After seeing the shitstorm on here about the Brendan Eich issue, I was very confused. Now I remember that I have seen this before and feel the need to warn you

After seeing the shitstorm on here about the Brendan Eich issue, I was very confused. Now I remember that I have seen this before and feel the need to warn you (Americans) about what (could) be coming out of this: The GPPD-spiral. The German-Pirate-Party-Death-spiral. Many of you might have heared about the Pirate Party, and probably some remeber that, curiously, it was rather successful in Germany. Starting 2009, the number of party members rose (beyond 10.000) and the party started winning seats in regional parliaments. At the time, it was primarily focused on its technology/freedom agenda. Then something weird happened. As the party tried to expand its programatic range beyond technology, many very controversial topics were voted into the program (base-income, de-criminalization of drugs, removal of the incest paragraph). Discussions became very heated between those that wanted the party to firmly anchor itself in the "left" of the political spectrum, and those opposed to such a move. And then they started attacking the elected representatives. Every publically visible person who had done or said something problematic in the past was publically "shitstormed". The half-life of party leaders sank down to months. This caused what is essentially the slow death of the party, since, for much of the time, there were too few people with experience at the top, too few the press could speak too. Americans are more vulnerable to this kind of behaviour, since the separation between professional role and personal acts/views that we have in Europe is missing. French presidents have had mistresses, left their wives, German chancellors have had three failed marriages, or a childless marriage. We had an openly gay foreign minister and ministers who refused to say "god" in their swearing in ceremony. Top American politicians are always married with children church-going Christians, because the populace will not support "personal weaknesses". No separation between person and office. The internet is the ultimate shitstorm-accelerator. If there is no barrier between the private life and the professional life of highly-exposed figures, they will fall like flies. I'm personally an ardent supporter of gay rights issues, but must say that in this case, the collateral damage could well be as bad as in the first cases in the German Pirate Party. Now all the Mozilla employees who want to rise through the ranks must have personal views that conform to public opinion in the USA. I'm strictly anti-gun, so I probably would be "shot down" at some point, were I a leading Mozilla figure. And don't think this will stop if Eich just goes away. Let's all hope that Linus or one of the other (unlike Eich) really important community leaders doesn't have controversial views.