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And I believe that freedom has to include the freedom to be a bigot, else what is freedom? The thought police have no place in America.
Stop with the nonsense.
1) There is no "thought police." The government has nothing to do with this?
2) Since when did the idea of free speech evolve into "I am free to have whatever opinion I want and am immune from criticism?"
That is NOT how free speech works. In fact, the very burden and check on the type of basically unlimited free speech we have in America is to know that unpopular opinions are subject to being shout down, marginalized, ostracized, etc.
Freedom of speech means you respect everyone's RIGHT to an opinion. You do NOT have to accept every idiot's opinion as valid or equal to every other opinion, and you certainly don't have to respect the person espousing an opinion.
Finally, supporting Prop 8 is and was more than speech. It was ACTION that sought to invalidate the existing marriages of people who likely have far less resources and options that a guy like Eich. The only thing that stopped Prop 8 from doing that once passed was that a judge told Prop 8-ers, "no."
It was malicious and it affected people's personal lives. Eich was and is sophisticated enough to know what he was doing, and lest we forget how odious the Prop 8 campaign he helped support was, here is a reminder:
So honestly, screw Eich, and screw his supporters who find it more troubling that some poor put-upon millionaire and various CEOs are finding it hard to support causes that harm people in tangible ways without consequence of their customers and employees ..... than the fact that there are still magnitudes more people who are being harmed by anti-gay activists every day.
Discussing the issue with such frequency, in public and private, as far back as 2003 or 2004, I've had many occasions to observe that an individual's position on the policy question turns out to be a flawed proxy for his or her attitude toward gays and lesbians. Gay-marriage supporters may have been more likely to be tolerant of gays. But I encountered people who'd say things like, "Look, I don't want gays looking at me in the shower at the gym, but why should I care if they want to marry each other?" And I also encountered gay-marriage opponents who were, apart from opposing marriage equality, model parents to gay sons or daughters, exceptionally supportive to gay friends, and wonderful bosses to gay subordinates. This will seem perfectly rational to some readers and weirdly inconsistent to others. (For the latter, note that people are often weirdly inconsistent.)
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Calls for his ouster were premised on the notion that all support for Proposition 8 was hateful, and that a CEO should be judged not just by his or her conduct in the professional realm, but also by political causes he or she supports as a private citizen.
If that attitude spreads, it will damage our society.
Consider an issue like abortion, which divides the country in a particularly intense way, with opponents earnestly regarding it as the murder of an innocent baby and many abortion-rights supporters earnestly believing that a fetus is not a human life, and that outlawing it is a horrific assault on a woman's bodily autonomy. The political debate over abortion is likely to continue long past all of our deaths. Would American society be better off if stakeholders in various corporations began to investigate leadership's political activities on abortion and to lobby for the termination of anyone who took what they regard to be the immoral, damaging position?
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ts implications are particularly worrisome because whatever you think of gay marriage, the general practice of punishing people in business for bygone political donations is most likely to entrench powerful interests and weaken the ability of the powerless to challenge the status quo. There is very likely hypocrisy at work too. Does anyone doubt that had a business fired a CEO six years ago for making a political donation against Prop 8, liberals silent during this controversy (or supportive of the resignation) would've argued that contributions have nothing to do with a CEO's ability to do his job? They'd have called that firing an illiberal outrage, but today they're averse to vocally disagreeing with allies. Most vexing of all is Mozilla's attempt to present this forced resignation as if it is consistent with an embrace of diversity and openness. Its public statements have been an embarrassment of illogic, as I suspect the authors of those statements well know. "Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech," the company wrote. "Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard."
This is a mess.
Proposition 8 was overturned. Gay marriage is legal in California. Having a CEO who opposed gay marriage now would in no way diminish equal marriage rights for gays.
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"Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness," the statement goes on. "We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all." But the company is plainly taking the position that it won't employ, in leadership positions, anyone who publicly holds orthodox Christian or Muslim views on gay marriage. Agree or disagree, they aren't being welcoming of "everyone." They should have the courage to say so.
What's interesting is that Eich is not the only guy who has had a pervasive impact on the apparatus of daily life. I wonder how you'd feel about some of the folks behind some of the tools you use continually.
With all due deference to Eich, he wasn't a messiah. He's no Gary Kovacs. For all intents and purposes, I'm the closest my own company has to a CTO, the role Eich served prior to being elevated to CEO. I'm very good at what I do. More than that, I have a very strong business background, my CV boasting a number of years at a prestigious Big Six firm (back when there were six of them). That doesn't qualify me to be CEO. Even Mozilla's press release announcing Eich's elevation was sheepish - they touted his "deep understanding of the organization’s core values and technology vision," but they said nothing about his "executive skills", or his ability to "lead in a complex strategic environment", or his talent for "making others better" - all key attributes of a great CEO, which incidentally Mozilla mentioned with regard to Gary Kovacs, back in 2010. While I don't think Eich's past donations should have become an issue, at all, I don't think Mozilla will "rue the day" he quit. CEO churn, like this, is always bad, but the next CEO they find through search will as likely as not be a better CEO for Mozilla than Eich could have been.
On the other hand, Eich founded the company, and Eich was largely responsible for the development of Firefox and JavaScript. And why did Eich found the company? Because of his passionate commitment to open source software. Mr Eich was an idealist. More than that, he was an idealist with the skill and resources to actually make his ideals come to fruition. That sounds like a good background for a CEO.
Mr Eich may also have strong religious convictions. While he helped craft policies at his company that were non-discriminatory, privately he was opposed to same-sex marriage. His opposition took the form of a paltry $1000 donation to support Proposition 8. He could have afforded much more. He made a token gesture several years ago. He didn't make it public. He didn't run ads in the newspaper. He didn't change the policies at his company.
The LA Times decided to run the names of those who contributed to both sides of the issue. Mr Eich's name appeared in the publication, along with many others. Some of his professional colleagues noted Mr Eich's contribution and found Mr Eich's position on same-sex marriage to be offensive. A year later, his company decided to appoint him CEO. And suddenly people came out of the wordwork, determined to punish a fellow American for holding an opinion they don't agree with. Once they've finished with Mr Eich, who will be their next target?
This is the United States of America. We should have learned from our own history that freedom of thought and opinion is integral to this nation, and that when we turn the thought police loose, we are attacking the very principles this country was founded upon.
"Forced 'voluntary' resignation" is the same as being fired. Everybody knows this.
I believe that Mr Eich's resignation was completely voluntary. Mozilla was his baby. He was hoping that his resignation would stop future harm to his baby. It didn't work, but that was Mr Eich's hope.
Freedom of speech means you respect everyone's right to an opinion. You do NOT have to accept every idiot's opinion as valid or equal to every other opinion, and you certainly don't have to respect the person espousing an opinion.
I don't know why people think the "thought police" have to be government. The "thought police" don't have to be associated with the government. They only have to be committed to stopping certain kinds of thought and punishing those who have those thoughts.
Freedom of thought and opinion allows a person to have whatever opinions they wish. Immune from criticism, no? But let's not be deliberately obtuse here. The actions taken against Mr Eich far exceed criticism. They were attacks, at Mr Eich and at the company where he worked, with the clear intention of punishing Mr Eich, or ruining Mr Eich, and at damaging a company that employed him. That's called persecution.
I agree that Proposition 8 was a detestable political movement. I applauded the courts all along the way that found it to be a detestable political movement. I thought it persecuted gay people, and I'm opposed to persecution. I oppose persecution when it targets gay people, and I oppose it when it targets an individual. Persecution is wrong.
It is the "gay army" as I call it. Hell my younger sister is gay........aaaaahhhh........lol. She has common sense though and see's how ridiculous all this sheet is. Of course she is for gay marriage but these militant nuts who want to destroy somebody because they think different........they don't realize THEY are what THEY claim to despise. So it goes.
Correct. 2 wrongs don't make a right. While I detest persecuting or discriminating against someone based on skin color, or sexual preference, I also can't stand witch hunts either. Especially when no physical harm was committed.
Regardless of whether you liked his opinion or not, if you support the Mozilla CEOs forced resignation than congratulations, you are now offically supporter of Fascism! You can no longer claim to believe in liberty or tolerance . Fascism, whether it comes from Nazis or The Rainbow Gestapo, has no place in a free society.
Funny thing though, most of the gay people I know in real life think that what happened to the Mozilla CEO was wrong. Too bad their voice is drowned out by the Militant Fascist screaming and yelling. I don't think they represent the average homosexual, they are giving them a bad name and only hurting their cause.
I don't know why people think the "thought police" have to be government. The "thought police" don't have to be associated with the government. They only have to be committed to stopping certain kinds of thought and punishing those who have those thoughts.
Freedom of thought and opinion allows a person to have whatever opinions they wish. Immune from criticism, no? But let's not be deliberately obtuse here. The actions taken against Mr Eich far exceed criticism. They were attacks, at Mr Eich and at the company where he worked, with the clear intention of punishing Mr Eich, or ruining Mr Eich, and at damaging a company that employed him. That's called persecution.
If you actually believe contributing to Prop 8 is merely "speech," then your point would be valid.
Prop 8 was a lot more than speech. And guess what? These "thought police" are actually just exercising their OWN right to free speech, right?
At what point do YOU become the "thought police" if you're going to say people cannot react or organize in opposition to speech and ideas THEY oppose?
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Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge
I agree that Proposition 8 was a detestable political movement. I applauded the courts all along the way that found it to be a detestable political movement. I thought it persecuted gay people, and I'm opposed to persecution. I oppose persecution when it targets gay people, and I oppose it when it targets an individual. Persecution is wrong.
And if Fred Phelps (or his successors) were named to the board of... say.... Hobby Lobby, do you think it would be "fascism" and "thought police" for people to boycott Hobby Lobby?
Should people just say, "oh, well, that's his opinion, it would be wrong for us to express our outrage or disagreement. Heaven forbid we protest anything, we don't want to be gestapo."
Regardless of whether you liked his opinion or not, if you support the Mozilla CEOs forced resignation than congratulations, you are now offically supporter of Fascism! You can no longer claim to believe in liberty or tolerance . Fascism, whether it comes from Nazis or The Rainbow Gestapo, has no place in a free society.
fas·cism [fash-iz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
Get a new schitck. There is no fascism where there is no central authority behind same with force to compel or enforce suppression. What you actually witnessed was democracy... a people driven expression of discontent for the policies or proecedures of a particular company.
Be it boycotting Vogue magazine because Anna Wintour supports fur, or a milk brand for using hormones, or a company whose CEO makes anti ______ statements you disagree with, consumers are never forced to SUPPORT, USE, or spend their money to enrich the products or bottom lines of companies or executives whose values do not align with their own.
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Originally Posted by West Coast Republican
Funny thing though, most of the gay people I know in real life think that what happened to the Mozilla CEO was wrong. Too bad their voice is drowned out by the Militant Fascist screaming and yelling. I don't think they represent the average homosexual, they are giving them a bad name and only hurting their cause.
Save the concern trolling for "the cause." You don't care about the cause, or whether it succeeds.
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