Trayvon Martin and the end of free speech

Another victim of the suppression of free speech:

A New Orleans police officer has resigned after being suspended for posting a comment on a local television station's website about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in which he suggested the Florida teen died like a "thug."

Jason Giroir used his full name and identified himself as a New Orleans Police Department employee when he wrote, "Act like a thug die like one!" in response to a WWL-TV article about a rally supporting Martin.

Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas suspended Giroir indefinitely without pay Monday. On Tuesday, Giroir resigned after being told allegations against him had been sustained and a hearing to begin his termination was in motion.

As a cop, Giroir probably knows a lot about thugs.

* * *

The most common comment I received to this post is “Giroir was stupid for saying what he thought about Trayvon, using his real name, and including the name of his employer.” And yes, of course, he was.

The second most common comment is “You have a constitutional right to free speech, but you don’t have a constitutional right to a job.” I think this comment is both too annoyingly smug while at the same time too simplistic.

Firstly, Giroir works for the police which is a government agency, so his employer does owe him a certain amount of constitutional rights.

Secondly, Congress has passed a lot of laws which give employees rights, with respect to their employers, that are equivalent to specific constitutional rights. For example, employers are not allowed to fire employees for their religious beliefs, or their race. So this means you cannot fire someone for saying “Allah is great” but you can fire them for saying “George Zimmerman is great.” It’s easy to see why people could get confused.

I’m sure the police department could come up with a rational reason for why it was “necessary” to fire Giroir. They might argue that the perception that the department is racist would hamper their ability to police the community.

Remember that Giroir would also be fired for saying that blacks are, on average, less intelligent than whites, which is a true scientific statement. It’s important for those of us in the HBD blogging community to support an absolute freedom of speech, because we’re next in the targets of the PC enforcers.

The importance of this post, however, is to remind people that we do not live in “free” country. If you go through life thinking that you live in a police state, one in which the police have absolute authority and you can be punished for saying anything critical of the majority beliefs, then you will be a lot more likely to avoid trouble and live a happy and successful life.

I’m sympathetic to Giroir because I’m as stupid as he is; I keep this blog.

* * *

Because it’s impossible to have a normal life without a job, this means that your right to non-pseudonymous “free speech” is limited to saying what television shows, movies and musical groups you like (so long as this doesn’t include any racist media). You’re not truly free to express minority political views.

UPDATE

Here’s a link to a more detailed story which may change your mind. This additional information makes Giroir seem much less sympathetic and a lot more “boneheaded” to quote his own lawyer. The implied threat of death by a police officer is indeed inappropriate behavior.

This information should have been in the CBS news story—not reporting the full context of what happened simply misinforms the public. I guess the liberal moron at some news agency figured that merely expressing his dislike of Trayvon was so damning that there was no need to include any additional context. Or, maybe there was the more sinister goal of trying to scare people into not saying anything negative about Trayvon.

Comments

[eggwhite]

Wow, sad story. Why was he posting under his own name though? Must not have been thinking. By the way, we hear stories of city council women and others getting in trouble for posting things - are they getting caught even under anonymous names? How are the right wing ones always outed?

[John]

Giroir has the right to free speech. He doesn't have a right to be a police officer.

Making public statements that generate bad press for your employer is never a good career move. The truth of the statement is irrelevant. The reaction was easily anticipated. That Giroir didn't anticipate it leads me to question his intelligence and/or impulse control. Not every thought that crosses your brain should exit via your mouth (or fingers on a keyboard).

[f2point8]

please. the constitution in no way guarantees freedom of stupidity. embarrass your employer, get fired. it's that simple.

[asdf]

John,

Nearly everyone has an employer, and nearly all employers are hypersenstive these days. If having a job means you can't speak your mind without losing it, we don't have a very effective right to free speech.

[Cannibal]

I thought the suspension was a bit much. He is entitled to feel and say whatever he wants, as lng as he's not bringing his personal beliefs and opinions to the job. This whole Trayvon Martin thing has people too far on edge and any little thing you say going against the grain is deemed as racist or inappropriate. I agree with Jason Giroir. When you live like a thug, don't be too surpised when you die like one.

[Black Death]

" embarrass your employer, get fired. it's that simple."

....

Uh, no, at least for public employees. Look at this:

TRENTON — The New Jersey Transit employee fired for burning pages of the Quran at the site of a proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero will get his job back, according to a settlement obtained by The Star-Ledger.
Derek Fenton, who sparked a national firestorm and condemnation from Gov. Chris Christie during his protest on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, will be reassigned to his $86,110-a-year job and get $25,000 for pain and suffering. The settlement, dated today, also says he will get back pay equal to $331.20 for every day since his firing.
The state will also pay $25,000 in legal fees to the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit on behalf of Fenton, 40, of Bloomingdale.
"Our government cannot pick and choose whose free speech rights are protected, based on whether or not they approve of the content of our statements or actions," Fenton said in a statement. "This is the very essence of the First Amendment."

(http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/nj_transit_employee_fired_for.html).

....

The last paragraph says it all.

[Bernie]

I don't see any blacks losing jobs for making racial comments or Internet posts about the Trayvon Martin case or any other issue for that matter.

[Alex]

The USA will end like Europe, where free speech does not exist at all anymore. It's only a matter of time before the Constitution is ruled "out-dated" by the Supreme Court and replaced by something else via a referendum.

[sabril]

"please. the constitution in no way guarantees freedom of stupidity. embarrass your employer, get fired. it's that simple."

I wonder if you would be singing the same tune if it were communists or atheists who were getting fired for expressing their beliefs.

[Don Ortega]

Giroir acted foolishly, but the state (and yes, the police are the government) should not sanction anyone for exercising what is absolutely an act of free speech under the first amendment. It is our most important and unique right. Without it, we are done as a nation. Public/government employers like the police need to show greater (than a pvt employer) tolerance of their employees' exercise of free speech, not less. This ruling by the NOPD means that any cop, on duty or off, can be fired for making un-popular/non-pc statements. Scary shit.

As a fundamental right, restrictions on free speech are subject to the so-called "strict scrutiny" test in court. Freedom lovers should google what this means to learn more about their Constitution. I hope Giroir sues NOPD. He will win.

[Victarion]

Look, the constitution sets the *minimum* tolerance for free speech, not the upper bound. It is not unconstitutional to fire someone for expressing substantive arguments on crime. But it is nevertheless a violation of norms regulating free expression in a free society.

“If you go through life thinking that you live in a police state”

I made the mental decision to accept I do not de facto live in a free society. Liberalism is an intolerant ideology. They can easily suppress the truth, and they can easily destroy must people for stating the truth once political correctness becomes strong enough.

However HS, I don’t live in the U.S. It is very sad that the same is happening in the last semi-free country. De facto freedom of speech is the single most important issue of our time.

[Patrick]

Let me get this straight. Do you consider Jason Giroir's (pending) firing to be a greater violation of civil rights than Trayvon Martin's killing?

Giroir's not only an epic fool, his statements practically forced the NOPD to fire him, given that as an armed agent of the state he is given wide discretion and deference in the use of deadly force. But his comments were essentially a celebration of punitive killing. He wrote:

"Come on down to our town with a 'Hoodie' and you can join Martin in HELL and talk about your racist stories!"

Moreover, as a police officer, he knows not to make comments about ongoing investigations, even those from other jurisdictions that he is not a part of, let alone ones gleefully celebrating the death of somebody who is not known to have been committing a crime.

So, add 'civil rights lawyer' to the growing list of types of attorneys you're spectacularly unsuited to be.

I appreciate your blog and most of the commentary and debate that goes on, but it is increasingly apparent that you have some serious chip(s) on your shoulder that cloud your judgement and logic, sometimes to an embarrassing degree, as well as betray some profound insecurities.

On the one hand, your candor is refreshing, but on the other, you don't seem to be willing to help yourself get beyond your problems.

Your particular fixation on the Martin case and now with this "I'm a victim of the censors too" post speaks volumes.

[HS: Giroir's hoodie remark was not included in the majority of news stories about the firing. I had to search a lot to find it.]

[kawokmali]

Huh?
I thought NOPD meant "Not Our Problem Dude"!

[Jay M]

But who gets to decide which medium is racist? And by whose standard of racist? The standard for what is considered "racist" changes, as if characters being disproportionately white in a movie is similar to someone using that terrible word that retired "niggardly" from respectable parlance, and even that is below outright lynchings and condoning genocide.

Anyway, I think people should stop making a hero out of Zimmerman and start respecting Trayvon. His final experience was being the victim of racist terrorism, the last face he looked into was that of a hateful racist, and because of said racist a father has to bury his son, and a little boy will grow up without his big brother.

However, in light of those facts people should still be able to maintain their jobs no matter what their racial views are, unless of course they act upon them making their peers, employers, employees, and customers uncomfortable.

[Conquistador]

"If you go through life thinking that you live in a police state, one in which the police have absolute authority and you can be punished for saying anything critical of the majority beliefs, then you will be a lot more likely to avoid trouble and live a happy and successful life." - Half Sigma

Free speech is a bourgeois superstition. A necessary illusion as some would put it. Reality reflects a court society of a monarch where one or two wrong moves can lead you to the executioner.

[SFG]

I agree with Giroir, but the NOPD had the right to fire him for saying that.

Cops carry guns. They are supposed to have good impulse control. If the perception exists that the police are prejudiced, it is a serious problem.

Of course, he shouldn't go to jail. Which, by the way, would be quite possible in Europe.

[SFG]

"Free speech is a bourgeois superstition. A necessary illusion as some would put it. Reality reflects a court society of a monarch where one or two wrong moves can lead you to the executioner."

I wouldn't go that far. You can't actually wind up in jail for shooting off your mouth, legally. Even white supremacists usually get in trouble when they actually try to get violent.

[rjp]

""“You have a constitutional right to free speech, but you don’t have a constitutional right to a job.”""

Unless you are black, and actually want one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fedex-ground-unit-pay-3-million-to-settle-federal-hiring-discrimination-claims/2012/03/22/gIQA552fTS_story.html

God forbid the racial make-up of your company deviate for that of the area where it is located .... unless it is blacker, because then is okay. And that blacker than the community employer will only continue to get blacker until it has absolutely zero productivity (Ameritech). Then it will either be bought by private equity or another company (SBC) and all the blacks will be fired and the company will be moved (to Texas) and the name might even be changed (AT&T). And the company will live happily ever after ..... until it starts getting blackened again.

[Dan Morgan]

Off topic, but why haven't Hispanic groups rushed to Zimmerman's defense? If a lynch mob is after one of their own - a guy who meant well but got into a bad situation - and they won't take up for him, well then what are they good for?

[helene edwards]

Many big-city police departments are effectively being run by the Justice Department, via consent decrees. This is true in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and since New Orleans has had its own problems, whether about shootings or hiring, I wouldn't doubt the same is true there. I think it was the case in which the Supreme Court established fairly narrow public employee speech protection, so it's up to union attorneys to clue-in officers about what they can say publicly. This guy probably missed the meeting.

[helene edwards]

"Let me get this straight. Do you consider Jason Giroir's (pending) firing to be a greater violation of civil rights than Trayvon Martin's killing?"

Half, you should invite this dolt to stick with websites better geared to his meager intelligence, like Salon or Huffpo.

In my above post I forgot to include the Supreme Court citation. The Garcetti case lays down rather narrow 1st Amendment protection for public employee speech, so the person who predicted an easy court win for Giroir should really do a bit of reading.

[HS: After reading what Giroir wrote in response to the angry black man, I think he crossed the line from protected political speech to an implicit threat of violence. So I don't think he will win. Especially not before a New Orleans jury.]

[Eugenick]

"Free speech is a bourgeois superstition. A necessary illusion as some would put it. Reality reflects a court society of a monarch where one or two wrong moves can lead you to the executioner." - SFG

People must stop deducing "is" from "ought". Most are confused about the apparent contradiction between what they see in the real world and what is written on a 300 year-old scrap of paper. There is no contradiction: constitutions are prescriptive, not descriptive.

"Article 50 of the 1977 Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations.

Exercise of these political freedoms is ensured by putting public buildings, streets and squares at the disposal of the working people and their organisations, by broad dissemination of information, and by the opportunity to use the press, television, and radio."

Also, there is this funny modern misconception that free speech has nothing to do with any actions resulting from said speech. The Liberals in power aren't naive enough to believe this, of course. Aesop and Moldbug make the point:

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2011/07/indisputable-humanity-of-anders-behring.html

"It's pathetic but typical, I feel, that the likes of Robert Spencer and Fjordman are denying their connection to Anders Behring Breivik. Of course they are responsible for Breivik's terrorism, just as communist intellectuals are responsible for Islamic terrorism. Someone skipped Aesop:

'THE TRUMPETER TAKEN PRISONER.

A Trumpeter, being taken prisoner in battle, begged hard for quarter, declaring his innocence, and protesting that he neither had killed nor could kill any man, bearing no arms but his trumpet, which he was obliged to sound at the word of command.

For that reason, replied his enemies, we are determined not to spare you; for though you yourself never fight, yet with that wicked instrument of yours, you blow up animosity among other people, and so become the cause of much bloodshed.

APPLICATION.

The fomenter of mischief is at least as culpable as he who puts it in execution. A man may be guilty of murder who never has handled a sword or pulled a trigger or lifted up his arm with any mischievous weapon. There is a little incendiary called the tongue, which is more venomous than a poisoned arrow, and more killing than a two-edged sword.

The moral of the Fable therefore is this, that if in any civil insurrection the persons taken in arms against the government, deserve to die, much more do they whose devilish tongues or pens gave birth to the sedition and excited the tumult.

The Fable is also equally applicable to those evil counsellors, who excite corrupt or wicked governments to sap and undermine, and then to overturn the just laws and liberties of a whole people...'

Aesop, you see, is above the whole thing. Aesop has no problem with putting the hammer to either seditious rabble-rousers or tyrannical commissars. He accepts it as normal. It is normal. It is war, and only the dead have seen the end of war. The trumpeter, on either side, is a soldier.

This mental habit of separating "democratic dissent" {i.e., what we mean when we talk about free speech} and "violent terrorism," which the Robert Spencers of the world vainly attempt to invoke, and the Noam Chomskys successfully invoke, is one of the most curious psychological tics of the deranged 20th century. Of course its raison d'etre, as a psychological-warfare device, is to forestall the realization that leftist movements achieve power through violence, then demand pacifism of the subjugated."

[Conquistador]

@ Dan Morgan

Voting and keeping up with public affairs is a gentleman's hobby. Hispanics don't care about that stuff. They just want to get pregnant, eat burritos, and attend birthday parties. I also think the communist rabble in organizations like La Raza don't want to burn all their bridges with blacks because their rainbow coalition (along with white women) still wants to shake down white men.

[Eugenick]

I thought some more about this and I think it would be important to spell out the description of the US Government to the masses. Even though it's probably not hard to deduce, it would be nice to have a formal, written description about how the gov't works in practice, especially where its workings contradict the prescriptive Constitution. Perhaps some alt-right lawyers (we're in luck here, I guess) and historians could document, for example, all the cases in which freedom of speech is not respected. This way, even the idealists will be made aware of how they should properly conduct themselves in public or even in private (for example, as far as I understood it, it is a thoughtcrime in the US even to download or look at a child porn picture or video by mistake; not to mention taking pictures of your naked babies while on the beach). It would be good to have clear(er) information on what is presently considered unacceptable behavior by the Sovereign.

[f2point8]

anybody sticking up for grior just doesn't get it. he didn't get fired for what he said, but for a much bigger sin: piss poor judgement.

[Blue Willow]

I've noticed that there are some retired teachers and professors speaking out about HBD under their own names. Even if I was retired I wouldn't talk about HBD because my left-wing, politically correct off-spring would disown me.

[John]

@Me: "Giroir has the right to free speech. He doesn't have a right to be a police officer."

@HS: "The second most common comment is “You have a constitutional right to free speech, but you don’t have a constitutional right to a job.” I think this comment is both too annoyingly smug while at the same time too simplistic."

Note that I didn't say "right to a job". I said "right to be a police officer." Police departments have a compelling interest in creating both the perception and reality that their officers provide "equal justice" for all citizens. If an officer expresses opinions that some citizens are more equal than others, it damages the effectiveness of the entire department.

I'm 95% sure there was a case on this very issue involving an officer who expressed white supremacist views, and was fired. The courts upheld the firing, saying that people "don't have a right to be a police officer" (that exact phrasing has stuck in my head).

P.S. Annoyingly smug is my specialty :-)

[Columnist]

And that is why people with controversial views should support good welfare.