I'm not from the US either, however I wanted to frame the argument in a way that would be understandable to the majority on this site.
> "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them."
In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries.
Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on.
> "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days."
I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative.
As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against.
On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.
You can call my fears "horse manure" if you like, but that doesn't really change the fact that I have them. Based on how I've seen some of my (now ex-)colleagues treated when they have spoken up, I don't think they are at all unfounded.
And yes, people have been discriminated against for who they are, or what they believe, for a long long time. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
> "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them."
In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries.
Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on.
> "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days."
I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative.
As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against.
On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.