I looked up the Advice Memo [0] written by the NRLB (thanks tptacek for mentioning that document) so that I could try to see what exactly they found discriminatory about Damore's paper. This is the relevant section:
> The Charging Party’s use of stereotypes based on purported biological differences between women and men should not be treated differently than the types of conduct the Board found unprotected in these cases. statements about immutable traits linked to sex—such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution—were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding effort to cloak comments with “scientific” references and analysis, and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers.
The "these cases" reference is talking about a KKK member and someone who "made debasing and sexually abusive remarks to a female employee who had crossed a picket line months earlier". I don't see how Damore's memo is at all relatable to these.
And more importantly, the content they found to be discriminatory were the studies on differences in IQ and psycological traits by gender? How can presenting science be discriminatory?
If you disagree with some study, you explain why the methodology it used is bad or find other studies that try to explain it. You don't just claim that it's findings are discriminatory. That makes it impossible to discover why it's wrong (if it is).
But, I haven't read exactly what the NRLA found to be discriminatory. This would help anyone that is legitimately trying to improve working conditions and trying not to promote discrimination.
Yes, but not if you're trying to organize to improve working conditions, because this is protected by the NRLA.
If the NRLA believes only parts of Damore's memo were working towards improving working conditions and other parts were working to discriminate against women, which part is which.
To someone that agrees with Damore, it looks like everyone mischaracterized his effort to improve working conditions as sexism. Then Google was able to use that as cover to fire him for protected organizing.
> “Much of" Damore’s memo was probably protected under the law. ... But ... Google discharged Damore only for his "discriminatory statements," which aren’t shielded by labor law.
Given how significantly many people have misunderstood Damore's claims, this seems to open up a hole for companies to mischaracterize someone as a racist/sexist/etc and then fire them over it.
I agree. If being mistaken as the wrong gender causes someone significant enough distress to make them commit suicide, they need (and likely are getting) serious mental health attention.
It is not the burden of anyone to cater to a stranger's mental illness. If you look vaguely male, I will say "excuse me sir, could I get past you?" (and "madam" for a vaguely female looking person). And there is no place where that should be illegal or morally wrong.
Deliberate misgendering is definitely a separate discussion from a genuine mistake.
I realize that cost of living has an impact on wealth.
But, we're talking about taxes and mostly about a couple specific provisions: SALT deduction, mortgage interest deduction, and the higher-end tax rate. Relative wealth is definitely not relevant to the SALT and mortgage interest deductions. (To review, the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes the rich and the SALT deduction forces people in low tax states to subsidize people in high tax states)
The only one left is tax brackets. You could argue that tax brackets should take into account cost of living. So, if you earn 100k in Nebraska you'd pay a higher percentage of that than a similar person living in SF. But, I think that doesn't take into account the fact that SF is such an in-demand place to live. You don't have to live in SF. Basically, I'm not convinced that cost of living differences should play a role in taxes.
You're right that there are parts of this bill not to like, the estate tax stuff for sure and possibly the pass-through rate as well. But, where we disagree are the parts that "punishes expensive areas indiscriminately". Removing the SALT and mortgage deductions are good IMO.
A commenter in another thread posed a hypothetical about a family in CA vs. TX making $250k. Why should the one in CA get a big writeoff because CA has high taxes?
Of course, a state is free to tax it's citizens as much as it likes. But, that tax should not be deductible from state taxes, because it leaves families in other states to shoulder the burden.
Meanwhile, the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes people who can afford houses (in fact it incentivizes buying larger houses, which is also bad IMO). These are not the people who should be getting tax breaks.
OP is talking about comparing families specifically. This talking point doesn't mean anything on the level of a single taxpayer.
You could argue that the family in Texas is getting more services for their tax dollar. But, that is almost certainly false, because people who actually make enough to pay taxes don't tend to consume the kind of services that cost tons of money (aka. social services).
This is what a lot of commenters aren't getting. Complaints about raising my taxes to lower corporate taxes is kinda ironic because 200K+ is rich as far as most of America is concerned.
This article is more descriptive, not mentioning why the bill is setup like this. But, it's worth saying that this is working as intended from a GOP perspective. This hits mostly democrats. And even if it didn't, high state taxes are seen as propping up big (state) government.
I don't think it's that odd. This norm doesn't really exist currently. How do you think a company could encourage their employees to not talk politics at work?
> The Charging Party’s use of stereotypes based on purported biological differences between women and men should not be treated differently than the types of conduct the Board found unprotected in these cases. statements about immutable traits linked to sex—such as women’s heightened neuroticism and men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution—were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding effort to cloak comments with “scientific” references and analysis, and notwithstanding “not all women” disclaimers.
The "these cases" reference is talking about a KKK member and someone who "made debasing and sexually abusive remarks to a female employee who had crossed a picket line months earlier". I don't see how Damore's memo is at all relatable to these.
And more importantly, the content they found to be discriminatory were the studies on differences in IQ and psycological traits by gender? How can presenting science be discriminatory?
If you disagree with some study, you explain why the methodology it used is bad or find other studies that try to explain it. You don't just claim that it's findings are discriminatory. That makes it impossible to discover why it's wrong (if it is).
[0] (PDF) http://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391