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GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

latimes.com

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Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#111

Post by Analemma_ »

olah_1 wrote: post #61
pm90 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ICE is not a partisan organization, Only if you have your head deliberately under the sand in the face of all the reporting that has been done so far about wanton cruelty inflicted on human beings by this agency, including but not limited to: * separation of toddlers from their parents * horrific conditions in detention facilities * detaining immigrants for as long as they possibly can * arresting and trying to dep…

People that deliberately commit crimes typically suffer all of these things, yes. If you believe that illegally crossing a border is not a crime, then that's a different discussion that could be had.

The people who crossed the border seeking asylum are not committing a crime (seeking asylum is not illegal unless you stay in the country after being denied at a hearing), and even the people who are crossing illegally are committing a misdemeanor. Do you also support such conditions for people who get parking tickets?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#112

Post by rpmisms »

shadowgovt wrote: post #7
rpmisms wrote: post #3

Whoop-de-do. If you don't like the company, leave.

I believe that is the reason this is news, yes. """ One of those employees, staff engineer Sophie Haskins, resigned Monday, stating in her resignation letter that she was leaving because the company did not cancel its contract with ICE and “shows no indication of canceling the contract,” which she wrote was “morally unacceptable.” """

Great. That's what should happen.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#113

Post by shadowgovt »

mc32 wrote: post #99
shadowgovt wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the edge of a definitions rabbit-hole looming. To short-circuit it, let's establish as ground-truth that some people think "neutral" is the same has having no position, and some people think "neutral" is a position one can try to take that will have consequences, same as any other position, and at the end of the day, the effects are the same whether it's not a position or a position so the question of "positi…

So ultimately we’re societies built on laws. Sometimes we have embargoes. We don’t allow sales to Iran or Cuba, but we allow sales to China and Russia and a bunch of others. Most companies stay neutral and don’t take a stance. Walmart and Amazon don’t check you or me for our good citizen creds before selling goods to us. We could be ex felons for all they care. Unless the gov says don’t sell something to X, then we c…

Sure, no disagreement there. But I'll note that those institutions all have the liberty (with the exception of specific legal constraints like Title VII) to refrain from providing service to any of the categories you described. In fact, quite a few companies won't hire ex-felons; there's no law requiring them to do so at the federal level. And a recent Supreme Court case indicated that nothing in the law stops a bakery from refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

These are sliding scales of "how much do I care about the metadata on my customers," and most companies find it optimal to set the scales nearly to zero to maximize revenue. That's not a universal truism.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#114

Post by JohnFen »

ratsmack wrote: post #13
tj-teej wrote: post #4

I think that a lot of people see a rise and mainstreaming of White Nationalism and want to push back.

If you are pro-American and are Latino, African, Asian... etc, does that make you a White Nationalist? If not, then why can we just call it Nationalism?

White Nationalism is an entirely different thing than nationalism.

But both are objectionable.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#115

Post by rpmisms »

vertex-four wrote: post #8
rpmisms wrote: post #3

Whoop-de-do. If you don't like the company, leave.

If all the employees with morals leave, GitHub will be left with no employees with morals. That is probably a worse situation.

Or some people don't feel that border control is incompatible with morality. Both opinions are valid.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#116

Post by rpmisms »

CydeWeys wrote: post #38
_bfhp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to understand the opinion being communicated here. People shouldn't protest things they disagree with? People have a duty to be loyal to their employer's every decision?

Yet, strangely, these people curiously will often protest loudly about things they personally disagree with, rather than taking their own advice of shutting up and leaving. It's really about disagreeing with the views being espoused by the employees in question, not their methodology.

I've done it, several times.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#117

Post by whytaka »

ratsmack wrote: post #2

It seems that these kinds of demands are becoming more common. Is it because conflict resolution is becoming a dying art, is it because people don't rise to the level of maturity of past times? I just find it to be confusing. Non PW link: https://archive.ph/IkYQ3

Or is it because people are becoming more morally aware?

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#118

Post by kick »

hollerith wrote: post #106
kick wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE didn't exist until 2003, and isn't necessarily needed.

The US has had Border Patrol agents for 100 years. From 1920-1940 they were organized under the Department of Labor; from 1949 to 2003, the Department of Justice; since 2003, Homeland Security.

ICE isn't border patrol; they don't patrol American borders. That's CBP, which is a separate wing of the DHS, and focuses on an entirely different area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protec...

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#119

Post by JohnFen »

whalesalad wrote: post #31

A lot of these companies need to start sticking to their guns and simply letting people go for conflicts like this. If you’re not gonna be a team player there are a billion other tech companies you can go be a part of. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with the core issue here – but at some point the message needs to be sent that you don’t deserve a job and aren’t owed anything. You work in exchange for cash, plain and…

> You work in exchange for cash, plain and simple.

The last time this was true for me, I was a teenager working at Taco Bell. In my professional life, I don't just work in exchange for cash, and never have.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#120

Post by shadowgovt »

hnruss wrote: post #91
creaghpatr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE is not a partisan organization, it's a government agency. If you pay taxes, you support ICE, and are their customer, period.

If you pay taxes, you "support" the entire government. That doesn't mean that you are in favor of all of the things that it is doing. If you pay taxes, you are a citizen, not a "customer". These things are not the same.

This is key. Modeling citizens as customers of government leads to all sorts of bad conclusions (including that government can choose to refuse service; there's a reason most of the developed world has no legal concept equivalent to the ancient "writ of Outlawry.").
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