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Since the Mozilla thread has been closed, someone suggested to me that a good topic would be a discussion of what should the boundaries be in the "good fight" over ideas.
While I'm all for holding public servants accountable for their statements, actions, votes, etc, I personally draw a line between private individuals and public servants, and I think that targeting specific private individuals is a form of intimidation and suppression of free speech.
Clearly, others draw the boundaries elsewhere, so it would be interesting to hear what people think about this?
Intimidation is a form of free speech. The only issue is that only certain forms of intimidation are allowed. In other words, it's absolutely fine to threaten, harass, and intimidate someone who supports Proposition 8. It should also be absolutely fine to threaten, harass, and intimidate someone who opposes Proposition 8. The problem is that the current government system is set up to only allow one side. You do the other and all of a sudden you find yourself in jail.
Oh, by the way, I didn't read this entire thread, but the actual issue with Mozilla is not "are you allowed to intimidate people?" The actual issue is why a government can release information about you to people who will intimidate you. The left does this constantly. This judge released names of people who donated to Proposition 8. A liberal newspaper published names and homes of people who owned guns legally.
In other words, the government apparatchik forces you to register your gun, then turns around and says "oh, here are all the people who own guns, so feel free to harass them." See a problem? Liberals don't.
It wasn't even this obscure gay couple (who developed Firefox Aps) making any big fuss with a post on their website saying they could not in good conscience continue to develop Firefox Aps. It probably wasn't even the Mozilla employees who tweeted that Eich should step down that had much of an impact. It was one of the biggest dating websites- OKCupid - who had the biggest impact. The vast majority of OKCupid users are straight. The CEO is straight. Yet the anti-gay posters on this thread are trying to make this out as if some huge rabid 'gay army' was going after the poor innocent CEO to intimidate him and rip away his freedom of speech just because he has a 'different opinion'.
That's a really good point.
This whole boycott and debate was driven largely by straight people. They were communicating with other straight people about where we as a society are at.
I don't know that gay people or groups were all that involved.
So, you're saying that the boycotters' speech silences his speech, so to protect his speech, the boycotters need to shut up and not speak.
Sorry - that doesn't make any sense to me. If anything, you're advocating for the suppression of speech.
I say let everybody speak in the manner they want and then let the free marketplace of ideas react to that speech. That's freedom.
No, I'm saying that boycotters' speech wasn't intended as just a free expression of their perspective, but that it was intended to punish Mr Eich in a highly visible manner, to intimidate others into shutting up and not speaking.
I'm not advocating for the suppression of speech at all. I haven't said anything that could be interpreted that way. I've asked a question about whether intimidation is a legitimate form of free speech. I can make a case that the boycotters' actions were intimidation, just based on the posts of the people in this forum who've made remark after remark that it was an attack, and that they feel justified because they interpret Mr Eich's donation as an attack. I'm arguing that Mr Eich's donation doesn't reach the level of an attack. It was in support of a bad law. The propaganda pushing that bad law may have reached the levels of an attack, but Mr Eich was not involved with developing or spreading that propaganda to a meaningful level. 35,000 other people gave as much or more. When that is pointed out, the response is that Mr Eich's promotion to CEO two weeks ago raised him to a level where he merited greater scrutiny. All that really means is that he was high profile enough that to go after him would serve as a warning to all the other donors, a implicit threat that a sword is hanging over their heads.
I'm not advocating for any formal restrictions on free speech. But informally, we do have rules. For instance, as I pointed out earlier, there is an informal understanding that people's children should not be the subject of attacks, that they are off-limits. And when that understanding is violated, people are outraged.
I'm wondering if the recent Supreme Court decisions are transforming some of those informal understandings. It seems to me that donations between private individuals and various campaigns were once considered a private matter. While people could access that information as part of the public record, we didn't punish people for it. When the donations were very large, it was a different matter, because that brought up the specter of influence-peddling. But run of the mill donations like this one were simply considered private donations and left alone.
It also concerns me that we are talking about organized attacks on private individuals, in both the Mozilla boycott and the J C Penney boycott. Neither boycott was directed at the companies involved, but at individuals employed by the companies. When individuals are the target, it's about punishing an individual, not about changing a company practice. When General Mills is boycotted over genetically modified foods, that boycott is about changing a company practice. I don't think hiring Ellen Degeneres to make bright, happy, funny commercials is a company practice. And the Million Moms action there wasn't just to get J C Penney to fire Ellen, it was also an act of intimidation to prevent other companies from hiring Ellen. Of course, it fell flat on its face, because Ellen is one of television's most popular personalities. But the attack on Mr Eich didn't fail, it was a success. And now the 35,000 other donors know that a successful attack could be waged against them. Especially if they should donate again to a movement supporting traditional marriage. The lesson? Don't donate to such movements. That is suppression.
This whole boycott and debate was driven largely by straight people. They were communicating with other straight people about where we as a society are at.
I don't know that gay people or groups were all that involved.
That's actually not what happened. There wasn't even a boycott -- this was strictly and 100% liberal pandering. But to pretend that gays were not involved in this is laughable. I get that gays want to now distance themselves from this fiasco because they realize how bad they look now, but the fact is that this was the gay lobby, even if it wasn't "the gays" themselves.
Yes. I am sure a former CEO is suffering and barely able to make it now that he's lost his ability to make a living.
The others are not going to receive the same treatment unless they are CEOs of major corporations that have a culture of acceptance as part of the mission statement or objectives.
So it's okay to personally target CEO's for their personal beliefs, but not anyone below them?
What about next week, when someone decides VPs are open season? And then the next week, when we "can't have managers leading sales teams" that don't support our values. And then sales people, and then pretty soon, the company is purging all the way down to Susie in the mail room.
So it's okay to personally target CEO's for their personal beliefs, but not anyone below them?
If you read his post, he's OK with it specifically because the CEO is rich. So he's a typical liberal. His entire understanding of "whether something is OK or not" has nothing to do with whether it is actually OK, but rather with whether he personally cares. In other words, since he dislikes the CEO for being rich, anything goes because, well, the CEO is rich and therefore it won't bother him. Whereas, even fair actions, such as firing a poor person for poor performance, are intolerable because he said so.
So it's okay to personally target CEO's for their personal beliefs, but not anyone below them?
What about next week, when someone decides VPs are open season? And then the next week, when we "can't have managers leading sales teams" that don't support our values. And then sales people, and then pretty soon, the company is purging all the way down to Susie in the mail room.
Did you not know that the Prop 8 ballot stated "Proposition 8 eliminates the rights of same-sex couples to marry"?
There are two sides to every coin.
You are only looking at it from one side.
I suspect that many of the donors were only looking at it from the opposite side.
When I am on other threads defending same-sex marriage, it's those donors I'm arguing with, and those donors who I'm trying to get to see the issue from your perspective.
On this thread, I'm merely trying to get you to understand that there are other perspectives than your own, and that some of these donors only saw themselves as defending tradition, they didn't have the empathy to see it from the viewpoint of gay couples, as an attack on gay couples and families. They didn't have the empathy, and that was their shortcoming. But when the tables are turned, and people want to punish these donors, that's a failure of empathy as well. Six years ago, they were the majority, and they were imposing the tyranny of the majority on gay people. Today, society has shifted, and now they are the minority, and the majority, people who support same-sex marriage, are imposing the tyranny of the majority on the minority.
Being a social dinosaur is punishment enough. We don't need to punish these people, they are already on the losing side. And more than that, punishing these people for this becomes justification for punishing people in the future for other perceived misdeeds. When the misdeed is being on the wrong side of an issue, and we as a society begin to seek ways to punish the people we disagree with, we stop being a free society, and become a totalitarian society.
Do you think the 35,000 other people on the LA Times list who contributed to support Proposition 8 feel like they might be at risk in the future? Economic harm can be seen as a threat. If one of the 35,000 could be targeted, and forced to leave his employment, then any of the 35,000 could be similarly targeted.
I have an extensive record of speaking out against anti-gay movements like the Million Moms, so first, you're incorrect, and second, I'd prefer to keep this thread impersonal, and open, so let's refrain from the personal remarks, okay?
My question would be of these 35,000 people on this list, if they are terminated/asked to resign/forced to resign, how many will end up with lawsuits against their employer's? How many of these 35,000 people are not exposed for some extreme group to want to do physical harm to them? How many lawsuits are going to be filed against the LA times?
There were instances 20-30 years ago where a gay person could be fired from their job, if it was discovered they were gay. Now, if someone is against gay marriage, they can be fired/forced to resign from their job. Nothing has been changed except for the other side being discriminated against for a belief/opinion.
I am not for Same Sex Marriage, but I am not going to set out to get someone fired from their jobs because they do want Same Sex Marriage, just like I am not going to organize a boycott over a company that hires a gay person.
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