Where the First Amendment Ends?

As I was perusing the news yesterday, I came across an article about a pastor who tried to stiff a waitress on a tip by writing “I give God 10%, why should I give you 18?” on the receipt. It was an amusing read, especially as the pastor apparently couldn’t do the math required to figure out that the tip had already been added to the total and by signing off on that total, she’d agreed to the tip anyway.

So what part of this story triggered a First Amendment post? The second story I just stumbled across where Applebee’s fired the waitress who posted a picture of the receipt.

We live in a world of increasing visibility and ever-shrinking privacy, where the things we do and say have greater consequences than they did when we were children. The Internet has a long memory, even for hoaxes that have been debunked and scams that have been uncovered. When someone says “X” and another person believes it, it doesn’t matter if “X” is actually true or not, the story will spread from believer to believer, gaining momentum and eventually crushing the first poster or even some of the many posters in between. Tech-savvy employers can now check up on our many activities, regardless of our Facebook privacy settings, and see who they will and won’t work with based on a 140 character snippet of opinion. Even jokes gone bad can kill a person’s employment chances.

“But it’s not fair!” some might say. “I have the right to say what I want to say and I am protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution!”

Well, yes. Of course you have the right to say what you want to say. But hang on a second. Let’s look at the actual wording of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment:

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.

Wait. That doesn’t give me the right to say what I want. It just says that Congress can’t forbid me to speak by passing libel or censorship laws. Now, without getting into the sticky wicket of the whole pornography / shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre argument, let’s consider this. I can say what I want about whomever I want, whenever I want. It won’t stop someone from Britain from suing me for libel using International Treaty agreements between the U.K. and the U.S. It won’t stop my employer for firing me for posting trade secrets or items that embarrasses the company. It certainly won’t stop my friends from walking away in droves if I out their “dark-n-dirties” on the Internet.

The waitress had every right to post that receipt on the internet if she wanted to. Certainly the pastor in question had no business making a crack like that on the receipt and NOT expecting a consequence. The service industry is rough enough without the addition of uncaring consumers who are full of themselves.

Did Applebee’s go too far in firing her? It’s hard to say. What the pastor did, intentional or not, borders on harassment and no one should have to put up with that. On the other hand, I don’t know the details of the night and whether or not the waitress was good to the group or gave them horrendous service. There is a lot of missing information to this situation. I can say is that the information that has made the news makes the waitress seem very sympathetic and the Applebee’s manager (and the pastor) look very bad in comparison. But does Applebee’s have the right to fire her for posting a picture? Absolutely. The First Amendment protects our free speech. It doesn’t save us from the consequences of it.

So the next time we’re tempted to let loose our rants and displeasures, or even to make a joke, maybe we should sit back and think about who might hear about it and what the consequences of those actions may be. It may keep us from getting pink-slipped via news story the next day.