Thread by @conor64

As ever I'm glad The Atlantic publishes smart people making arguments with which I disagree, even on the issues I care about most.

And one passage in this piece is especially useful as this conversation moves forward (see next tweet)
theatlantic.com/culture/archiv…

Here's the passage. I agree with two-thirds of it:

I would argue that liberal society can be threatened if participation in civic discourse triggers workplace reviews of speakers, and I suspect most progressives would agree given certain examples.

For instance:

If pontificating against the torture of captured terrorists or indefinite detention at Gitmo had caused people who expressed those views to be investigated at work for making colleagues feel unsafe, would that have been a problem?

If educators who speak out in favor of trans rights were routinely subject to workplace reviews as a result would that be a problem?

If publically liking the Tweets of the New Atheists triggered workplace complaints by Christians and thereby triggered HR investigations wouldn't that problematically chill public discourse?

But absolutely, critical counter-speech is not illiberal.

(I should add that not *all* workplace investigations should be verbotten. One can imagine justifiable examples that are not problematically chilling. A cop who tweets about his racial animus, for example, ought to be investigated to see if he was abusing his authority.)