City Worker Forced To Resign Over Anti-Semitic Website
[guest post by Dana]
Three months ago, John Friend was hired as a division coordinator in the Escondido City Manager’s Office. He was responsible for supervising support staff as well as working on the development of office policies and procedures.
Last week, Friend was forced from his job due to the discovery of his anti-Semitic website, the Realist Report, where he espouses white supremacy and 9/11 Israel conspiracy views.
City officials said they were unaware at the time that Friend is an outspoken blogger and contributor to several white supremacist publications.
Friend told a reporter he finds “inspiration and guidance from America’s Founding Fathers” as well as “white Christian patriots” such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.
City Manager Clay Phillips said he was unaware of Friend’s activism until a reporter began asking questions about it on Tuesday and a second person called in the same tip.
Friend was then called into Human Resources and given the option to resign or be terminated. He chose to resign, claiming he wasn’t surprised by the city’s reaction:
“(I thought) it was inevitable that my political and historical views would become known to the city,” he said in an email to the Union-Tribune. “I thought that their knowledge of my writing, publishing, and speaking activities, as well as the political and historical perspective I openly espouse, would ultimately result in my termination.”
Friend stated that while he did not attempt to hide his political writings, he did not include them on his resume. According to the report, he kept his political views to himself and did not discuss them at work.
City Manager Clay Phillips commented:
“John worked in this office and I did find out about some of his writings on the Internet and it certainly raises concerns for the city and for me personally as his boss.”
I read several reports about Friend’s termination and could not find any accusations that Friend wrote blog posts on city time, that Human Resources received complaints about his proselytizing at work, or that his social writings interfered with the execution of his duties.
However, in spite of complaints about employer overreach and Friend being improperly let-go for his thought crimes, he was considered an “at-will” employee of Escondido and as such, according to the city’s Personnel Rules And Regulations, the city had the right to terminate him without cause and without any right to appeal:
31. “Unclassified Service”: The unclassified service includes temporary, interim, provisional, seasonal, most part-time employees, grant funded personnel, contract employees, and employees in the classifications designated by City Council resolution. Employees in the unclassified service are at-will and may be removed without cause or right of appeal.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:03 amNot quite. An at-will employee can be fired for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all, but not an unlawfully discriminatory reason. And for a government worker, his political views is an unlawfully discriminatory reason.
We see a lot of that in Cook County, but it’s not usually Nazis. It’s Republicans.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:17 amI find this termination to be disturbing. There doesn’t seem to be an indication that he discriminated in the course of his job, or that his views affected his job performance.
aunursa (be35b6) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:20 amI wondered about that, nk. In spite of the city’s rules, does he have a right to appeal above and beyond the city?
Dana (86e864) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:26 amWhen writing the post and reading about Friend’s position, it was certainly troubling, but I wanted to focus on the steps taken by the city and what they were relying on to justify his termination. But, as the post indicates, there was no *real* reason (poor work performance, misuse of city time, etc) for forcing him out other than his abhorrent political views. And if we can terminated for what are considered abhorrent political views, there are a whole lot of conservatives that should be concerned.
Dana (86e864) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:30 amThe man is disgustingly, disturbingly evil, and I would not want him anywhere in government or in any managerial positions in private industry. That being said, the dood has the right to his opinions and should not be fired from any job due to his evil, antichristian, anti-semitic opinions.
John Hitchcock (951521) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:32 amthe persecution of “white Christian patriots” seems to be a leit motif of this election cycle
at least on the R side
but it’s mostly based on anecdotes not on a statistically significant actual thing that’s happening
so they fired this one anti-semite
i wish we could fire the one in the white house
happyfeet (831175) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:33 amDana, in Cook County, we’ve had federal lawsuits resulting in judgments, decrees, and consent decrees with federal supervision, since the ’70s, for unlawful discrimination by the City of Chicago and Cook County departments based on politics. Usually, it’s over patronage jobs. There are Supreme Court cases on it. You cannot, in government hiring, discriminate against someone for his politics. So a federal suit, under both EEOA and Section 1983 would be in order. If the dipstick had not resigned. That kind of weakens the case a whole lot. It would take some good lawyering to show that he was actually driven out.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:44 amBeing asked to resign in lieu of termination is effectively the same in employment law.
Joe from Texas (debac0) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:48 amThere are a lot of people who claim to be Christian but are decidedly anti-christian. For instance, one cannot be an anti-semitic Christian. Just as one cannot walk into the garage, go vroom vrooooom and be a Ferrari Testarosa.
John Hitchcock (951521) — 9/14/2015 @ 7:52 am“Unclassified Service”: The unclassified service includes temporary, interim, provisional, seasonal, most part-time employees, grant funded personnel, contract employees, and employees in the classifications designated by City Council resolution. Employees in the unclassified service are at-will and may be removed without cause or right of appeal.
These are the patronage jobs in Chicago. The kind you get from your “rabbi”. His bigger offense may be embarrassing his political connection.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:04 amwhat’s depressing is this frees him up to work full time for whichever fresh anti-semite the Democrats nominate to succeed obama
hillary sanders biden they’re all on board with Obama’s anti-semitic israel genocide initiative
this guy seems very dedicated to the cause so any of the three would be smart to snatch him up
i question the timing
happyfeet (831175) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:05 amI can see where it would certainly bolster his position if he had forced them to terminate him. Not only did he freely step down, he also made public statements that he expected this to happen and was not surprised.
Dana (86e864) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:06 amBut now I have to go buy some tobacco and papers.
From a Palestinian. Who says he is from Palestine. Not Israel. He opens the store at 10:00 a.m. and closes it at 9:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday; till 6:00 p.m. on Sundays. I don’t know when he has time to go get his food stamps, or go to his bomb-making classes.
He’s got black hair, but he’s whiter than I am. He must use SPF60 at least.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:16 amThis guy is stupid. The weight of the evidence is strongly against Hitler being Christian. Goebbels was clearly not Christian.
Wikipedia says
Notice how there’s nothing about anyone being Christian there.
Wikipedia says of Hitler:
The term “Positive Christianity” is interesting.
Those “negative” Christians!
Gerald A (e1ec12) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:16 am#15
Gerald A (e1ec12) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:22 amNotice that “Positive Christianity” disposes of the Old Testament.
I’d really love to understand a mind that considers two Nazi socialist German dogs such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels to be “white Christian patriots”. They weren’t even American to whom were they patriots?
And if this douche finds “inspiration and guidance from America’s Founding Fathers” then he should be a Master Mason like many of them were and I am. Perhaps as an ally in Hiram Abiff he would understand the Jews are our friends.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:26 amGreetings:
I sure hope that no one sends the City of Escondido’s Human Resources Department a copy of the Koran.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:28 amExactly, Gerald A. As John Hitchcock so beautifully put it ” Just as one cannot walk into the garage, go vroom vrooooom and be a Ferrari Testarosa.”. One cannot be a Christian without the Old and New Testaments. Nor does one saying he’s Christian in any way make him one. It’s like putting on a dress and makeup, calling yourself Caitlyn and POOF! you’re a woman. Don’t work that way.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:33 am@Gerald A.: Hitler publicly claimed to be Christian and the majority of Germans thought of him as a Christian. The majority of people who carried out Hitler’s orders were Christians.
No one can see into Hitler’s heart. Fundamentally I think the available evidence shows he only worshiped himself, regardless of what he said. Nonetheless he publicly identified as Christian and wanted the public to think he was Christian, and millions and millions of Christians went along with what he was doing.
I am aware that his inner circle was composed of cranks who believed a lot of weird and anti-Christians things. I am aware that there were German Christians who heroically resisted Hitler. This doesn’t change anything. Hitler presented himself as Christian publicly and was accepted as Christian by a Christian public.
None of this is intended as an indictment of Christianity. The whole point of Christianity is that no one is good enough to be accepted by God for his actions alone, so particular examples of Christians doing evil does not indict the philosophy.
But you are not able to make the case that Hitler and all his works and followers were pagan. They have the same relationship to Christianity that Osama bin Laden has to Islam. And if Hitler and his followers had not been discredited by failure, the damage to Christianity would have been immense, since his success would have been the occasion for perverting Christianity and leading Christians in Europe away from true Christianity. There are always people who will worship power, whatever it calls itself, and always people who would rather go along than not.
But let’s not commit the error of declaring Hitler and his followers Not True Scotsmen. They were bad Christians and some were fake Christians, but they intended their public face to be Christian, albeit a new, revitalized Christianity. It’s a persistent temptation, what Screwtape calls “Christianity and —-“, where the second half of the phrase is the real focus: Christianity and Race, Christianity and Social Justice, etc.
Gabriel Hanna (2ca835) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:33 amGuy is a moron and a bigot.
Let me know when a leftist La Raza member gets fired for his views. Let me know when a Farrakhan Nation of islam member gets fired for his views. Let me know when a islamist gets fired for his views.
Thanks.
NJRob (2cbf9c) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:53 amNo, the majority of people who carried out Hitlers orders WERE NOT Christians. Again, you cannot paint a lemon red and declare it to be a strawberry. I mean you can, since that’s what you did with the Nazis, but it doesn’t make it true.
John Hitchcock (951521) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:00 amIf, when you get to Heaven, Jesus says be gone from me, I never knew you, then you were never, ever a Christian. QED.
John Hitchcock (951521) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:01 amMost of the things the Nazis said were lies. And if you didn’t believe them, you went to Dachau. This guy is just using their playbook.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:10 amBut you are not able to make the case that Hitler and all his works and followers were pagan
They were no doubt baptized but the Nazi party was based on several principles, called Fuhrerprinzip that were not Christian in any way we think of it.
This principle can be most succinctly understood to mean that “the Führer ’s word is above all written law” and that governmental policies, decisions, and offices ought to work toward the realization of this end.[1] In actual political usage, it refers mainly to the practice of dictatorship within the ranks of a political party itself
This was not a system that accepted Christian beliefs as directing behavior.
The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors.[2] This required obedience and loyalty even over concerns of right and wrong. The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to God and the German people. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has argued that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law or highest law itself, effectively combining in his persona executive power, judicial power and legislative power. After the campaign against the alleged Röhm Putsch, Hitler declared: “in this hour, I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and was therefore the supreme judge of the German people!”
As I said, this is not Christianity no matter what Hitler’s parents thought when they had him baptized.
Mike K (d45bd4) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:32 amIt’s ridiculous to equate their relationship to Christianity as Osama bin Laden has to Islam. It’s possible to factually investigate whether someone even professed to be a Christian in private. The evidence is that Hitler was not a Christian.
Was Hitler a Christian?
His millions of followers are irrelevant to this discussion as is the No True Scotsman fallacy. I’m not discussing whether someone could have been a Christian and a Nazi.
As for the rest of the Nazi leadership like Goebbels, I don’t believe any even publicly professed to be a Christian.
Gerald A (e1ec12) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:33 amSorry Gabriel, but there is absolutely nothing Christian about Hitler, Goebbels, the Nazi hierarchy or Nazism itself. If anything it’s the antithesis of Christianity. From the twisted cross to the belief some people were non-human and disposable there is no Christ in their beliefs. It’s like abortionists, once they decide who gets to live and who dies based on their worth all bets are off. If Hitler was a Christian, or Goebbels or Mengele then so is Gosnell and Panned Parenthood is a cathedral.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 9/14/2015 @ 10:02 amThere are all sorts of abhorrent views now – agreeing with Obama’s 2011 position on SSM, not wanting to see children dismembered, etc
JD (34f761) — 9/14/2015 @ 10:18 amAn Escondido City Manager is an unelected official being paid by the bucket load to do the job the elected mayor, an incompetent democrat of Hispanic heritage I’ll wager, was supposed to do.
A closet Nazi dipping his beak in the public trough being found out (surprised he wasn’t promoted to a permanent position), one less temp in an office of temps. Good riddance and a good start.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 9/14/2015 @ 10:41 ameverybody needs a job Mr. tiger even people not right in the head
the people what stand out as being most obnoxious in this situation is the sleazy reporterwhore what got this guy fired on such a slim pretext
but it can’t be helped now
i wonder though how the reporterwhore would feel if nazi boy had decided to go out with a bang
happyfeet (831175) — 9/14/2015 @ 10:46 amYes he was a pagan, Thule society people, but the majority of Germans were christians so he pretended to adopt these notion.
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/14/2015 @ 10:52 amI disagree with his political views. And I disagree with the fact that the government cannot fire someone for having abhorrent political views.
But the law says that the city cannot engage in this type of discrimination. Hope he sues the city for this blatant violation.
Egd (1ad898) — 9/14/2015 @ 10:56 amThe Reverend Hoagie wrote:
An example which points out how the left can’t see the truth; too many actually do think that putting on a dress and makeup and calling yourself Caitlyn makes you a woman.
The Dana who isn't impressed with the intelligence of leftists (1b79fa) — 9/14/2015 @ 4:37 pmThe Nazis explicitly established Protestant Christianity as the national religion. Whatever they privately believed, they would not have had any public support if they had been seen to be anti-Christian. They unified nearly all of the existing German Protestant churches, partly through chicanery and partly through the pressure of pro-Nazi congregations, into a single national church headed by a Reich Bishop.
Hitler has millions of followers and only a handful of them were pagans. The rest openly professed Christianity. Large numbers of Christians in Germany opposed Hitler and Nazi dominance of the established church, certainly–but far more of them went along. I’m prepared to say that’s understandable, if not excusable: not everyone served Hitler for the same motives that Nazi leadership did.
Almost everyone commenting here today would say that a Christian who hates Jews and participates in their persecution is a bad Christian. But can you really make the case that such a person is not a Christian at all? For hundreds of years Christians persecuted Jews after all and many considered themselves to have a religious obligation to do so.
But of course No True Scots-er Christian, would slaughter people of a different faith, or trade slaves, or persecute Jews, or exterminate less-civilized peoples. Yet many people who were regarded by their contemporaries as Christians did such things.
It’s not, as I said, an indictment of Christians; I am indicted only sloppy thinking about Christians.
Gabriel Hanna (2ca835) — 9/14/2015 @ 6:02 pmyes, he tried to coopt the church, as Mussolini did with the Vatican pact, but you make my point for me,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/14/2015 @ 6:21 pm@narciso:but you make my point for me
I would say you are making mine for me. He tried to co-opt the church to help insure the loyalty of the millions of Christians he needed to serve in his armies and enforce his laws.
Hitler didn’t trick his way into power. He never got elected by a majority, but he had a plurality in the last election that would be the envy of a lot of today’s democratic governments. He said upfront what he was planning to do and it was popular.
Gabriel Hanna (2ca835) — 9/14/2015 @ 6:29 pmGabriel Hanna, you obviously don’t know what a Christian is. There are millions of people in the US alone who are members of various Churches but who are decidedly NOT Christians. Just because someone claims the mantle, does not make one Christian. Hitler wanted to co-opt the church-goers. He couldn’t co-opt Christians.
John Hitchcock (eeea4b) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:29 pmhe’s going long with a godwin law violation, now there may have been greater collaboration with Catholic centered nationalists in the balkans, and the ukraine, phillip kerr’s series explores that posibility,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/14/2015 @ 8:32 pmThe Nazis were not revolutionaries. They did not want to overthrow social institutions, they wanted to coopt them and control them. That included the churches. As for Christianity and anti-Semitism, the Jews as Christ-killers was not invented by Jeremiah Wright. It was, and probably still is, the prevailing view in most of Europe. But a lot more in places like Poland, Ukraine and the Russias, than in Germany until the Nazis came along.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:16 pmI was speaking of the OUN and the Ustashe, that is of course,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:20 pm“An example which points out how the left can’t see the truth; too many actually do think that putting on a dress and makeup and calling yourself Caitlyn makes you a woman.”
– The Dana who isn’t impressed with the intelligence of leftists
It’s almost like it’s some kind of open question, or something.
The Sarcastic Leviticus (48a857) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:23 pmIt’s remarkable to me that all Christians today have to bear the burden of Christians born five hundred years ago, but members of other religions get a pass on their past transgressions simply because Christians of 200 years ago created a nation that accepts all religions as equal.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:33 pmI know the Croats were Nazi collaborators and that Tito killed about 100,000 of them for it after the war, but that’s about as far as it goes.
I was wondering whether to read The Lady From Zagreb (Kerr is a guy I can take or leave) and you’ve boosted my interest, though.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:33 pmAg80,
That is a great observation.
Dana (86e864) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:38 pmwell I liked it that’s why I referenced it, there are some tough parts in it, I caution,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:41 pmI’ve read Nos. 4, 5, and 6, so I know what you mean. More like James Elroy than Eric Ambler.
nk (dbc370) — 9/14/2015 @ 9:50 pm@Hitchcock:There are millions of people in the US alone who are members of various Churches but who are decidedly NOT Christians. Just because someone claims the mantle, does not make one Christian.
Going the True Scotsman route. So what is the percentage of Americans who are “real Christians”? 1%? That’s about the percentage that’s not downloading porn… What’s the percentage of people in history who were “real Christians”? If 90% of Germans in WWII were not “real Christians” than what percentage of Americans were at that time, do you think? If that figure is also 90%, then it seems that Christianity wasn’t very relevant to the side you were on…
@narcisco:he’s going long with a godwin law violation
Not sure what that is supposed to mean, since I didn’t introduce Hitler and I am not using Hitler to discredit anyone. I am responding only to the ludicrous statement that Nazism had nothing to do with Christianity and did not have Christians as members. If we’re talking about True Christians than the number is so small worldwide as not to be bothering about, and if we’re talking about Christians as “people who believe in the truth of Christianity as they understand it and describe themselves as Christians”, well the Nazis had to appeal to those people and present themselves as being like them–and in fact they did do that regardless of what some of the high-ranking Nazis privately believed but dared not be too public about.
Gabriel Hanna (2ca835) — 9/15/2015 @ 6:34 amwell gabriel you are making that comparison, the history of the reich church, in fact pastor niemoller’s own makes it place,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/15/2015 @ 7:41 am2 nk: The Shakman decree of 1972 largely barred hiring and firing for political reasons in Cook County. The Daley I-era “Machine” no longer exists, as the Democrat party organization no longer has thousands of patronage employees doing political work to keep their jobs. Under Daley II, there was no “slating” of candidates, or endorsements by the mayor. Elected officeholders are all basically independent.
39 nk: The Nazis were indeed revolutionaries. They seized total power, threw out the existing constitution, and enacted a program of radical top-to-bottom social change. They were constrained by the compromise with the Army, and by the preference for working through existing structures. But their intrinsic radicalism is obvious.
Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd) — 9/16/2015 @ 1:38 amJohn Hitchcock:
I see no reason a person should not be fired from a private sector job for such views, and if this person were working for me I would certainly fire him. But I don’t see how firing him from a government job can possibly be constitutional. As far as I know it’s black-letter law that no government benefit, even one that is strictly discretionary, may be denied to or removed from someone in retaliation for exercising their first amendment rights.
That’s why Giuliani couldn’t defund the Brooklyn Museum over the elephant dung picture, and why that police department in Texas couldn’t fire the woman who said she was glad Reagan had been shot, and hoped that next time he would be killed. You don’t have to fund museums or hire people in the first place, but once you do you can’t change your mind because they said something you don’t like.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 9/18/2015 @ 12:40 pmI think the “No True Scotsman” so-called fallacy is overused. It is perfectly valid to observe that Idi Amin was not a true Scotsman, despite his claim to be one. If being a Christian means more than simply claiming to be one, then it seems valid to say that Hitler wasn’t one. (I understand there are at least some versions of Christianty that in fact do define a Christian as anyone claiming to be one, and that consider it sinful to question such a claim, or to declare such a person not to be a Christian. My comment is only addressed to those versions — if any — that do not hold such a doctrine.)
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 9/18/2015 @ 12:52 pmSuperficial answer: Germany, of course. To whom else should they have been? Surely you don’t define patriotism as loyalty to the USA.
Serious answer: In the view we are discussing, Hitler and Goebbels were patriots of the global White Christian nation, as this person himself is, and as he imagines the USA’s founders to have been. His patriotism is not to the USA at all, and can even take the form of taking up arms against the USA, if it makes war on White Christians.
“Christian” is used here not as a religious designation but a cultural one. A “White Christian” is not a person of pallor who subscribes to the doctrines of Christianity; far from it. It is someone who is both ethnically and culturally identified with the majority population of Europe over the past 1500 years or so, regardless of his religious views, if any.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 9/18/2015 @ 1:00 pmOh, there was plenty of it in Germany too. But Christian anti-Judaism, like Moslem anti-Judaism, was a different beast; it was based on what Jews believed, not on who they were, and a Jew could escape it by adopting the locally dominant flavor of Christianty (or Islam, where applicable). Racial antisemitism was an invention of 19th-century Germany, and for the first time there was no escape.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 9/18/2015 @ 1:19 pmThe Marranos might disagree with that, Milhouse.
kishnevi (31ba4e) — 9/18/2015 @ 1:26 pm(And l’shana tova, etc.)
There are thousands (at least) of people in the US alone who profess to be psychics, but who are decidedly not. No True Psychic needs to ask a mark for his credit card number.
There are thousands (at least) of people in the US alone who profess to be doctors or healers of some kind, but who wouldn’t know a bacterium from a bactrian camel, and couldn’t cure a <insert something easy to cure, perhaps a salmon>.
There are thousands (at least) of people in the US alone who claim to be superheroes, or visitors from another planet. But they’re not.
The only reason people get away with claiming “no true scotsman” as a fallacy is that there aren’t a lot of people falsely claiming to be Scottish.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 9/18/2015 @ 1:31 pmOnly the ones whose conversion was insincere. Under Christian rule there could be no such person as St Edith Stein. (Well, she would still have existed, but she would not have been killed.)
In Spain the number of false converts was so high that even sincere ones found themselves under suspicion, and eventually barred from positions of influence, but they were not persecuted.
Milhouse (a04cc3) — 9/18/2015 @ 1:36 pm