Teachers, firefighters and military personnel among those who lost jobs after posting their opinion on social media
Reactions on social media to the murder of far-right activist Charlie Kirk have cost multiple people their jobs as authorities in numerous states clamp down on critical commentary.
Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a secret service employee and a worker for a prominent NFL team.
The dismissals come as the administration of Donald Trump promises to take action against foreign nationals it deems to be “praising, rationalizing or making light of” Kirk’s killing, himself a fervent free speech advocate.
Just as an FYI out there, the majority of liberal, middle-class America’s attitude about this entire thing is as follows:
Seriously, I have toured companies, I talk to coworkers and associates and managers every day, I am surrounded by America’s white-collar workforce and nobody has ANY political principles. They may once in a while laugh at a conservative meme or joke, but will just as readily laugh at a left-wing meme.
Our country can be broadly divided into two camps, people who know even marginally enough to take a stance and have political affiliation, and people who have ZERO knowledge or interest in what’s going on in our country. The last three federal election cycles saw the highest turnout of voters in American history. But exit polling showed that most people had no real idea who to vote for and just went with whatever their social media was showing them.
This malignant apathy, cynicism or ignorance also fills the segment with political ideology. Most conservatives in America do not have strong principles or thought-out positions. Years back I had a blow-hard conservative-sounding coworker complaining about special accomodations for handicapped workers, IE: special desks “going to waste” right up until they actually made friends with a coworker who had a prosthetic leg and suddenly never another complaint. You’ve probably all read plenty of stories about pro-life activists getting abortions, and so on.
On the left it’s exactly the same. You see plenty of leftists right here on Lemmy who would support fascists and authoritarians if those people wore the right colors and promised to “hurt the right people” without thinking about long-term consequence or larger political pictures.
What’s my point? We need to talk to each other more. We need to work harder to share our realities again, because the majority of people are far more receptive to intelligent, thoughtful examples of having strong, thoughtful values like “We shouldn’t support countries committing genocide” or “We should have social safety nets and healthcare for the amount of taxes we pay” and so on. We CAN infect the population with positive mind-viruses but it takes socializing, it takes effort, it takes caring enough to make yourself uncomfortable.