In a bunch of recent posts (here, here, and here), I’ve been piling on employment-at-will, mostly from the perspective of the aggrieved employee. Employment-at-will, I’ve argued, has problematic consequences for employees who are terminated at will, without cause. Terminations-without-cause incentivize arbitrary, unaccountable exercises of power in the labor market of the sort aptly described as “dominations” by Philip Pettit in his account of republican freedom.
Continue readingEl Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido
I encountered this rally purely by chance tonight at Hinds Plaza in Princeton, focused primarily on migrant rights. Short speeches in English and Spanish, then a quick march from Hinds Plaza to Palmer Square and back. Ran into a handful of Trump supporters who tried to drown us out with an infantile chant, but ignored them, yelled louder, and walked past.
Continue readingElection 2024: Autopsy Results
ht: Susan Gordon for the first image
Off to Never-Never Land
It Tolls for Thee, You Idiot
Election Night, 2024
Princeton, New Jersey
9 pm
As we watch the US election results shamble their way onto our screens, it’s amusing to think that we’ve spent a year or more fixated on the spectacle of two pieces of moral trash engaged in a long, unsavory job interview. Ironically, the result will be a hire and possibly a termination that blurs the distinction between at-will and for-cause. Whoever wins or loses this thing, can anyone really say why? Continue reading
Whether, How, and Why I Plan to Vote
To the best of my recollection, I haven’t voted since 2004. I’d been a reliable LP voter since 1988, but the LP’s nomination of Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root in 2008 soured me on the LP; and though the LP has had better candidates since (particularly in 2020 with Jo Jorgensen), by the time those campaigns came around I was no longer enamoured of electoral politics and was committed to non-electoral strategies for political and social change. (I even have a video on my YouTube channel from 2020 that blathers on for a mind-numbing 45 minutes about my non-voting policy; I’m not sure why I needed more than ten.) I expect I’ll most likely continue to be a non-voter in future elections. But I’m planning to vote in this one – though perhaps not for the reasons you may imagine.
A Vote for Harris is a Vote for Genocide
For the last year, Kamala Harris’s more aggressive defenders have wielded a particular rhetorical weapon against Jill Stein voters like me: A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. I’m a little late to the party in saying this, but there’s an obvious retort to them worth repeating ad nauseam: A vote for Harris is a vote for genocide. Call it Stein’s Maxim.
Stein’s Maxim retort has two advantages over theirs. For one, it hits a lot harder. For another, unlike theirs, it’s true.
Taken at face value, “A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump” is flat-out nonsense. A vote for X is a vote for X, not for someone else on the ballot. If I vote for X, and you accuse me of voting for Y, the obvious objection arises: if I had wanted Y to win, I could have voted directly for Y, yet I didn’t. So how could my voting for X be a vote for Y? It obviously can’t be an intended vote for Y. The only intended vote for Y is an actual vote for Y. Continue reading
The Soft Domination of Everyday Life
Consider this post an unplanned addendum to my earlier series on domination and at-will employment.
A friend of mine just got “fired”–you’ll see in a minute why the word is in scare quotes–and we’re disagreeing about what it all means. Naturally, I thought I’d share tidbits of our discussion here. My friend blames himself; I blame his employer. Which of us is right? I’ll give you an impeccably impartial account below; you decide. Then feel free to chime in either way.
Let’s call my friend “Claude.” Claude was caught vaping on the job. There’s no explicit rule in his company’s handbook against vaping on the job. It’s simply understood that “one does not vape on the job.” It’s not clear why this is so. “It is what it is.” Argument is not invited, and evidence is not required. We all know evil when we see it. Continue reading
Biggest Goofball in Gaza
From the “shit that sounds made up but isn’t” file:
Full article for those desiring context:
Another life cut tragically short while striving to bring a genocide to full fruition.
ht: Kim Jensen, Community College of Baltimore County
Bad Company
“A man is known by the company he keeps.” Which makes you wonder what Bill Ayers was thinking here.
Me and Bill Ayers, Niagara Falls, New York.
He said he “loved” my paper–on Machiavelli, on conquest. Mission accomplished!
Policy of Truth 