agreed. Involving employers is despicable and bringing family and friends into it also should be included here.

I'm calling BS. If they dont' want their views known, they shouldn't be broadcasting them. They should't be harrassing people. What, now you can act like a moonbat but "nobody tell Mom"?

Don't do or say anything in public that you wouldn't feel good about seeing on the cover of the NYT. If you're going to spew venom and act like an unbalanced maniac (which these fools did with their harrassment of their tenants) be prepared for people to (gasp!) find out about it. And yes, this means your employer.

Hyperbolic example- What if William Pierce of Aryan Nations fame ran a ride in Epcot Center? Would it be wrong for someone to send Mickey Mouse an email saying, "Heads up- Your ride monkey advocates the extermination of non whites"? Or would that be a terrible violation of privacy and plain dirty pool?

Freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Yes. But not freedom from consequences. If you're so proud of your public behavior, you shouldn't worry that your employer won't be.

If they won't tolerate someone like you, why would you want to work for them anyway?

Generally agree that harassing someone for protected political speech is a very bad thing.

An exception might be in a person's views directly affecting the performance of their job. Ward Churchill comes to mind. A black sheriff who writes on a blog that he hates whites for political reasons and would never hire one for his police department clearly has his free speech rights trumped by discrimination laws.

Also, in the case of the Pearcys - they eagerly attempted harassment & retaliation on some they saw in a lesser power position - their renters - for the renters expressing their political speech rights. They thought they would intimidate and didn't mind a little local news in a very liberal town warning what fate awaits Bush-Hitler followers who are not properly circumspect in keeping their incorrect political opinions to themselves.

But the power equation shifted when tens of thousands of Right wing people got riled, put the Pearcys in the crosshairs - and pushed back. Suddenly the Pearcys realized they had more enemies going after them than like-minded Lefties in their cozy enclave backing them -- and by evidence of Mr Pearcys calls striving for a chilling effect on blogs ---didn't like it one bit.

AndrewF:

Disagree entirely. How'd you like a moonbat to start calling your boss and telling him you're posting on-line during the day? Or maybe you've used some un-PC humor from the office internet system?

Have to agree with Ace on this one. If their employer finds out via news/tv/internet/driving by their house, that is one thing. However, calling their employer and harassing their boss is another. Ace makes a good point - wouldn't want someone calling my boss because they disagree with my political views.

No, it's not a cool thing to do, BUT I do tire of the leftists' world view that their actions shouldn't have consequences.

I don't care for just about everything that comes out of Sean Penn's mouth, and refuse to see any movie he's in . . . or buy a Barabara Kingsolver book . . . or purchase a Moby cd (well, I wouldn't do that anyway). They decided to go public with their point of view, and sometimes that has consequences, even professional or economic ones.

I remain anonymous in the blogosphere for that very reason. I have plenty to say it, but don't want any of it to come back and bite me on the ass.

Ace,

Concur 100 percent...and yet I have no sympathy for the Pearcys.

I'll admit it's definitely something that one shouldn't do just as matter of being a civilized and decent person, but on their legal claim, I call bullshit.

Trying to get someone fired is not tortious interference. For that to apply, you have to induce someone to break a binding, non-terminable contract. Most employment situations are terminable at will, and even those that aren't have numerous "cause" justifications outlined. I would guess that very publicly revealing yourself to be an anti-American shithead nutcase (and thus bringing disrepute to your employer) would fit under those standard terms somewhere.

The irony is the Pearcy's wouldn't even be having a debate about whether it was ethical to inform an employer of an employees off-work behavior. They'd use any means fair or foul to achieve their ends, because their cause is so important and just. And because their activities are usually consequence free, they blow gaskets when they finally get push-back.

Nobody likes to be pointed out for excoriating public attention, but that is what our first amendment allows. And the Supreme Court has so ruled.

It can be unpleasant, no doubt, and threatening in the sense of potential economic loss, but that's the price of freedom. It can be used against me, and used against Pearcy.

BTW, if the Pearcy's won their claim against me, it would mean every time Bill O'Reilly got Pepsi (or whever) to fire a Ludicrus by urging people to call Pepsi and complain, Bill would lose a huge amount of money in court.

Can't and won't happen.

Mr. Wardlow above is spot on about tortious claims.

Wardlow -

But a tort case could be made for someone retaliating by attempting to damage a person's business or client base from taking exception to a person's protected free speech unrelated to their job.

Or torts from other forms of harassment like urging zoning compliance officers who are of a different political persuasion to "make life difficult" for the transgressor party for offensive values or political views.

Ace, you're absolutely correct, except maybe on one thing: the jury is out as to whether or not the Pearcys ever harassed their tenants over their political views or otherwise. The Pearcys mantain the tenants were evicted for trashing the place.

Calling someone's employer to tell them about an employee's political views strikes me as legal, but incredibly prickish. I don't like these two any more than the next guy, but I certainly wouldn't try to get them fired or anything like that. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

Also...am I the only one who thought it was a bit excessive to call their effigy an example of "hate speech"? Granted, they undoubtedly hate Bush, but I hated Bill Clinton, and I don't think any of those old National Review covers were "hateful".

I'm not sure Russell is right on the law, either. For one thing, California law has some First Amendment - like provisions relating to employment, so if Virginia Pearcy's firm were to terminate her over this, it might well be a wrongful termination. For another, I'm pretty sure that the at-will doctrine only protects the employer and the employee, not necessarily a third party who induces any employee to quit or an employer to terminate him. While it's a bit odd to argue that the anyone can "induce" a breach where the breach itself is not a breach, I'm pretty sure that at least some court cases have come down that way.

More likely than not, Butterworth is just being a jerk.

The Pearcys are proud enough of their views to hang 'em off the side of their house -- though not the house where they actually *live*... Why in the world would they suddenly be skittish about having their employers know about their views? [...like their employers don't read the papers/listen to the news and already know about the whole thing?] Do they imagine their employers would abrogate their right of "free speech?"

If someone's not proud enough of his views to let his neighbors, boss and family in on them, whatinhell is he doing holding those views in the first place?!?

People may or may not like my views. People may or may not hire me based on that. It's the price of freedom, but more than that. It's the price of being proud of yourself.

If the moonbats reigned in Michael Rogers (who makes a profession out of this sort of employer finking nastiness), there might be a case for mercy here...but they're not, they're egging him on.

Farmers scream about parity, why not moonbat parity?

The Pearcys have been very public about their political beliefs and this stupid attention-seeking prank. Stories with photos have appeared several times in the papers. No way did her firm first learn about it or that people were upset through some blogger induced emails. And, I doubt her employer gives much weight to the opinions of bloggers, anyway. I wouldn't worry about it. The husband is just looking for more attention.

Xrlq,

Well, I'm too busy to do the Lexis search at the moment, but we're talking about tortious interference against the third party, not employment law, and I would be genuinely surprised if even California enacted statutes that said you weren't allowed to try to get someone to break a contract, especially when it's not done (1) through some special influence you have with the breaching party or (2) for your personal economic gain.

Cedarford,
The 1st Amendment is irrelevant for private parties. Like Xrlq noted, there very well might be California law that disallows an employer from firing an employee for speech he doesn't like, but complaints from the public that have the possibility of impacting the employer are a completely different matter.

This seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Damn, Cedarford, you almost made the right call.

But I'm gonna have to go with Wardlow on the First Amendment argument.

Telling your boss in the privacy of his office that the Holocaust is a dirty lie can't get you fired, but converting your renthouse into a horrifying, publicly displayed tribute to Birkenau Krematorium III definitely could.

Pearcy bragged to me that his wife works for an SF company which is more likely to applaud her than sniff at her bad manners.

I am somewhat astonished at a number of responses at various sites that think the Pearcys nor anyone else should ever pay any penalty for their speech (which I contend is not unprotected but seditious to begin with and treasonous in a time of war).

My blog averages 20-25 hits a day. Exactly who is attacking who here?

Is everybody here a lawyer? I feel like you're all lawyers. The point still stands: whether or not this is legal, it's still a shitty thing to do, even to these jerks. Once you start outing people for being assholes there's no logical end to it.

I'm no lawyer. I'm just someone who knows that there are certain people you don't help to be martyrs. Congratulations, whoever it was harrassed their employers; you've just given these people a huge boost in the ego and guaranteed them a more sympathetic audience.

While I think its wrong to call/write the employer and suggest firing this person because of their views, it is not wrong to let that employer know that you will be boycotting their business due to the public actions of said employee. Don't even mention discontinuing employment. Liberals do that sort of thing all the time. Its one of their favorite weapons of intimidation.

Even San Francisco firms have conservative clients. They are in-cestuous (your filter blocked the unhyphenated word...) those liberal-types, but not where money is involved. :)

What they did doesn't relate to their job.
The Pearcy's are jerks, but so are the people who called their employers.

Hey, look, I said I thought it was a stupid imprudent thing to do, even to crappy human beings like these.

However, I also don't like it when people (especially crappy human beings) try to bully others around with bullshit legal claims. So that's what I was correcting.

Its really quite simple - if you're a moonbat and you don't want to be outed for doing dumbass shit - then don't do dumbass shit.

The 1st amendment doesn't guarantee venue, audience, market share, or freedom from consequent economic disasters if others don't like your positions.

You're free to shout moonbatish nonsense - others are free to essentially boycott you for doing so.

If McDonalds or Burger King suddenly started advocating necrophilia and child porn, there would be obvious economic consequences.

This applies on a micro and macro level. Is my avoiding buying Red Chinese products as much as humanly possible somehow unfair to the commies?

I think not. I'm not compelled to subsidize their lifestyle.

There are likely a host of labor laws that would make it hard to fire someone over something like this anyway. If they were ordered to move to the Shemya Alaska office, that would be pretty sweet though

It's nice to say that we should take a higher line and not return tit for tat (leftists doing the same thing regularly), but isn't that the type of weak kneed non response that we lampoon the 'unwilling' for?
I think contacting the employer and letting them know that they will lose business is called for in a case already this well publicized.

"Liberals do that sort of thing all the time. Its one of their favorite weapons of intimidation. "

Oh well, then let's be just like the people we oppose. It's not like we're opposing them out of principle or anything silly like that.

If I hired Orrick, walked into their office and found this young woman assigned to represent me, I would ask for a different attorney or just walk out. Or, is this not allowed either?

And, yes, what she did *does* relate to her job. While she is entitled to her views, her way of expressing them demonstrates a lack of judgement. This is not the type of person I would want representing me.

Anyway, she is not going to be penalized by Orrick, so her and her husband's false threats are nonsense.

Butterworth is truly an idiot! He's one of those pathetic soles who rotely repeats that same old cliche, "Free speech has consequences." He expects that statement to end the discussion.

Well, Mr. Misguided-Issue-Spotter-Butterworth, if something said is "free speech," then, by definition, it is "protected speech." That means it's supposed to be protected from UNLAWFUL consequences.

When the Pearcys placed the dummy on their house, they engaged in protected speech. Butterworth's defamatory speech and tortious interference with Ms. Pearcy's business relationship--his so-called "consequences"--were not protected speech. His "consequences" are exactly the kind of thing from which the First Amendment is intended to protect us all.

Butterworth is an idiot who gives conservatives a bad name.

see http://corruptionexposer.blogspot.com/ for more about this.

Harassment is one thing, but informing an employer that you are boycotting them because of the actions of an employee is legitimate. For example, if a child care business hires a self-proclaimed pedophile a boycott is a legitimate action.
Leftists, who are cultural traitors, deserve no more consideration than a NAMBLA member.
As an employer, I would certainly want information on an employees politics, because a political enemy could inflict great damage on an employer. Any employer can find employees with values appropriate to their own ideology, and hire them in order to build a happy and compatible team.
While the government should not interfere in legal expressions of dissent for the same reason it should stay out of religion, the private sector is freer to act politically. Any legal actions against Leftist are a legitimate option, because they are sufficiently evil to have forfeited the consideration and mercy we might extend to others.

I see that lurqer is leaving these " I'm conservative and an asshole" messages all over the internet.
Nice try, troll.

mikem seems to miss a lot of points. He keeps comparing what the Pearcys did to hanging an African American or a Jew in effigy.

Hello, mikem? Is anybody home in there?

If you hung a display of an Afircan American, and had no sign at all, then, sure, people could say it's hung in effigy. But if you put a SIGN on that display, and the SIGN says, for instance, "Who bears the unfair burden of the death penalty?" then we no longer have an effigy. Well, the Pearcy's soldier had a SIGN! Why do you conveniently ignore that? The soldier ain't an effigy, dude! Wake up, and get a life!