> Attacks like this were an attack on people’s jobs and physical security: if you can strip a reform-oriented pastor of their PCUSA ordination, you also strip them of their employment and their health insurance
If I'm understanding correctly, the argument with regard to "physical security" is that if you try to get someone fired, which would result in them losing their employer-provided health insurance, that they would have less security in their physical body.
Is there some other linkage to physical security that I'm missing? Because if this is the only connection, then anytime someone tries to get anyone fired, it would be deemed "an attack on the physical security" of that person. That seems a bit of a stretch (and overlooks the fact that there are other ways to get health insurance, either via another job or via the health care exchanges).
To be clear, I'm not weighing in on the specific circumstances of the example — I'm just trying to understand how physical security was implicate, and how the term is being used.
I actually feel this way about attacks on employment in general, so I'll try to give some quick context about the belief.
I grew up in a lower-middle-class household. We declared bankruptcy once when I was young, and I was told to prepare to have "strangers come and take away furniture" (which, thankfully, never materialized). I never went hungry, but we did live paycheck-to-paycheck and frequently relied on the charity of our extended family to make ends meet. In short, money stress was a thing, and it was obvious from a very young age.
So I consider an attack on someone's employment to be a very serious road to go down because:
- Most people don't have savings, and it isn't necessarily their fault.
- Not everyone has a support structure, we were immensely lucky to have wealthy and generous relatives.
- 4 weeks of unemployment is plenty of time for bills to pile up if someone doesn't have savings, I've taken longer than 4 weeks to find a job every time I've looked.
- COBRA is insanely expensive and may be required if, for example, a close relative is very sick. Fighting with an insurance company as an individual is immensely difficult and interrupting someone's care to have that fight can be life-threatening.
- Desperation breeds poor decision making. That individual may take a pay cut or change careers and never recover.
- The various social consequences of being fired can make finding a job extra difficult.
Basically, I've seen my own family one fail-safe away from disaster, so its easy to imagine the bottom. In fact, that money stress from my childhood has haunted me as an adult -- even though I've never needed to worry about it from a factual standpoint.
I don't have any of these concerns if the individual is obviously wealthy, and I wouldn't go so far as to say one should never try to have anyone fired. But I do personally believe the bar to do so is very high.
Note: I'm not interested in convincing anyone of my point of view. Just giving context for why people think like this.
Thanks for sharing. I can understand how losing a job can cause this stress, especially for people who do not have much savings.
However, if physical security is a concern that is intrinsic to job loss, then I'm not sure what the point is of saying that you're threatening "my job and my physical security", since the latter is solely a subset of the former. I think most people would interpret that statement to mean that you threatened their job and also threatened something else related to their physical security.
Yes, and it's a common thinking that's a quirk of the US; it's not a stretch in the US that an attack on one's employement is an attack on one's "physical security" or "well-being" because the US tied most people's health insurance to continued and stable employment.
I think you are allowed to defend yourself with force against physical attacks - perhaps that's why they are making the connection. Be interesting to see someone use that as an argument in court but I'd hate to work with someone who used physical force based on this definition of physical security.
The irony, of course, is that it's a defining feature of some political cohorts to rejoice in getting people fired for things they've said online. I think it's clearly the case that an attempt on one's livelihood is a far more credible violation of "safety" than is, say, public speech on a topic with which you strongly disagree, but it's the latter that's described as such, while the former is often celebrated.
By the way, as with so many things, this is something for which there is a pronounced class divide. Upwardly-mobile, highly-educated Hacker Newsers may see a firing as a bump in the road, a legitimate slap on the wrist for bad behavior, but I assure you that working-class people with working-class prospects interpret an attack on their job in the real world as a seriously disproportionate response.
If I'm understanding correctly, the argument with regard to "physical security" is that if you try to get someone fired, which would result in them losing their employer-provided health insurance, that they would have less security in their physical body.
Is there some other linkage to physical security that I'm missing? Because if this is the only connection, then anytime someone tries to get anyone fired, it would be deemed "an attack on the physical security" of that person. That seems a bit of a stretch (and overlooks the fact that there are other ways to get health insurance, either via another job or via the health care exchanges).
To be clear, I'm not weighing in on the specific circumstances of the example — I'm just trying to understand how physical security was implicate, and how the term is being used.