georgerussia

If union activity/organizing negatively affects employee performance or working time, then employee will be fired because of negative performance reports, not for union activities. Is it still unlawful? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Of course not. Why not just fire them? It's employment at will, right? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It should not be allowed to take the left seat because the left seat will be empty. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'll let myself quote my own post you reacted in such a strange way: What exactly you meant by saying you wanted to smoke the same stuff? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Thou shall not smoke! Otherwise Holy Mighty Lord Jesus Christ will put your soul in Hell for Eternal Torments. Aren't you scared of Blazing Inferno? Repent! * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The climate change itself is a proven fact. The fact that human activity could lead to climate change is also a proven fact. The thing the scientist do not agree on is whether human activity is influential enough to cause this climate change, or it's the natural cause with little impact from human activity. This is similar to modern theory of evolution - scientists do not disagree whether species evolve. They disagree how the species evolve. This, of course, is twisted by creationism supporters as "not all scientist agree with evolution". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

That's exactly what I meant. The law will not change most of the people, who grew up knowing it was a good practice to discriminate. But in a long run it will be fixed without any extra efforts besides enforcing the law. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Should we also get a Queen? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Ok, it's more reasonable then but I still don't think it's necessary. Of course I didn't live at that time, and it's hard to get the overall spirit from the books, so maybe things were much worse than I think, but in any case people personal opinion is not altered by making laws. Look on those who hated gays and was explaining it by pointing out the gay sex was illegal - even though gay sex is legal now, it didn't change their opinion, they just brought one more excuse. You cannot change the people, but it is not necessary. Things will change with time, when younger generations grow up. This fact is not dismissed, I would just consider it irrelevant. Wealth is not, and never was something equally distributed, nor it is always proportional to the amount of work done. I may be working harder than Bill Gates in ninety eighties, but never get even close to what he made. The problem with this definition is that "perfect" definition is not shared. For example, a hard-working person would define "perfect enterprise" as "everyone is paid according to the efforts put into the job", and a lazy person would define "perfect enterprise" as "everyone should be paid the same amount no matter how good or bad you are on the job". This is not good analogy because the police force is paid to enforce the law, which includes correcting violations of the law. I believe this part is covered in training manuals, which describe what police officer should and should not do, and if they do it, this is part of their job. They, however, are not going to give the victim a monetary compensation for damages, and may even not give him a home ride. It would, however, be strange to require an uncle of the kidnapper, or any same-race person, to come there and free the victims, what do you think? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So how else would you "level the playing field" without making some pressure on employers to prefer one employee over another because of specific race or gender? Because if you do, the situation will be exactly as stated above. And if you don't, how exactly could you "level" it? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

No, no real effect on me. But it doesn't make it right. Gay marriage ban has no real effect on me either, and I'm still against it. And imagine how bad would someone feel who was smart and worked hard to get their job, when people around him think the reason he got the job was not his skills (something a smart person would be proud of), but his eye color (something a smart person would not be proud of)? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Worth explanation. When slaves were freed, there was no affirmative action like giving each black person a temporary white slave for "compensation". You consider it bad practice? I would say it positively affects me in terms of employability comparing to someone who's "protected" by affirmative action. This is because a potential employer knows that I got my degree because of my skills and efforts, and not because of my eye color, dick size or something else I was born with. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes, they were. This world was never a perfect place, and I'm afraid it will never be. Nothing needed to be done, everything would be fixed in time. This was and has been standard practice for ages. When women got their right to vote, nobody got a right to cast two votes as compensation for missed opportunities. When interracial marriage ban was lifted, there was no "equal marriage opportunity" act which would provide extra benefits to interracial couples to address the impact of the ban. And when Superior Court told the states to abolish anti-sodomy laws in 2003, it didn't establish any sex quotas like "5% of all sex in State must be gay sex" to address the impact of anti-gay laws. If you think there is need to compensate for past mistakes, then how would you justify it? Those who voted before 1965 are now at least 61 year old, i.e. minority. Younger generations did not vote, why should they take responsibility for the decisions they had no influence upon? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Of course they are. They just happen not to discriminate against protected category. But some time ago women, blacks and gays were not a protected category either. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I didn't heard that (of course), and I'm not Obama supporter. However if it was like you described I would say that I found the joke funny. Your outrage, however, looks quite artificial and unnatural. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Different expectations. In my case I came for permanent residence, so this was pretty logical step. But if it was a six-month temporary stay, and learning local language was not required to do my job and generally survive, there would be much less incentive to do so. This is like U.S. Army soldiers going to Iraq - do they all learn and speak the language? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Isn't making a fuss about ridiculous laws one of the basic principles this country is based upon? Movements for equal rights, requests to dismiss interracial marriage ban, strucking down anti-sodomy laws - all of them then should be a very similar examples of showing tremendous disrespect to the culture, being started as making a fuss about the ridiculous laws. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So far all years I worked in U.S. I had both W-2 and 1099 income :) If you do not have anything which could be classified as 1099 income, you might still deduct it using HSA. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This is different from what you described before. You have described it in a way that the employer flips the coin and then picks up the guy according to results. Now you describe is as employer made a choice, and we do not know what it was based on, but the employer claims it came from flipping the coin. This situation is completely different, but also completely useless. Discrimination is based on what employer based the choice upon, and in a new version you omit this information. Therefore the answer would be "we do not know". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I understand it might piss you off that not everyone in this world understands English, but unfortunately this is reality. My wife's parents came to U.S. visiting us, and went to a similar performance, and we also translated every word to them and to another older couple visiting their kids. Please apologize them, and me too. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I have never heard of such requirement. Obey the law - yes, it is required, and this requirement is very clear. But what is "respecting the culture"? If I do not like baseball or football unlike most people around, do I show disrespect to the culture? If I go to Utah and do not go to a church on Sunday unlike most people around, do I show disrespect to the culture? If I'm walking down the street with my wife and we speak Russian, do I show disrespect to the culture? Some people would say I do, some would say I do not. It is very hard to define what would it mean to "respect the culture", and the term itself is very vague. Could you provide examples of such respect, which you would consider valid, but which would not fall into "obey the law"? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

But look on the other side. There was a lot of manufacturing jobs here in US some time ago. But since the employers were unable to find cheap workers, they shut it down completely. Now you have to go to China to get such a job. At least there are still jobs for your friends here. And the reason why now they can't find work is largely because of frozen development projects, not swamps of illegal immigrants. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

We're going on second round. Term "coin flip" implies using randomness to make a choice. If the employer used randomness, this is not discrimination. If the employer did not use randomness, then why do you call it "coin flip" instead of "the employer selected the one according to his personal preferences and thus picks one of the guys"? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

AFAIK if you're on 1099, you could deduct your health insurance payments. Since COBRA payments are insurance payments, in theory are deductible when you change or lose the job (not in all cases, and not for everyone though, there are a few rules here). If you have HSA, paying for your health insurance from it is eligible expense. If it's implemented, I guess the insurance premiums for everyone will go up. The reason is simple: at this moment "rich" people usually get the best (and most expensive) insurance from their employer, since a) it's tax-free and b) employer covers part of it, so their personal costs are pretty low (around $300/month for family with no deductible and small copay). If those benefits become taxed, people will reconsider their choice, and are more likely to choose a cheaper plan. As a result, the total amount of collected insurance premium will drop, and the company will have to increase premium to cover the cost. I would also like to point out that this change will mostly affect middle class and low end of "Obama-rich" people. It's possible to get already a very good insurance for $1500/mo which seems to be top of the line, and is still affordable for someone making 250K a year, and someone making 1M a year is likely to have the same insurance (therefore effect on them will be lower), and those making more might not have health insurance at all as they could just pay cash (therefore it will not affect them at all). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I think Florida legislators should also be randomly tested for drug use. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *