RUSH: Try this, folks. This is just incredible. “Iowa City, Iowa — The Iowa Supreme Court today stood by its ruling that a dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant because he found her too attractive and worried he would try to start an affair. Coming to the same conclusion as it did in December, the all-male court found that bosses can fire employees they see as threats to their marriages…”
There doesn’t have to be any activity that has taken place.
There does not have to have been an affair. The beautiful woman in question does not have to have made an advance or any move whatsoever. The predator male in the circumstance need not have made a move on the attractive woman. What the Iowa State Supreme Court has ruled is that if a man thinks that he is going to be inclined to make a move on a beautiful woman in his office, he can fire her legally, simply because she’s beautiful.
May I call your attention once again to Undeniable Truth of Life No. 24 come to life yet again (albeit in a reverse form)? The feminists… I will guarantee you, the feminists are conflicted by this, but at the end of the day they have to be cheering this. Because feminism basically exists to level the scales, to level the playing field between attractive and unattractive women. That’s why it’s there. When you strip all the politics away — and feminism is totally about militant liberalism.
When you strip it all away, there’s also the attractive-versus-unattractive factor, which is (I think) one of the primary reasons the modern era of the feminist movement got ginned up in the first place. The court said that a guy firing an attractive female employee does not “count as illegal sex discrimination because they are motivated by feelings, not gender,” and the feelings are apprehension and fear.
Fear that the beauty of the female employee is going to undermine a marriage by inspiring the predator male to make a move on the female employee, have an affair with her — and, of course, the female employee is going to be inclined to accept the boss’s advances, otherwise she’ll get canned. So the other female employees… Well, look. See, this is the thing. I hate to have to go there, but you do have to consider:
How does this make the unattractive women in this guy’s office feel?
Do they feel safer that they don’t face the same risk of being fired because the boss is not attracted to them and may want to have an affair with them? Or are they jealous or envious? The wife is a factor in this story. “The ruling upholds a judge’s decision to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed against Fort Dodge dentist James Knight,” the guy we’re talking about “who fired assistant Melissa Nelson, even while acknowledging she had been a stellar employee for 10 years. Knight and his wife…”
Ahem. May I repeat?
The dentist, James “Knight and his wife believed that his attraction to Nelson — two decades younger than the dentist — had become a threat to their marriage. Nelson, now 33, was replaced by another woman,” obviously unattractive. “Knight had an all-female staff. The all-male court…” That’s the second time the story references them that way. “The all-male court issued its revised opinion today in the case after taking the unusual step last month of withdrawing its December opinion, which had received nationwide publicity, debate and criticism.
“Nelson’s attorney,” the attractive woman fired because of what might happen, “Paige Fiedler, had asked the court in January to reconsider, calling the decision a blow for gender and racial equity in the workplace. She had warned the opinion could allow bosses to legally fire dark-skinned blacks and replace them with light-skinned blacks or small-breasted workers in favor of big-breasted workers.” I kid you not.
That’s what the beautiful employee’s lawyer said. So you could fire a “dark-skinned black”? What was the assumption there? That the dark-skinned black is gonna be less attractive than the light-skinned black, to a white dentist? (chuckles) Somebody with big boobs stands a risk of getting fired more than somebody with small boobs? Anyway, the “all-male court” threw all of that out and stood by the dentists decision to fire the woman. (interruption)
Well, the wife is only mentioned once in the story but at a very key moment and in a very key way. “Fort Dodge dentist James Knight,” (ahem), “who fired assistant Melissa Nelson, even while acknowledging she had been a stellar employee for 10 years,” and nothing had ever happened, by the way. “Knight [ahem] and his wife [ahem] believed that his attraction to Nelson — two decades younger than the dentist — had become a threat to their marriage.”
It means the wife thought this. The dentist didn’t.
Tere’s a picture here of the fired woman. You want to see it? Yeah. I gotta take a break, but I’ll show you after the break.
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RUSH: Anyway, here comes the picture of the employee canned because the dentist felt like he might want to have an affair with her, and the dentist’s wife thought the same thing. There she is. That’s the 10-year employee that was fired. Sorry if you don’t have a Dittocam. Get it at RushLimbaugh.com. Just become a subscriber. Just do it. Otherwise you can’t see this, and this doesn’t mean anything to you. People watching on the Dittocam are no doubt (don’t doubt me on this) are shocked that this…
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Again, for those of you have the Dittocam, here is a close-up of the dentist and his wife. This is the dentist who was legally allowed to fire his assistant of 10 years ’cause she too attractive and he might want to have an affair. That’s the dentist and the wife. Here comes another picture of the employee, and that’s with an infant. Now, I’ve sent these pictures up to RushLimbaugh.com. I’ve sent ’em up to Koko Jr., and he will put these pictures at RushLimbaugh.com, or link to them, whatever we have to do, so that you who do not have the Dittocam can see them.
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Joanne in Virginia Beach, I’m glad you waited. I really appreciate your patience. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much. I was in dentistry for 26 years, and I find this whole thing absolutely ludicrous. The wife… I saw her on the Dittocam, and she’s not unattractive. Maybe a little lifestyle lift. You know, get her back to where she thinks she needs to be. But it’s definitely an issue between their marriage if the husband thinks that he might have an affair with an employee because she’s attractive? Give me a break. It’s ridiculous.
RUSH: Let me play devil’s advocate with you here.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: There are some women who might think this guy’s wonderful. There are some women who might think this guy is great — that he saw a temptation, that he took steps to remove it in order to preserve and protect his marriage — that he was admitting a weakness, that he might have fallen and done great damage to his marriage, and so he took a proactive action and got the temptation out of the way.
CALLER: Well, I think that’s… It’s a bunch of horse hockey. I think that if their marriage is strong, and if they have a good relationship and if they have good communication, nothing can come between the two of them.
RUSH: So, okay, but can I infer from that that you think there might have been something wrong in the marriage to begin with?
CALLER: Absolutely. I worked for a dentist for 26 of years.
RUSH: What has that got…? I don’t mean to be rude.
CALLER: I wouldn’t never date a dentist. They’re insane.
RUSH: Okay, I was just gonna ask you what that has to do with anything. “Dentists are insane.”
CALLER: Well, that’s certainly the kind of personality that goes into dentistry, and a lot of people are perfectionists.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: You know, I’ve worked for a lot of really good dentists, but they have their own particular quirks, you know? Just like there are some industries where it takes a certain type personality to do that particular job —
RUSH: It’s like this one.
CALLER: — or career.
RUSH: I’m telling you, you have to be off kilter psychologically to succeed at this job, the one I’ve got.
CALLER: Oh, I absolutely! I have to agree with you.
RUSH: Because you have to lie to yourself every day.
CALLER: Well, you have to, otherwise you’re gonna… You can make yourself crazy because everything that that’s… You know, I’m not that much younger than you are.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And I’m watching right turn into wrong, wrong turn into right — up is down, down is up — and I’m like, “What happened to the society I grew up in?” And for this couple to go ahead and take this person’s livelihood away because she’s attractive? I mean, she did her job. She was good at her job.
RUSH: That’s true. There was no issue there.
CALLER: She wasn’t flirting with the dentist.
RUSH: That’s right. There was no complaint about her job performance. It was strictly him, and the court acknowledged that this was not about anything other than feelings. This guy was allowed to make this move because of feelings. Well, if that’s the case, could he fire an unattractive female assistant because she makes him nervous for some other reason?
CALLER: Oh, I’m sure. I mean, this opens Pandora’s box to whatever. I mean, it’s ridiculous. I’ve been fired from jobs before for poor performance or attitude, you know, when I was younger, but never because of personal appearance. I mean, I think there’s something wrong with their marriage, something wrong with their relationship, and she was just a convenient excuse. I think they need to work on whatever it is because no employee in his office is safe until he retires.
RUSH: Okay, Joanne, thanks. I appreciate your input on that. Again, the court said that such firings do not count as illegal sex discrimination because this is all motivated by feelings, not gender. So you could, as I did, infer that employers can now fire unattractive people because of the feelings that they generate. Why not?
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RUSH: Nathan in Fenton, Michigan. You’re next, hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I guess the point that I wanted to make was about this dental hygienist that got fired.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: Shouldn’t the employer be able to fire his employee for really any reason he desires?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Unless she’s got some kind of contract, it don’t really make a difference if she’s pretty or not.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: In the free market, he should be able to fire her no questions asked and that’s no big a deal.
RUSH: That’s the pure interpretation. Exactly right. But you know as well as I do that it’s harder and harder to fire people. Now, in certain states you don’t. You know, in Florida you don’t have to give people a reason. But in other states you have to document it. You wouldn’t believe the steps that employers go to in setting up the termination of an employee. It’s called “building the file.”
You send ’em memos, you warn ’em that they’re not performing right — it sometimes takes six months — so that when you make the move you’ve got backup ’cause they can sue you, even if they have no case. They can sue you and cause you trouble. But, you’re right, this guy ought to be able to fire anybody he wants for whatever reason. This guy just said, “Look, I want to get rid of her because this woman…
“Think Samson and Delilah. I’m too tempted here.” What really was going on is that there were pressures from “outside the office.” Let’s put it that way: There were pressures from outside the office, and she didn’t deserve to be fired for any conventional performance or subordination reason. But it is fascinating that this case winds all the way up to Supreme Court of Iowa and that they justify it.
But in truth, the caller’s right.
In the free market, you should be able to fire anybody.
But that’s become abuse now in our touchy-feely society, because the purpose of a business is to hire people so they have jobs and give ’em health care. That’s the only reason that there are businesses, as far as the low-information crowd’s concerned. So if the purpose of a business is to hire people, what business does it have firing anybody? That’s an offense. That shouldn’t happen. But yep, you’re right.
(interruption)
Could be. You could end up being charged with discrimination for getting rid of somebody because now they’re without health care.
Yeah. It’s entirely possible.