The crux of the lawsuit, however, is Richardson’s allegation that Ettikin was simply seeking revenge on the Patroons following a 2005 incident that resulted in the reporter’s car being towed.

I note that the reporter introduced his own far more stereotypical racila slur into the conversation, allegedly as an instructive analogy, but he merely published it and said no more.

Richardson is a man trained to be a basketball player. There tends to be a lack of etiquette training in this field.

Reaching back to an earlier post, it is apparently acceptable to use the term gay as a perjorative that was learned in youth, but faggot is unacceptable because gay doesn’t mean gay while faggot does.

This is a strain, but isn’t the fact that people are are insulted and seemingly outraged when a person of unknown sexuality is called homosexual an indication that they are in fact bigoted against homosexuals themselves?

You stupid piece of crap! That’s not nice (imputing lack of intelligence and lack of humanity)

You ugly rat! That’s not nice (imputing lack of physical normalcy and lack of humanity)

You faggot! That’s not nice (imputing homosexuality – what’s wrong with that?)

I understand that an employer is free to can someone for the slightest of reasons, and that if it doesn’t like un-PC remarks, it can fire away. Is it so good that this principle has no limit? What will be the ultimate effect of this? One might say that viewed as a strict matter of freedom of contract, it’s perfectly OK.

The problem is that it’s a dangerously imbalanced “freedom.” There are massive restrictions on what can be done vis a vis hiring and firing in America, and they are heavily loaded in favor of certain groups. If I did not appreciate an employee’s “black power” cubicle decorations, I could not dismiss him over that because the resulting lawsuit would go as we all expect. Imagine a “white power” cubicle decoration, though.

So while freedom of contract is great, I can’t get too excited about it in the present political context.