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connicpu
jawns
Here's the way it works, in practice.
Legislators who propose and pass this legislation use it to demonstrate their support for Israel, or coal mining, or gun rights, or whatever anti-boycotting cause they're advancing. They are the primary beneficiaries here, because it helps them get donations and get re-elected.
Entities who are forced to sign these pledges generally put as much thought into it as you or I put into agreeing to a TOS with a binding arbitration agreement. In other words, not very much thought at all.
Because ... As you've pointed out, the government cannot, in practice, prove that those entities are actually boycotting unless the entities come right out and say it. So if the entities actually want to boycott Israel, they can continue to do so without announcing it. The law doesn't actually stop anyone from boycotting Israel; at best, it merely stops them from publicizing what they're doing.
The reason this doesn't get much push-back from most people who are forced to sign the pledge is because they weren't actually planning to boycott anyway. But there's a small number, such as the publisher who's at the heart of this case, who had no plans to boycott Israel, but who isn't going to let those legislators bully them.
hn_throwaway_99
> So if the entities actually want to boycott Israel, they can continue to do so without announcing it. The law doesn't actually stop anyone from boycotting Israel; at best, it merely stops them from publicizing what they're doing.
But that is exactly what boycotts are all about. An effective boycott isn't just you deciding to stop buying something, but it's about convincing lots of other people and organizations to also stop buying something.
And, perhaps most importantly, in any organization there is guaranteed to be a paper trail for any prohibitions against, say, purchasing from any companies in Israel. This kind of legislation absolutely would have a chilling effect on organizational purchases, which is where the vast amount of money sent to places likely to be boycotted comes from.
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feet
So it's only illegal if accompanied by speech, thereby making a specific speech illegal. Isn't that a first amendment violation?
Stupulous
It's only enforceable if accompanied by speech. If I commit a crime with no evidence, my confession is the only thing that can convict me. I don't think it would be fair to say I'd be forbidden from confessing.
I think there's a stronger case that your purchase choice is covered as free expression or that the government can't compel you to do business with a private entity.
luckylion
It's not illegal, you just wouldn't get government contracts, or be accepted as a government employee. Essentially, you can't say "don't buy from Jews" and be a teacher or sponsor KKK-marches and do landscaping for the local government.
You can do both without doing business with the government though, so legality is not questioned.
bb88
The original American colonists boycotted the tea from England. Under the appeals court ruling, things like boycotting twitter could be made illegal.
Waterluvian
Admittedly I don’t know American history well.
Are you referring to the Boston tea party or was there a much longer running boycott? I ask because my weak understanding is that colonists waylaid ships in port and actively destroyed the cargo. That’s more than a boycott, I think?
char_star_star
Non-consumption and non-importation movements in response to taxes levied on various goods imported from England. Precursors to the future direct action taken at the Boston Tea Party.
rayiner
The American colonists weren’t trying to boycott English tea while still trying to get government contracts from England. The question is not whether the government can ban a boycott (obviously not) but whether it can use its position as a major buyer to influence such boycotts.
hn_throwaway_99
People boycotting Israel aren't trying to get government contracts with Israel either.
There is obviously gray area here, but I think it's extremely unlikely the courts will rule that these anti-boycott laws are OK because it only affects employment or contracts. More than likely, courts will see it as a free speech restriction, but will apply the strict scrutiny test to determine if these are an allowed compelling government interest.
bb88
So? Those US companies aren't getting government contracts from Israel.
SpicyLemonZest
The original antiboycott laws were an unfortunate response to an otherwise intractable issue. Until recently, most countries in the Arab world had both a primary boycott on Israel and a secondary boycott on any company that does business with Israel. So there was a real and pressing concern that some companies might feel they have to boycott Israel, not because they themselves have an issue with the country but because they can't afford to sacrifice the rest of the Middle East market for it. Antiboycott laws were a solution, and a solution that seems to have worked pretty well - the Arab League never explicitly revoked their boycott, but it's virtually unenforced and nobody has to choose between doing business with Israel and doing business with the Arab world.
The new wave of antiboycott laws this article is referring to are much less justified, I think, but you'll note that they're on the same topic in response to still-ongoing efforts by the BDS movement to promote a secondary boycott. So it's not as unreasonable as it would first seem.
hedora
The article points out that the law is being enforced against individuals.
As an individual, I would definitely support BDS businesses if I could. I'd stop doing so after Israel ended it's eternal war / apartheid system.
The point of a boycott is to allow individuals to force companies to take actions, not to avoid hurting the amorphous feelings of corporations that don't have a problem with the status quo.
Note that a large percentage (and sometimes the majority) of Jewish Israelis disapprove of the onging human rights violations BDS is trying to end.
skybrian
Here are some possible second-order effects if you can't say that you boycott X in writing.
- It means you can't advertise that you boycott X and get business from other people who also want to boycott X.
- It means you can't require a subcontractor to also boycott X when doing a job for you.
spoonjim
It’s not at all hard to enforce boycott prohibitions against companies. Above a handful of people, a company that wants to boycott X will need to communicate that, most likely in writing, to their employees.
luckylion
If it's not announced, if your intentions are not known, is it a boycott? I'd say no, because you're not boycotting Store A if you're shopping at Store B for some reason other than your hate of Store A for store-unrelated reasons (e.g. the political stance of the store owner, or the color of their skin).
bb88
Even simpler, making your intentions known should fall under "political speech" -- which currently enjoy the widest protections under the courts.
Animatronio
This is precisely how one would create a silent majority - muzzling any dissenting speech or attitude.
nerdponx
It's not illegal, but it does disqualify you from getting a federal government business contract. I think this is more of a gray area than advocates would like to make you believe.
Whatever you might feel about Israel, you can't deny the fact that they are a strategically valuable geopolitical ally, and it's not unreasonable for the federal government to avoid doing businesses with companies that are actively and publicly boycotting a strategic ally. What if it was Taiwan instead?
bb88
> you can't deny the fact that they are a strategically valuable geopolitical ally.
So ergo, we must destroy the first amendment to shield other countries from valid criticisms? I'd think we'd want our allies to respect our right to free speech above all else.
Edited to add: I even think we would want to respect our right to free speech over the beliefs of our allies.
rnk
Of course protecting our ally Israel in special ways is exactly what these laws are intended to do. People get all bent out of shape when someone criticizes the US, and the same happens with regards to Israel. Countries make mistakes, it's a good idea to have open discussion of those problems. Saying your can't criticize the us because it's unamerican or helps our enemies or some such is just nonsense, and it also applies to other countries in the world.
Manuel_D
What first amendment right is being destroyed? You have the right to boycott. The federal government also has the right to boycott you for choosing particular targets of your boycott.
tptacek
I don't think this is a gray area. There's a bunch of Supreme Court decisions striking down the state's ability to use business contracts to compel speech --- compelled speech was a big problem in the middle of the last century, as it was used to prop up local political machines.
nerdponx
That's interesting, what cases should I read about to get the background on this?
crazygringo
No, it's definitely not a gray area -- it's utterly anti-democratic.
What if the government only awarded contracts to companies who promised not to donate money to Democrat PAC's (or Republican PAC's)?
What if the government only awarded contracts to companies who stayed silent on gay marriage, and didn't normalize it in their advertising?
These strike at the heart of the first amendment. Companies are allowed to engage in political speech/action, and boycotting Israel is precisely that. Some people think Israel is a valuable ally, others think it's a horribly unjust and undemocratic country for its treatment of Palestinians.
The government isn't allowed to favor or disfavor individuals or companies due to their political views. That's a bedrock principle of democracy. That's what the first amendment is about. There's zero gray area in this case.
luckylion
> What if the government only awarded contracts to companies who stayed silent on gay marriage, and didn't normalize it in their advertising?
But they already do that, don't they? I mean, not anti gay marriage, but pro diversity. For some reason the UCF bought email lists from some entity, and they believe me to be a small business owner in some US state who shares my first name. I occasionally get emails from them asking me to join their diversity-training in order to become eligible as a supplier.
That's pretty old news. The only new thing (and the reason the ACLU cares, I assume) is that it's affecting a view that is currently associated with the left (BDS/anti-semitism/anti-israeli campaigns).
Animatronio
What if it was Qatar instead, or Saudi Arabia? Are they not allies? Are ppl allowed to express dissatisfaction with their behaviour?
Gibbon1
> Saudi Arabia?
If you're a politician you aren't allowed to say anything against them either.
nerdponx
Of course, but the government is also allowed to decide not to do business with those people.
This case is more analogous to the case of the cake shop who wouldn't make a wedding cake for a gay couple. It's less about free speech in general and more about discrimination in doing business.
jasmer
Oh, we can absolutely debate their value as an ally.
And if a union wants to boycott Taiwan, or Canada god forbid, they probably should have the right to do so.
It gets a bit more complicated with buyers however, what happens if companies do not want to 'sell to' groups, like 'Republicans' or 'LGBTQ advocates' etc..
I think we probably ought to err on letting people decide who they want to sell and buy from and then be very careful when we interject on that, with a difference to protecting individuals rights, and from specific kinds of harm and/or arbitrary treatment.
Which is all a bit different from the government itself deciding who and who not to buy from.
colordrops
These boycott laws were not made because the government felt Israel is an important ally, but rather because pro-israel lobbyists pushed for them.
nerdponx
It would be an interesting argument if the Supreme Court struck down a law on the grounds that it was passed in bad faith. Has that been done before?
jfengel
These are state contracts at issue here, not federal ones.
nerdponx
I missed that, and it's an important detail.
lzooz
https://twitter.com/aipac/status/1590362232915132417
Just so you know how entrenched Israel (and a certain race) is inside the US government.
UncleOxidant
28 states have passed laws requiring individuals and businesses that receive government contracts – from substitute teachers to construction workers — to certify that they will not participate in boycotts of Israel or Israeli settlements in the West Bank
What the hell? How can that be enforceable? Ok, so you sign it just so you can get the job, but then don't buy stuff from Israel (or whatever the cause/country/company is you want to boycott) - how could they force you to buy the products? This is just stupidity on the part of these states.
If the right to boycott is to be preserved, the Supreme Court must step in.
Yet somehow I suspect this supreme court will find a way to mess this up.
tpmoney
We've consistently tied federal funding to a whole host of restrictions on activities. Receiving federal funding prohibits you from a number of "discrimination / free association" practices that purely private interests are allowed to engage in. States are required to implement a number of policies (most famously the 21 drinking age) as a condition of getting federal money. This seems like another in a long line of constitutional violations.
rnk
The courts have decided that the federal govt can put restrictions on money they give the states. It's also not the same thing as states passing laws saying you as an individual or business are disallowed from making your own choices about who you might wish to boycott.
tuyguntn
> How can that be enforceable?
Participate in protests boycotting Israel or try to protest any Israel government policy, you will be blamed for boycotting and your company needs to terminate you if they want to continue doing their business, otherwise government will impose a sanction to your employer, then everyone will try to avoid your employer.
version_five
This is much more subtle than the article makes it out to be. I don't think I understand it well enough to have a clear position, but here is what comes to mind:
They are asking that companies affirm they won't boycott Isreal (this is almost certainly why the ACLU cares, but anyway) in exchange for government contracts.
Does anybody know how the constitution applies in such situations? What comes to mind is the drug testing requirement for federal contracts. Police can't just come up and randomly drug test you, but you can agree to it in exchange for money. Why is this different? It feels like there are lots of business situations where you essentially give up a right as part of a contract.
I understand why the newspaper doesn't sign, I probably wouldn't either. But then I wouldn't expect to get the money.
mustache_kimono
> Why is this different? It feels like there are lots of business situations where you essentially give up a right as part of a contract.
It isn't different, in your framing, but there are lots of policy reasons why we wouldn't want the state to coerce or compel speech. Especially political speech, as the case is here. And the text of the 1st amendment and years of jurisprudence make freedom of speech different than other rights (just as 5A due process is different than other rights, etc.)
We mostly recognize that it is generally a bad thing for the government to make you say things, unless there is a very good reason to do soon (like, you must label your food products with nutrition info) [0].
To reframe, imagine the government made you sign a pledge that "Abortion is murder" or "Abortion is great, everyone should have one" instead. Or imagine a law that says "All contracts are voidable, if you (a business) and your employees and your outside contractors must not participate in a boycott of Israel." That law might reach extremely far (too far?) if the company is Walmart (~2.3 million employees) and Walmart wants to do business with your state (it does) and Walmart is asking you to sign that pledge to now do business with them.
So, the question is -- if instead of forcing you to say something, and threatening you with jail, is it okay for the state to just refuse to deal with you (as an incredibly powerful market participant). Some will say "That's pretty clever lawyering on the part of the state to do that," while others will be a little more unsettled, thinking if the state can do this, what else can they do?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compelled_speech#Examples_curr...
version_five
I agree with you, the question I was wondering about principally was the constitutionality. Regarding your example, something very similar that's actually happening is the requirement for people applying to university faculty positions to submit a "diversity and inclusion statement" which obviously must be very clearly aligned with a particular ideology, in order to be considered. Should this be illegal? It's certainly stupid, it violates all kinds or political freedom, but then you dont have to work at a university either.
mustache_kimono
> Should this be illegal? It's certainly stupid, it violates all kinds or political freedom, but then you don't have to work at a university either.
This is a tough question because I could imagine a DEI statement that wasn't plainly stupid, and which had a strong purpose, just as easily as I could imagine one that was plainly idiotic. And university education sounds like it would be a special case as well (that is -- have all sorts of factors not present in other cases). A non-crazy DEI for a low level state prison guard? Probably nuts. For a hiring manager? Maybe less so.
> I agree with you, the question I was wondering about principally was the constitutionality.
Appreciate your inquiry, and I'm not an expert in this area of the law, but as an observer, the reach of the 1st amendment can seem sometimes crazy expansive, but I think I'm mostly glad it is?
For instance, my town had an ordinance that made panhandling at busy intersections illegal (one new way to outlaw being poor but which had a facially valid purpose -- safety). ACLU sued and said this was a limitation on the 1st amendment rights of the panhandlers and won. Took away millions in attorneys fees.
This seems like unsettled law? Hopefully a person of conscience will sue.
tptacek
I'm not sure it's all that subtle. US governments generally can't use business contracts to compel speech; striking these kinds of rules down was part of tearing down midcentury patronage networks.
compiskey
We never tore down patronage networks. Trickle down is essentially the same mechanics in the abstract, hidden by contemporary coded virtue signaling, and legal jargon.
Families that benefited from 50s-60s social programs legislated them away in the 80s, leverage mathematical inference to assign themselves exorbitant wealth through arbitrary valuations they decide on, buy up the most valuable assets, and pay as little as possible to us to maintain them.
Horse and Sparrow economics is from a similar era of political thought as spoils systems.
A $200k salary in the 80s had the buying power of $600k now. Past winners were not about to have their legacy deflated, so they changed the rules.
jfengel
Does anybody know how the constitution applies in such situations?
Nobody does. That's the point. Circuit courts have disagreed, so the Supreme Court will define what the Constitution says.
nitwit005
Imagine you haven't purchased anything from Israel recently. Are you boycotting them? Presumably no, as many people will be in that situation just by coincidence. Then what does count? The reality is making a public statement saying you're boycotting Israel.
And there in lies the problem, the state is trying to punish people for making entirely legal statements they don't approve of.
tuyguntn
> drug testing requirement for federal contracts.
You can't compare drug testing requirement with Israel case. They do drug testing because you might accidentally create a problem to the government if you are addicted or regularly take drugs: You might share confidential information, introduce bug to the system or accidentally forget to follow processes.
Where is the logic with anti-boycott rules when it comes Israel?
oytis
If it was a requirement from a private contractor that would probably be fine (and could be an exercise of the First Amendment by itself). But with government contracts it looks like the amendment should be applied here.
chadash
Say that a company is called The White Power Group and is known to spew what most would consider hate speech. They bid to provide government offices with toilet paper. Should the government be allowed to turn them down?
bb88
Yes, because at a basic level, government officials don't want money from contracts to go fund things that undermine the government itself, or the safety of its citizens.
In this case white supremacists have a long history of using violence.
GoOnThenDoTell
If its written on the toilet paper, yes
rootusrootus
Interesting, I had no idea that this was a thing. I think it is perfectly sensible to prohibit employees from using their personal conscience to boycott with company (or government) funds, as it isn't their own money. But prohibiting them personally? That should be protected absolutely. And companies should be permitted to boycott as well, when the decision is actually a company decision and not just a rando employee.
enkid
I could understand the US government not allowing certain companies to boycott foreign governments, as you start getting companies affecting foreign policy, which isn't a great position to be in. To me, this should be limited to limits the federal government can place on business conducted specifically for the federal government, and shouldn't extend to individuals working for that company. For example, they should be able to specify that a national security company has to be willing to purchase parts from a specific foreign country for the business it does with the federal government. I feel like anything other than that should be protected speech.
tetrep
> The court of appeals reasoned that because one can’t know the meaning of a decision not to purchase from a business unless it is accompanied by speech, the boycott itself is not protected, and the state is free to single out and penalize the boycotts it disfavors.
Wow. Using the same logic as that ruling, donating to politicians is not protected by the 1st Amendment unless you also include a memo making clear your intent...
This feels like more "I'll know it when I see it" but with intent instead of porn.
User23
The logic is very simple. You just can’t boycott Israel.
Edit: And you can’t post about how you can’t boycott Israel either.
UncleOxidant
So a Republican legislature could pass a law in a state saying that you can't contribute money to a Democratic candidate if you want to work for the state as a contractor or employee - that seems pretty close to what they've done here, it's just the opposite of a boycott (giving money instead of withholding it)
erik_seaberg
To steelman the other side, you can’t work for the US government while antagonizing a formal ally of the US government.
User23
To steelman you need to show the same standard would be applied to formal allies besides Israel. I’m very curious to hear about any examples. I haven’t been able to find any. For example there doesn’t appear to be any action to restrict the Morocco boycott movement, despite their being the USA’s longest formal ally.
Also, remember the risible anti-French boycotts during the Bush 2 administration because they weren’t enthusiastic about an obviously fake casus belli? France was and is an important formal ally of the USA and those boycotts would never be legislatively opposed.
mattficke
These are all state laws, not federal.
mkoubaa
Actually this is a constitutional right
chadash
I think that this cuts both ways to some extent. The references case is about not awarding government contracts based on a company’s not agreeing to not boycott Israel.
To be clear, no one is arguing that companies can’t boycott Israel. They are simply saying that doing so would invalidate your ability to get government contracts in the given state.
The problem is that it cuts both ways. If you say that this is an infringement of first amendment rights, then the logical extension of that is that the government can never refuse a contract based on a company’s free speech. So for example, say Acme Co openly proclaims their support for the Ku Klux Klan… should the state of Michigan be allowed to say that they won’t purchase toilet paper from them?
thebradbain
The issue there is that… if you’re invalidated on that basis alone, then that seems to go against the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” since, in this example, it’s quite clear the _only_ thing that would disqualify you is your speech (specifically, your expression of intent to boycott)
At its most extreme, then there’s no reason a GOP-run government could say “any company that has ever donated to, or has an employee who has donated to, a Democrat is ineligible for state contracts” in a bid to freeze donations to the opposition party. The only thing that’s been replaced in that sentence from current laws is “The BDS Movement” with “Democrat”. Obviously that would be an infringement of political speech.
Adding in the KKK or other hate groups into the mix doesn’t really muddy the waters— if a company is (reasonably suspected of) not adhering to other laws, like the Civil Rights Act (and any other equivalent state laws about protected classes), then the state would likely be prohibited anyways from continuing with such a contract, so it’s not the same.
aidenn0
> So for example, say Acme Co openly proclaims their support for the Ku Klux Klan… should the state of Michigan be allowed to say that they won’t purchase toilet paper from them?
Absolutely not. There should be no political tests, no matter how odious the politics for government contracts.
Animatronio
At the root of this issue is Israel's treatment of Palestine. Solve that, and boycotts will cease. Everything else, including any anti-bds law, is ultimately just a smoke screen.
jl6
Is it normal for a government contract to mandate that the contractor does or does not profess a specific political opinion? This feels very not normal.
pessimizer
It's not normal. It's only for Israel.
smegsicle
anti-bds legislation is relatively common
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-bds-legislation
> To date, 35 states have adopted laws, executive orders, or resolutions designed to discourage boycotts against Israel. Separately, the U.S. Congress is also considering anti-boycott legislation
> Tennessee [...] state contracts must include “a written certification that the company is not currently engaged in, and will not for the duration of the contract engage in a boycott of Israel.”
> South Carolina’s state legislature passed legislation banning the state from entering into contracts with companies that participate in certain boycotts.
> Illinois’ state pension announced in December 2021 that it will divest from Unilever, the parent company of Ben and Jerry’s, over the ice cream company’s decision to stop selling ice cream in the West Bank.
mkoubaa
I bring this particular issue up anytime I hear that cancel culture was a contribution of the political left.
rootusrootus
Boycotting is not cancel culture, IMO. It's one thing to vote with your wallet, or vocally protest against a company. It's another thing entirely to go after someone personally and attempt to ruin their life for something they've done to offend you. I suspect that's the problem most people are thinking of when they use the term 'cancel culture.' Like Justine Sacco. Totally horrid leveraging of the power of the Internet to destroy an individual.
upbeat_general
I’ve very often heard cancel culture used to refer to “cancelling” of companies so I’m not sure I agree with that statement.
Also the line can be blurry with celebrities since they will engage in business deals.
rootusrootus
I think there is a scale.
I think it's unacceptable to send the mob after an individual to destroy their life. I think there is more wiggle room when the target is a celebrity who signed up to be a public figure. Same with politicians. Not that it should completely unlimited, mind you, but if someone chooses to be a public figure then they are accepting that some people will be critical of them.
With companies, I don't know if there should be much, if any limit to what gets said. Companies are not people, Mitt Romney's opinion notwithstanding. To me it becomes a moral wrong when there is a human target.
mkoubaa
State governments can and have fired people for their political speech under these laws.
pessimizer
Especially when Bari Weiss gets in on it. Palestinians were the first people getting "cancelled" on campus, and we would have never heard of Bari Weiss if she hadn't been trying to get her campus authorities to restrain Palestinian speech.
MarkPNeyer
People have been doing cancel culture from time immemorial. It seems to be a default in human behavior unless there are ideas specially saying, “don’t do this.” These ideas used to be called “liberalism.”
What seems to have changed, from my perspective, is that liberalism has stopped being the values system championed by the left, and instead what we have are two different visions that are both more or less authoritarian.
CoastalCoder
I wasn't aware of this issue, and as framed by the ACLU it's pretty alarming.
That said, experience tells me to always get both sides of a story. Can anyone suggest a good representation of the other sides' position?
mattficke
The (unconvincing) argument is that boycotting Israel is discriminating on the basis of religion and ethnicity, and is therefore not protected under the 1st Amendment (for the same reason laws banning racial discrimination don’t violate the 1st amendment.)
It’s not a very good argument imo.
HKH2
Yeah it makes no sense. You can't boycott Israel, but the government can sanction Iran etc.
iudqnolq
> That said, experience tells me to always get both sides of a story. Can anyone suggest a good representation of the other sides' position?
I've never understood why this is seen as a good idea. In the spirit of your statement, can you suggest a good representation of why you think this is worthwhile?
There's no natural law that issues should have two sides, and I think forcing everything into that framing is part of why our media discourse is so broken. This also promotes the misconception the truth lies in the middle, which encourages people acting in bad faith to pick extreme positions and skew the average.
ars
It's not really that complicated, people pretend they are boycotting Israel because of issues with Israel, while in reality it's just antisemitism.
The proof comes when you ask them who else are they boycotting, and it's no one. You get even more proof when you start asking them detailed questions about what's going on in Israel and they have no clue. Or they say things that aren't actually true.
The 1% who are intellectually honest about it are easily dwarfed by the 99% who are doing it out of hate.
psyfi
So what you are saying that it is okay to restrict freedoms based on guesses of people intentions?
> and it's no one
Which means they don't boycott other jews owned business, which invalidates your mental gymnastics.
> when you start asking them detailed questions about what's going on in Israel and they have no clue
So it is okay to outlaw boycotting if X country if some of the boycotters deny to share their intent?
rnk
Those claims would benefit from supporting details. Somehow you know the hearts of humans?
ars
I'm Jewish, the amount of antisemitism online has skyrocketed, and virtually all of it pretends to be "legitimate criticism of Israel", because blatant antisemitism gets blocked, but if you pretend it's about Israel then you confuse people, and you don't get blocked.
In all of my time online I've encountered actual criticism of Israel only a handful of times. Under 1%.
One easy way to tell: Are they criticizing all of Israel, or a specific policy?
This has more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Ds_of_antisemitism
mkoubaa
These laws are passed in states who are politically dominated by apocalyptic evangelical christians who believe that the state of Israel is the only thing holding back literal Armageddon
faxywaxy
I'm not super well versed in evangelical christianity but I think they want Israel to start Armageddon, their goal is bring it about, not to avoid it:
https://www.businessinsider.com/battle-armageddon-israel-eva...
svggrfgovgf
Hmm. I can see there may be first amendment issue here and I realize the issue is state governments limiting who can receive state funds. However, the US federal government used withholding funds to force state governments to pass/amend certain laws. For example, congress would withhold highway funds from any state that did not raise the drinking age to at least 21 [0].
Obviously, this isn't exactly the same thing, but it is an example of a US government using the withholding of funding to achieve a policy goal.
[0] https://www.quora.com/Can-the-federal-government-withhold-fe...
badrabbit
My question is, does the first amendment apply to government employees and contractors in their capacity of doing work for the state as opposed to as individuals?
These people can and do get fired for saying the wrong thing on social media or getting recorded acting like a jerk in public for example, so the first amendment does not apply to them.
I agree that the government cannot prevent citizens from boycotting but they can prevent themselves from boycotting, what I mean is employees and contractors are part of the state, agents if you will.
The 1st and I believe other amendments use the term abridging:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Termination of employment or contract is not abridging those people's freedoms, they can still boycott. The ACLU's argument boils down to whether or not termination of a contract by the state equals a punishment or if the threat of termination equals a punishment that prevents a person from excercising their freedom.
If it is a punishment or a restriction, then effectively, state employees and contractors can do anything protected by the constitution and keep their jobs. For an extreme example, can a contracor for the state police associate with white nationalists and say things in public like how the police will be on their side in their typical "race war" propaganda, and state will have to maintain their contract? Or can a teacher at an elementary school post online how he likes young girls and not lose his job because that was freedom of speech? The latter one is not political but the former example of a white nationalist arguably is political because one can argue (not that I do) that boycotting israel and desiring war against the jews (white nationalist propaganda) are both free expressions of the person's sentiment even though boycotting is an expression of disagreement and my example is one of anti-semetism.
I think federal employment law should protect these people so they can protest and boycott but I cannot agree that the constitution protects employees and other agents of the state.
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I still cannot wrap my head around the idea of making a boycott illegal. If it's not accompanied by speech, what is the difference between someone who actively avoids a product or one who simply would not have purchased it in the first place? How can that possibly be enforced? If I sign that form and then happen to not buy any of the products I'm not supposed to boycott, have I violated the contract?