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Comment by reitanqild | Hacker News Reader

I haven't bookmarked those threads but I'm certain I saw a lot of comments here saying things along the lines of "the right to free speak only protects you against the government", strongly implying that what happened to him was fair game because it wasn't the government who staged it.

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I don't recall hearing that much in the context of Eich, but it certainly is a common go-to argument more recently among those who want to see people punished for having incorrect political views. It came up a lot when Strangeloop kicked out Curtis Yarvin, for example.

I said it back then and I'll say it here: There's a difference between "having a political view" (thinking that non-heterosexual marriages are icky) and taking positive action to prevent others from having equal rights (donating money to a lobbying/social engineering group)

One is a thought, the other is an action.

Punishing people for unknowable bad thoughts is an Orwellian nightmare. Punishing people for visible bad actions is how society moves forward.

So people are allowed to have unpopular opinions as long as they don't, you know, tell anyone else about them or anything? Sorry, but that's unacceptable.

So personally involved people aren't allowed to voice displeasure at those who have taken positive steps to harm them?

Did you completely ignore the differentiation between thought and action that I just laid out?

What would you propose we do - jail people who call for boycotts? Jail people who criticise corporations?

I'll spell this out very simply: the same laws and social standards that make it OK for you to criticise them, make it OK for them to criticise Mozilla.

And they also make it OK for me to criticize the people who are criticizing Mozilla, and for those people to criticize me for criticizing the people who are criticizing Mozilla, and etc. So now that we've gotten that out of our system, we can realize that there's a difference between being criticized and losing one's job because of one's political opinions, and a society where the second thing happens is a society that has real problems.

Both Eich and Mozilla characterize his leaving as voluntary. Now whether that's the case is somewhat disputed, but there's no evidence to suggest any other conclusion.

And for the second or third time this thread, having an opinion and taking an action are two different things. Please address that rather than just repeating your original post.

Society has decided that denying people basic rights is what's "unacceptable" and chooses to punish those that act in that fashion. And it's not like there's any other explanation for the donation either... the group he donated to was a single purpose lobbying campaign.

> Both Eich and Mozilla characterize his leaving as voluntary. Now whether that's the case is somewhat disputed, but there's no evidence to suggest any other conclusion.

Voluntary, in the sense that when you get mugged you can choose between your money or your life? For some reason I suspect Eich did not leave the position he had just taken because he wanted to spend more time with his family. And "voluntary" or not, somebody leaving a position in a private industry because of a mob that's intolerant of his unrelated political views is nothing to celebrate: in fact, it's a symbol of the wild polarization that is destroying this country.

> Society has decided that denying people basic rights is what's "unacceptable" and chooses to punish those that act in that fashion.

"Society" has decided this, has it? When did that happen? Last I heard, there was a lot of arguing going on about that very point.

> And it's not like there's any other explanation for the donation either... the group he donated to was a single purpose lobbying campaign.

And as I stated previously, "you can hold any opinion you want as long as you don't tell anyone about it" is unacceptable.

So again I ask, what would you propose we do about it? Criticism leads to boycotts lead to resignations. At what point does it become unacceptable, and unacceptable to whom?

> So again I ask, what would you propose we do about it?

How about for starters, "we" stop getting people fired for holding unpopular political opinions? That said, I don't have a good idea of how to persuade everyone to change this disastrous course we're on, if that's what you were asking.

> At what point does it become unacceptable, and unacceptable to whom?

Unacceptable to people who realize that in a large nation full of people with wildly different lifestyles and cultures, a level of tolerance is required so that we can all go about our business as opposed to murdering each other in the street.

This doesn't mean that you don't speak your mind, advocate for your cause, and criticize those idiots over there who are clearly wrong; it does mean that you acknowledge those idiots still should be able to earn a living and argue for their own causes, no matter how wrong they are.

> So now that we've gotten that out of our system, we can realize that there's a difference between being criticized and losing one's job because of one's political opinions

As I see it, Eich didn't lose his job because of his political opinions, he lost (or decided to leave) his job because of his inability to perform basic duties of the job -- a CEO, after all, must ultimately be responsible for managing a company, including its public image and relations with its employees, customers, etc.

And, honestly, I think that even with the past donation, the situation was manageable, and that anyone who was up to the task of being CEO of an organization like Mozilla could have managed it.

I don't see how that's relevant in the grand scheme of things. In particular, it doesn't justify what the mob did, or make it good that we have these mobs.

"Having a political view" contra SSM might not only take the form of "non-heterosexual marriages are icky." Engaging in caricature doesn't help advance the discussion of PC in the workplace. People might believe that homosexual marriage isn't morally or ethically legit. That a company or large numbers of people disagree doesn't mean the people that have these views should be punished for thoughtcrime or for expressing their opinions, or donating to a non-PC cause.

> "the right to free speak only protects you against the government"

I strongly agree with that statement, but I also strongly object to the ouster of Eich. An opinion on one does not imply an opinion on the other.

I support the right of the KKK to march through the streets, but that doesn't mean I should have to hire one of their members.

> I support the right of the KKK to march through the streets, but that doesn't mean I should have to hire one of their members.

That's not the analogy. It's contrived, but to stick with the theme of white racists, is it ethical (legality aside) for a board full of clansmen to fire a CEO that donated to the ADL? To keep it simple, let's say the CEO is not Jewish, but does financially support the ADL.

Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be? They can fire him for any or no reason and it's completely ethical. They don't owe him employment.

> They can fire him for any or no reason and it's completely ethical.

You must have a different definition of ethics than the rest of us do. I'm having a hard time reconciling that opinion with a definition of "ethical" that actually means anything, to be honest. Would you care to provide a definition?

> That's not the analogy.

I was making an oblique reference to a rather famous free speech case. [0]

> is it ethical (legality aside) for a board full of clansmen to fire a CEO that donated to the ADL?

No, but I have a hard time finding anything clansmen do ethical. If your ideology is motivated by bigotry, that's the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...

I'm familiar to the case. My point was that I don't find it particularly analogous to the Eich case. Having no relationship to some people who walk down the street occasionally is substantially different than actually having to be professionally associated with someone and practice tolerance on a regular basis. I'd also argue that free speech should be protected in both cases (socially if not legally).

> If your ideology is motivated by bigotry, that's the problem.

I agree. I'm not sure corporate leaders need legal protection. Perhaps. But the right to publicly assemble and speak absolutely needs legal protection. That's why I was trying to draw another analogy. To explore the difference between the Eich and Skokie incidents.

> My point was that I don't find it particularly analogous to the Eich case.

I think there's been a miscommunication, because neither do I.

They're fundamentally different cases, in that I think the NSDAP should have the legal right to march but they can absolutely be punished socially.

Likewise, I think what happened to Eich was perfectly legal but not necessarily moral. They're not the same and that was my point: invoking "free speech" as a Constitutional right has no bearing on the Eich case.

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