5 ms·

Brendan Eich[1] was essentially fired for supporting Prop 8 and he only donated $1,000. What frustrates me the most is the pure hypocrisy of liberal activists.

Brendan Eich[1] was essentially fired for supporting Prop 8 and he only donated $1,000. What frustrates me the most is the pure hypocrisy of liberal activists. It is a dangerous precedent for left wing politics to adopt. What if right wing executives started calling for employees that support Hillary to be fired or publicly shaming them on Twitter? How it that any different? My argument is not with Trump, because I am not voting for him and personally think he is an orangutan. My argument is with the utter hypocrisy of liberal activists. [1] "Critics of Eich within Mozilla tweeted to gay activists that he had donated $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California until 2013, when it was declared unconstitutional and marriages were allowed to resume. Eich stood by his decision to fund the campaign, but wrote on his blog that he was sorry for “causing pain” and pledged to promote equality at Mozilla. Gay activists created an online shaming campaign against Eich, with OkCupid declaring they would block access to the Firefox browser unless he stepped down."

DougN7 10y ago
Hypocrisy is the perfect word for it.
wldcordeiro 10y ago
Brendan Eich's "firing" was such bullshit, I would have loved to see Mozilla's path had he gotten to actually work the job. I don't think we would have seen Brave, but Firefox/Mozilla may have had a resurgence under him we aren't seeing under current leadership.
Sniffnoy 10y ago
Calling such people "liberal" is a betrayal of the basic meaning of the term, IMO. They're the illiberal left, nothing more.
- jrapdx3 10y ago
  That's correct assuming you are referring to distinctions among "classical liberalism"[0], the more recent "social liberalism"[1], and related branches of liberalism. In fact the tenets of classic liberal principles is more or less congruent with the ideology of American conservatism[2] again as contrasted with "social" and related forms of conservatism[3]. The extremes of the "social" variants of liberal and conservative thought define the appearance of the virulent modern versions of "left" and "right" wing politically-polarized positions. Worth pointing out that other dichotomies of Republican/Democrat, populist/globalist construction are context-dependent and frequently orthogonal to a stance within the classic conservative/liberal political spectrum. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
erispoe 10y ago
Brendan Eich was damaging his company's reputation and, ultimately, economic prospects, by taking a public stance against marriage equality. His resignation is not a moral issue, his public support of the marriage equality ban was economically damaging to the company. When a CEO's freedom of speech damages their company economically, what are shareholders supposed to do? Bear the cost so that the CEO can express their views?
- tocotuno 10y ago
  >His resignation is not a moral issue, his public support of the marriage equality ban was economically damaging to the company. That's funny, Mozilla is just getting worse and worse since he was forced to leave.
- gkoberger 10y ago
  (Slight nitpick: Mozilla Corporation only has one financial shareholder, the Mozilla Foundation. It's a for-profit corporation that's a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It has stakeholders it answers to, such as the board of directors, but no shareholders.)
- ac29 10y ago
  >When a CEO's freedom of speech damages their company economically, what are shareholders supposed to do? A fair question, but Mozilla has no shareholders. It is a non-profit[0][1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
- edanm 10y ago
  Just to clarify - his support wasn't public. It was a private donation, which was made public via journalists IIRC. As far as I know, he never publicly commented on the issue, at least before the firing.
  - erispoe 10y ago
    Campaign contributions are public. His contribution to Prop 8 was always public. You can access all campaign contributions above $100, it's just a matter of downloading a file. Edit: the Supreme Court judged that political contributions are a form of political speech. That is the reasoning behind striking down limitations to contribute. [1] If you downvote, care to explain if you think I'm reading these decisions wrong, or do you disagree with the Supreme Court? [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-contributions.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-...
zardeh 10y ago
I'm confused, is this not a perfect example of the free market in action? Is this not exactly what conservatives suggest will (should) happen when we allow discrimination based on religious or personal views. They suggest that private individuals and organizations will refuse to work with those companies whose views they disagree with, and that in turn will force the companies to adapt or perish. Is that not exactly what happened here? OkCupid refused to do work with Mozilla based on Mozilla's (CEO's) beliefs, and this led to action on the part of Mozilla. I'm not sure how you can call this a liberal action when it is essentially what the right espouses as 'the way things should be'.

DougN7 10y ago

Hypocrisy is the perfect word for it.

wldcordeiro 10y ago

Brendan Eich's "firing" was such bullshit, I would have loved to see Mozilla's path had he gotten to actually work the job. I don't think we would have seen Brave, but Firefox/Mozilla may have had a resurgence under him we aren't seeing under current leadership.

Sniffnoy 10y ago

Calling such people "liberal" is a betrayal of the basic meaning of the term, IMO. They're the illiberal left, nothing more.

jrapdx3 10y ago
That's correct assuming you are referring to distinctions among "classical liberalism"[0], the more recent "social liberalism"[1], and related branches of liberalism. In fact the tenets of classic liberal principles is more or less congruent with the ideology of American conservatism[2] again as contrasted with "social" and related forms of conservatism[3]. The extremes of the "social" variants of liberal and conservative thought define the appearance of the virulent modern versions of "left" and "right" wing politically-polarized positions. Worth pointing out that other dichotomies of Republican/Democrat, populist/globalist construction are context-dependent and frequently orthogonal to a stance within the classic conservative/liberal political spectrum. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

erispoe 10y ago

Brendan Eich was damaging his company's reputation and, ultimately, economic prospects, by taking a public stance against marriage equality. His resignation is not a moral issue, his public support of the marriage equality ban was economically damaging to the company. When a CEO's freedom of speech damages their company economically, what are shareholders supposed to do? Bear the cost so that the CEO can express their views?

tocotuno 10y ago
>His resignation is not a moral issue, his public support of the marriage equality ban was economically damaging to the company. That's funny, Mozilla is just getting worse and worse since he was forced to leave.
gkoberger 10y ago
(Slight nitpick: Mozilla Corporation only has one financial shareholder, the Mozilla Foundation. It's a for-profit corporation that's a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It has stakeholders it answers to, such as the board of directors, but no shareholders.)
ac29 10y ago
>When a CEO's freedom of speech damages their company economically, what are shareholders supposed to do? A fair question, but Mozilla has no shareholders. It is a non-profit[0][1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
edanm 10y ago
Just to clarify - his support wasn't public. It was a private donation, which was made public via journalists IIRC. As far as I know, he never publicly commented on the issue, at least before the firing.
- erispoe 10y ago
  Campaign contributions are public. His contribution to Prop 8 was always public. You can access all campaign contributions above $100, it's just a matter of downloading a file. Edit: the Supreme Court judged that political contributions are a form of political speech. That is the reasoning behind striking down limitations to contribute. [1] If you downvote, care to explain if you think I'm reading these decisions wrong, or do you disagree with the Supreme Court? [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-contributions.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-...

zardeh 10y ago

I'm confused, is this not a perfect example of the free market in action? Is this not exactly what conservatives suggest will (should) happen when we allow discrimination based on religious or personal views. They suggest that private individuals and organizations will refuse to work with those companies whose views they disagree with, and that in turn will force the companies to adapt or perish. Is that not exactly what happened here? OkCupid refused to do work with Mozilla based on Mozilla's (CEO's) beliefs, and this led to action on the part of Mozilla. I'm not sure how you can call this a liberal action when it is essentially what the right espouses as 'the way things should be'.