[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The case in questions was clearly assault. I'm okay with the guy losing his job.

However, I think we need to be careful about how far we go in sanctioning unpleasant attitudes. If every Canadian who hated minorities in general, or even middle-eastern immigrants in particular, lost their jobs tomorrow, our EI and social services systems would break under the strain. Ditto if everyone who believed homosexuality was immoral lost their jobs (a population that would include a large proportion of recent immigrants). And if every sexist - that is every man who uttered derogatory comments about women in general, or made offensive remarks to a woman based on her gender - lost his job, I suspect the members of this forum would suffer more job losses than the downturn in the energy industry has caused.

I'm not about to defend the d-bag in the OP. But I do think it's legitimate to raise concerns about how far we, as a society, go in sanctioning ugly (but not illegal) attitudes. We can get into some pretty murky territory. What if the management of a Canadian company based in the U.S. fired a Canadian employee over comments in social media (or caught on camera) calling Americans a bunch of idiots?