by iOTWreport reader RickeyG

“Fired for being conservative.” As I read through the search results, I found myself in disbelief over typing such a search, because it appeared that I was, indeed, about to be “fired for being conservative”. And the really baffling part was that it was so inadvertent. I mean, much as I sometimes wanted to have a spirited political discussion, I avoided getting into arguments with people at work. So, what happened?

I’ve long had a habit of bringing reading material into work to place in the employee break room. Being as I worked at a city police department with a mostly male staff, much of what I brought in was police, car, or gun magazines. Occasionally something political like newsletters from Hillsdale College or Judicial Watch, but not as often as the “safe” literature. One day I received a piece of unsolicited (“junk”) mail from Elbert Lee Guillory’s organization. I only had a passing knowledge of who he is, a Democrat turned Republican and former elected state representative in Louisiana. Without reading it, I put the booklet into a stack of other magazines intended for the break room.

A couple days later, my mother-in-law passed away (the day before Good Friday), so I ended up taking the next six days off. When I returned the following Wednesday, I saw an email chain had been going around about “offensive” material in the break room. One employee was so upset over it he sent an email to everyone in the department to sound off. The Chief was livid and wanted to know who had done such a dastardly deed.

It starts to get a little confusing, so I better give you a rundown of the players involved so you know who is who. Since we’re talking about mostly liberals here, I’ll use fictitious names. Astute readers may enjoy the significance of the names I’m giving them.

The City Manager, who I never met with face-to-face during this matter, but was (from what I was being told) the one pulling all the strings, I will name Lois. The Assistant City Manager, who was part of my “hearing” (and the only one of the players I could confirm is a registered Democrat; all the others were either No Party Affiliation or unknown), I’ll call Valerie. The Human Resources Director was also present at the hearing, I’ll call her Susan.

The Police Department members in the story were the Chief, to whom I will give the name Neville (perhaps a bit obvious to history buffs), my supervisor (a Captain), who I will name Joe (this one is a bit obscure, you’ll have to be a major movie buff to get this one), and the “offended” party, a Muslim African-American officer who I will call DeWayne (from a major news story that happened while this drama was playing out in the Spring of 2019).

I should also explain what this “offensive” material was. A booklet entitled “Little Book of Big Liberal Lies”, published by Elbert Guillory’s America (elbertguillorysamerica.com). What was in it? Mostly quotes from well-known Liberals/Democrats from the past 100 years.Quotes from Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia, and past member of the Ku Klux Klan), Margaret Sanger (Eugenicist and founder of the organization now known as Planned Parenthood, whose ideas on racial purity were widely accepted in Nazi Germany), Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senator/VP Joe Biden, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), and Democratic Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson.

The booklet was, in my estimation, clearly pointing out the racist history of the Democratic Party and some of its most famous politicians from the perspective of a black man (Guillory). DeWayne apparently couldn’t comprehend that and somehow came to believe that the person who put the booklet in the break room was the real racist. Either that or it was an intentional political attack. I was even told later that he was threatening to involve the NAACP in the matter.

Bear in mind, I did not read the booklet before bringing it to work. I only became aware of the contents after the situation “blew up”. In a meeting with Chief Neville and Captain Joe, after looking at the booklet, I told them that most of the quotes contained therein have been public knowledge for years (even decades) and there didn’t appear to be anything that wasn’t true. That fell on deaf ears. I offered to personally apologize to DeWayne, but was told later he refused to meet with me.

Another important point to mention is that I came forward voluntarily to admit that I brought the booklet to work. Captain Joe later told me they had no idea where it came from and if I hadn’t come forward they would still be trying to figure it out. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider that option; lay low, keep my mouth shut, and let the whole thing blow over. But no, I had to be honest and offer to set things right. Silly me.

Then came my “hearing” to present evidence why I shouldn’t be terminated. The T-word was bandied about almost from the start, but I still foolishly believed if I was up front and truthful, all would be forgiven and I could get back to work. You see, I was suspended with pay pending the outcome (I would add “of the investigation,” standard practice in law enforcement administrative matters, but I can’t because there was no investigation.

Present at the hearing were Chief Neville and Captain Joe from the police department, with Valerie and Susan representing City Hall. It was pretty obvious that Valerie and Susan were angry, based on facial expressions and body language. I pointed out all of what I’ve already mentioned here in my defense, along with what I thought would be the most important point.

Government employees are generally to be dealt with according to the principal of “progressive disciple.” Simply put, the more times someone screws up, the more harshly they are disciplined. Since I had a four-year history of above average or excellent evaluations and ZERO previous discipline issues, I pointed out that termination would violate that principle. I even mentioned (without using names) employees who had repeated cases of complaints or other performance issues far worse than mistakenly bringing a booklet to work, yet were still employed.

I should also interject that I was not a union member and had no representation at the hearing. Yes, a huge mistake in retrospect, but I honestly believed they would not do anything more severe than maybe give me a day or two off without pay. Wrong again.

The entire process took almost four weeks to play out. Captain Joe called me to say that “the City” (which I took to mean the City Manager, Lois) was going to go through with termination. Throughout the ordeal I was never quite sure if he was on my side or not. I sure was hoping so, since he is also something of a conservative. Chief Neville was clearly trying to preserve his position and was apparently willing to commit any act of appeasement to keep his boss (Lois) happy.

So I resigned. I’ve never been fired from a job since a part-time gig in college over 40 years ago and didn’t want to start now, just two and a half years away from being able to collect Medicare and Social Security. Not only did I lose a good paycheck (which is only partly replaced with a much lower-paying job), now I have to pay almost $600 a month for health insurance that was formerly no cost.

But back to my opening paragraph, about the Internet search for “fired for being conservative.” I found numerous examples of people who had either been terminated from a job or de-platformed from a web-based source of income. Don’t believe me? Do the search yourself. Since my situation broke, there have been additional stories of people being “shadow-banned” (thus losing income) or otherwise punished. Just this past week, as I have been writing this, a contestant in the Ms. America pageant was forced to drop out for expressing conservative views on her social media. Another story came out about how much Google and other tech companies manipulated the 2016 election.

Why does this happen? There is an old saying: “To anger conservatives, tell them lies. To anger liberals, tell them the truth.” That certainly is true, as I can painfully attest. They are so invested in their ideology they cannot allow anything or anyone to call it into question. Unfortunately, their ideology is not founded on truth or history. So they will appease the offended and punish those who speak the truth.

But appeasement is not an effective long-term strategy. Something always breaks down, it is never enough. Will DeWayne, who has been appeased for many years based on what I’ve heard from current and former employees, someday face discipline himself and act out in response? Those who did the appeasing would likely feel his wrath, their monster chicken coming home to roost.