Printing this out and sticking it on my wall

The right to say whatever you want gives you the obligation to think about you say.

@Martijn +1. I can`t resist adding: The right to vote for whoever you want gives you the obligation to think about who you vote for.

Depending where you work, your employer might need a justification as to why they fire you. While I completely agree with this strip in general, I fail to see how it applies in this case: you might have to face the consequence of your speech, but the fact that being fired for a bumper sticker is far from clear.

Great answer. I think people often forget the that the First Amendment doesn't protect you from your employer, but from Uncle Sam.

This answer is 100% correct. Freedom of speech just means that the government can't force you not to say it, not that you should say it or that saying it won't have consequences from entities who are not the government. Additionally, if the employer didn't ask you to remove the sticker after getting multiple, then they might be opening themselves up to liability for allowing a hostile work environment or similar, even aside from how unprofessional it makes your company look to potential customers.

1. note that panel 4 of your comic does not go so far as to defend firing someone for something they say outside the workplace. 2. xkcd.com/137 3. Your comic (especially panel 4) lists examples where a platform is owned by someone else and you have no rights at all to speak there except at their sufferance. It's far from clear that this is the case here, even where it is legal for employers to arbitrarily fire people many people regard at-will employment as immoral and as a flaw in these states' legal systems.

@reirab And it's not a hostile work environment for him to force him to remove a not-inherently-hostile message from his vehicle?

Their property. Their payroll. Their reasonable rules, and anyone asked to arbitrate will consider this one reasonable. Pick your battles.

@Random832 Keep in mind that the comic is just that and wasn't drawn to answer the OP's question... Anyway, the key point in it for me is that "freedom of speech doesn't shield you from the consequences of your actions". Correct me if I'm wrong but I think your broader point is that it's unjust for the employer to control what an employee puts on their car and we should stand up against that. I agree to an extent but also believe that compromise and respect for your colleagues' reasonable requests are important in the workplace and a key part of professional behaviour. [...]

Neither scenario qualifies. That was my point.

And requiring him to make a permanent alteration to his vehicle, for nothing more than mere profanity not directed at anyone (which is why this does not qualify as a hostile environment), with no possibility of simply covering it up, makes it an unreasonable request.

@Random832 Employers are perfectly free to make unreasonable requests of their employees. It only becomes a problem when it's an illegal request. You are, in turn, free to think that those employers are bad people and to make your views known to anybody willing to listen.

@ZachLipton It's unfair for Lilienthal to assert that this was a reasonable request, and then for you to turn around and say this when I point out how it's not. Lilienthal claimed that this was a reasonable request, and reirab suggested that allowing OP to keep the bumper sticker would open them up to liability as a hostile work environment, and neither claim has been withdrawn.

@Random832 I really don't see why you consider this request unreasonable. Several employees find the bumper sticker offensive. I personally don't care about profanity but many people do, particularly in the US. It's a sticker and one that's childish, immature and utterly inconsequential. It's perfectly reasonable to ask someone to remove it if it means that multiple employees will no longer feel offended every time they enter the office. If left unchecked this kind of thing will cause bad blood in the office so it should be nipped in the bud.

It's a sticker. You're not talking about fighting segregation or a corporate thought police here. The OP and a few of the commenters like yourself seem to want to argue that the right to be an arsehole somehow trumps an employer's right to determine the kind of workplace he wants and the kind of behaviour that is and isn't acceptable. Frankly, I don't get it. Is this really a hill worth dying on? Are your principles so strong that they won't let you be considerate of your own colleagues?

@Lilienthal The fact that they're requiring him to permanently alter his vehicle rather than merely cover up the "offending" words is part of why I think it's unreasonable. And I don't see how you think this will cause bad blood but being forced to remove it will not.

" many people regard at-will employment as immoral and as a flaw in these states' legal systems." - And many of us find it to be an important piece, if not a cornerstone of a free-market economy.

@Random832 It's removing a temporary alteration. As for the bad blood: how do you suppose the employees will feel about the colleague who's acting like such a child that he won't remove a sticker when asked to do so because "it's a free country"? How do you think the OP would be treated in the future if he held firm on this? How long before the OP's workplace starts developing pro/con factions and arguments spring up about freedom of speech and so on? Anyway, these comments are spiralling way out of control. You clearly feel strongly about your opinion so I'll just agree to disagree.

"At will employment" means that the employer may hire whomever they want. And, choose a new person for a position if they want. Didn't the phrase "Permanently Replaced" in the 80s make an impression on you? You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you don't think that you are a "product", then try not being one.

Do you work for the government? If you do then you may still be able to fall back on the freedom of speech argument. On the other hand, you're not being asked to remove it because of the viewpoint expressed, but because of the vulgarity. That puts you on far weaker grounds for citing the first amendment.,

So I can fire my employees if they don't take off their Hillary Clinton for President bumper stickers?? Sweet...

I never understood why so many Americans think "freedom of speech" means "freedom to force others to listen".

@WesleyLong Over here in Europe our free-market economy is doing just fine without at-will employment...

@Cronax amen to that :)

Send your employer here, we'll reason a robust justification for your termination.

@Cronax lots of systems can "work", but the issue is what is the best set of rules for getting things done effectively and fairly? I don't see how making it hard to "let people go" improves the world any. If companies are not nice to work for, then work for someone else. This is the real key to "At-Will": You may leave your job any time you want, for any reason. If this is a problem, then start a new business and run it yourself. You improve things by doing something better, not forcing others to stop being bad. Just abandon them and they will fail. Done.

Imagine if an employee fired anyone who didn't put a given message on their vehicle, especially a politically charged that targets certain groups that are highly associated, but not directly tied, to protected classes. For example, firing anyone who doesn't put an anti-Feminist, anti-BLM, or anti-GLBT (not currently a federally protected class, so limit this to states where they are not considered a protected class).

@Lawtonfogle you have this entirely upside down and backwards.If a company has such a hostile attitude towards those identified and recognized minority collectives,& that position is such an unreasonable one,there are a multitude of ways to withhold cooperation from them to cause their positions to cause themselves harm in the marketplace;withholding cooperation from them is 0 harm.Saying that you should have the authority to decide what they can and cannot do with their own property IS a harm.