to lose their job.That’s it. You count the cost and choose whether or not to pay it.
At some point we have to recognize that these organizations are delivering blatant misinformation and hate-speech. That is, speech designed to “other” an already minority group of civilians.
These postcards accuse teachers of “pushing transgenderism” and describe gender-affirming medical care as “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
This hateful and divisive rhetoric has real effects on trans people just trying to live their lives, and one should not be forced to participate in the dissemination of said hate-speech propaganda. I’m glad that they just suspended her, and ended up paying her for the days missed after she came back.
I, for one, am sick an tired of being delivered hate-speech in the mail. Some of the republican mailers I get are littered with the same hateful misinformation. It does nothing but foment anger towards an already marginalized minority group. It’s wrong, and the post office should refuse to deliver it.
That actually happens? I can’t say I’ve ever gotten hateful misinformation in the mail (and no, I don’t want to find out). My snail mail is mostly spam, with the occasional bill that doesn’t want to be electronic. More than half the time, it all goes directly in the recycle bin.
It’s good actually that the mail doesn’t censor based on viewpoint
I understand where they are coming from, but its not their job to dictate what mail gets delivered.
and it opens the door for right wingers to do the same if they do not get serious punishment for this.
This is a non technical example of why we want net neutrality.
Yeah like I agree with the thought but the mail is kinda sacred.
yep. Don’t fuck with the mail.
Especially in the times we are in right now.
Which is why these carriers, as much as I sympathize with not wanting to deal with the hateful messages, need to be punished severely and swiftly.
We shouldn’t punish people for standing up to fascists. Fascists are acting in bad faith and bad faith actors will abuse any system no matter what. We should focus on defending our institutions from infiltration by bad actors and refuse to tolerate intolerance.
and part of defending those institutions is punishing bad behavior, regardless of how much you might agree with it or think its righteous.
Because the carrier does not get to dictate who gets what mail. Their job, the entire basis of the institution, is to deliver the mail on their appointed route, regardless what it is, regardless to whom it is to.
You arguing that each postal carrier has some intrinsic right to not deliver mail they find objectionable is arguing for the destruction, not the defense, of the US Postal Service.
regardless of how much you might agree with it or think its righteous.
It’s got nothing to do with me or righteousness. This is about strategic decisions to defend life and liberty from bad faith actors such as fascists.
regardless what it is
Not if it’s dangerous to the people it’s being delivered to. We do not want dangerous substances or bombs sent in the mail.
You arguing that each postal carrier has some intrinsic right to not deliver mail they find objectionable is arguing for the destruction, not the defense, of the US Postal Service.
No, I am arguing that we as a society should refuse to tolerate intolerance. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. The success of this targeted disinformation campaign would put trans people in a life-threatening situation. By refusing to spread this disinformation campaign, this Canadian woman made the strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
Here in the US, the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement is attempting to takeover our democracy this November 5th. Depending on the outcome of the election we me all soon find ourselves in the position of this woman. Acts of civil disobedience might be the last line of defense to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not allow our institutions to be the instruments of our destruction. edit: typo
You can drown your post in as much honey sweetened words as you want.
You are still, ultimately, arguing for the destruction of our institutions by trying to give the people you agree with special privilege to do wrong that you agree with.
It is not the postal carriers job to censor or filter the mail. It is their job to deliver it.
Flip the story around.
Its now a right wing mailman refusing to deliver stuff that he doesn’t like.
My argument would be the same, That they would need to be punished severely to protect the institution of the US Postal Service, in order to prevent other bad actors from doing more of the same and destroying it from the inside.
I highly doubt you’d mount such stalwart and furious defense of a right wing mail carrier, as you are right now.
You are as much a cancer and threat to our institutions as all the other bad actors.
Fascists subverting the mail for their own ends to the detriment of other groups’ liberties would be a form of intolerance which we should not tolerate. That is what the fascists were doing in Canada without evening needing to infiltrate the mail service. We should prevent them from doing this if it happened here in the US. To do otherwise would be to be complicit in our own destruction. We should not put our institutions above our liberties. Our institutions are meant to be for our benefit and not tools for fascists to destroy us. To put it another way, standing up to fascists does not make us fascists.
Your argument gets into a common neoliberal talking point about our institutions. That they are infallible and that any attempt at systemic change would destroy them. So in my argument I’m going to talk about US institutions more broadly for a bit. My point is that our institutions are deeply flawed and without systemic change we will lose them.
Our democracy, our market economy, and our mail service are all essential institutions. However our political, economic, and public institutions are flawed. Our democracy is comprised of anti-democratic institutions such as the Senate and the Electoral College. These allow for minority rule and routinely prevent popular legislation that is supported by the majority of the population. Our economy is in the death throes of late-stage capitalism. The owner class has extracted so much wealth from the worker class the only way from them to gain more wealth is to form an oligarchy around a christo-fascist dictator. And our mail system uncritically allows for the spread of life-threatening disinformation campaigns on well researched and understood topics. Not only do these disinformation campaigns threaten groups of people they threaten our democracy as well.
Our society is a fundamentally useful tool that benefits around 340 million people. If we categorically refuse to improve upon it will eventually self-destruct. The way we are living is not sustainable or equitable. The MAGA movement is the direct result of the material conditions of late-stage capitalism that have been allowed to fester for 40 years thanks to neoliberalism. The fascist movement will only grow unless we are willing to introduce systemic change to the society that spawned it.
I don’t disagree in therory but there is no way we can let postal workers have a say in what they can or cannot deliver. Fire them for doing it and move on.
We should not fire people for standing up to fascism.
And the next postal worker who wont deliver a flyer on birth control or how to vote because its goes against what they believe? Should they not be fired for standing up for that? Their job is to deliver the mail not judge what someone receives. I get garbage in the mail all the time and know exactly what to do with it. I throw it in the trash.
If Canada Post still wants it delivered, they can make that happen without requiring their workers to be exposed to hateful or discriminatory messages.
Last I checked, mail can be sent in envelopes.
This is not about personal belief, but who we are as a society. We should want to live in a society where the fundamental rights of people to exist should be upheld.
Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. We should make the same strategic decision this Canadian woman did when she refused to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign and instead defend life and liberty.
We should not tolerate intolerance. It’s not enough to individually throw this away in the trash when a disinformation campaign could mislead the public into denying a group of people the fundamental right to exist.
Nor should we worry about what fascists would do. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will always attempt to infiltrate and upend systems and institutions for their own ends. Instead our efforts should go to preventing bad-faith actors, like fascists, from taking over our democracy. Stopping the spread of disinformation campaigns is part of how we do that.
I will not tolerate a religious fool or some other kind nutbar deciding they don’t have to deliver my mail because is offends them. As a result of that position I will not tolerate some morally justified person from doing the same no matter the reason. Fire anyone who can’t do their job and leave their opinions at home.
I will not tolerate a religious fool or some other kind nutbar deciding they don’t have to deliver my mail because is offends them.
Good, we should not tolerate intolerance.
As a result of that position I will not tolerate some morally justified person from doing the same no matter the reason.
This has nothing to do with morality. This is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty. We should defend ourselves and not be complicit in our own destruction.
Fire anyone who can’t do their job and leave their opinions at home.
Facts aren’t opinions. We know gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. Abortion is a lifesaving medical treatment. Bans on abortion denies people reproductive freedom.
We should not fire people who stand up to fascists. This November 5th, in the US, we will decide if we continue to be a democracy or will allow fascists to replace our democracy with a christo-fascist dictatorship. We should want people in positions of leadership and power to say no to fascists who attempt to subvert our democracy for their own ends.
You are kinda sad.
I am joyful and hopeful because I love democracy. But it is ok to be sad.
Disgusting as it is, she has a job to perform and has no authority to determine what mail is sent. This shit needs to be stopped at the source, not by a mail carrier. Either do you job or step aside.
Whenever laws get broken, it’s constantly “I was just doing my job”.
The Postal office can find someone else to do that delivery.
You don’t know how long they’ve been working there. And that directly puts their family at potential harm.
It’s her job to deliver the mail. The only law broken here is her refusal to deliver it. You don’t get to cherry pick the mail system.
If she won’t deliver the mail, she needs to be fired. Period.
She could argue it’s self defence technically. As we all know what shitfuckery advertising like that leads to…
She’s probably been delivering the mail for decades. Just not some bigoted advertising.
It’s not my job to pull down Nazi sticker crap or clean it up, but I do.
Yes management should reject that delivery, but she also has a right not to put her family in harm’s way.
So should a bigoted transphobe mail carrier be allowed to deny mail from a source depicting trans rights as a positive thing?
Does this work both ways?
Or is it only that the law should be broken because you disagree with it. You don’t get to cherry pick federal laws bud. That’s not how it works.
What? The flyers promote the discrimination and criminalisation of a minority group, versus your example which would be promoting minority rights.
Those aren’t comparable.They’re 100% comparable when you understand how federal law works. Learn it- then come back here and we can discuss whether or not a mail carrier has the right to decide what mail you get.
Until then, I don’t think you can carry your side in this discussion.
Well I’m not too well versed on Canadian federal laws as I’m a bit further south. So I looked into discrimination laws in New Brunswick, Canada and found this Human Rights Act
Some parts that could be relevant;
The New Brunswick Human Rights Act is the provincial law that prohibits discrimination and harassment based on 16 protected grounds of discrimination.
The Act prohibits discrimination in the following five areas under the provincial jurisdiction: Employment (includes job ads and interviews, working conditions, and dismissals); Housing (e.g. rent and sale of property); Accommodations, services, and facilities (e.g. hotels, schools, restaurants, government services, libraries, stores, etc.); Publicity; and, Professional, business or trade associations (e.g. Nurses Association of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Teachers’ Association, New Brunswick College of Physicians, etc.).
Publicity includes any publications, displays, notices, signs, symbols, emblems that show discrimination or an intention to discriminate against any person or class of persons
Not a lawyer or expert, but that seems to apply at least superficially. Maybe a bit of a stretch. But it helps that the fliers were full of factually wrong and hateful anti-trans myths. And freedom of speech has limits, even federally.
ETA: However, mail carriers are probably exclusively covered by federal law, and the federal Canadian Human Rights Act
only seems to specify discrimination and not harassment. I do think it’s too much of a stretch to say this would be covered by any federal lawsFinal edit: ok I read more. This is the closest thing I could find from the federal Human Rights Act
12 It is a discriminatory practice to publish or display before the public or to cause to be published or displayed before the public any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that (a) expresses or implies discrimination or an intention to discriminate, or (b) incites or is calculated to incite others to discriminate
If I am misinterpreting it, please let me know. I think it could be used as an argument tho
