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Comment by freditup | Hacker News Reader

The problem with blacklisting someone for a political view is that it can always be done. Right now, it's popular to call people who oppose gay marriage laws 'homophobes' and throw them under the bus. (In this thread, a lot of people seem to imply that Eich should have some sort of repercussions for his donation such as not getting this job.) Let's take a look at some other similar parallels:

- Saying people in favor of abortion are for legalized murder, and not hiring them because of that

- Saying people opposed to abortion oppress women, and not hiring them because of that

- Saying people who support raising taxes are for legalized robbery, and not hiring them because of that

- Saying people who oppose more relaxed immigration laws are racist, and not hiring them because of that

The list could go on, but the point stands. You can always characterize your political opponent as some sort of monster. But you never should.

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Court after court has found that there is no rational basis for preventing gay marriage. Most recently, one in Michigan: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF

The parallels you offer are missing the point, because none of them suggest a CEO has an irrational bias against a significant fraction of his employees. This donation, though, does. Unless Eich has convincingly apologized and demonstrated different views, you have to bet that a lot of people in the San Francisco office and elsewhere are wondering, "Given that my new boss may have an irrational bias against me, is this going to affect my benefits, my chance at promotion, or my working climate?"

That's entirely material to his position as CEO. Mozilla is competing with the world's top tech companies for talent, and their main advantage is a clear belief that they're doing good. Anything that taints that could make hiring harder.

Courts were also in favor of putting Japanese people in internment camps at one point. It doesn't make them right.

If people don't want to work for Mozilla because of Eich, fantastic. They can form their own foundation and work on Iceweasel. Everybody gets what they want.

The argument that since courts were wrong once we needn't consider anything any of them ever say is so absurd that I hope you're trolling here.

Speaking of trolling, I didn't say that at all. I was pointing out that an appeal to court precedent is a form of appeal to authority, which is hardly convincing, with numerous counter-examples available upon request.

Perhaps the actual reasoning of the court might be convincing, but in this case, the reasoning was, "there is no rational basis", which reads more like an admission of ignorance than anything else.

I'm not appealing to the court's authority. So that you and others can see the reasoning, I'm pointing you at a carefully-considered legal opinion by a federal judge. One similar to others on the topic, like Judge Walker's decision on Prop 8. Hand-wave it away if you like, but the rational-basis standard [1] is a key legal concept here.

When court after court finds that there is no rational basis to these laws after carefully examining every rationale offered by proponents, I think it's reasonable for gay people to conclude that promoters of those laws are irrationally biased against them. Especially those promoters unwilling to offer any other explanation.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review

Except the "proponents" in this case did not include the people who put forward this referendum in the first place. Instead, the referendum bypassed the California government to put the issue to a popular vote. When the popular vote was challenged in court, the government lawyers had no incentive to put up a good defense, which they didn't.

It's really a loophole in the referendum system, and if California is serious about the referendum, they need to give standing to some groups to give them the right to defend their initiatives in court.

Incorrect. The state declined to defend, so the proposition proponents were the ones who defended it in court: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollingsworth_v._Perry#Defendan...

Even if you were right, that wouldn't be the case for the Michigan case I linked upthread, where state officials stood firmly behind keeping gay people from marriage.

From your wiki link:

"The Supreme Court decided the case on the basis of lack of standing."

...meaning the proponents weren't allowed to defend it in court.

I've already stated my feelings about the ruling in the Michigan. In fact, I have deep misgivings about the kind of research presented in that case on both sides, especially when it comes to making policy decisions.

The proponents did defend it in federal court. They lost.

It's true that the Supreme Court wasn't interesting in hearing from them again, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that if they had, it would have turned out as anything different than their disastrous showing in federal court. Remember, they were going to the Supreme Court seeking appeal, which means they don't get to re-litigate the whole thing, just to raise questions about particular points of law. The findings of fact would stand, and as far as facts went, they had nothing.

This is all true, but is there not a possibility that Eich having invented one of the world's most popular programming languages might out-weigh these factors in the minds of people who are evaluating whether they'd like to work with/for him? If you're arguing that Eich should not have the job on pragmatic (rather than purely principled) grounds then you'd need to consider such other factors.

Freditup was asking why this is different than questioning a CEO's political views on abortion. My answer: because his donation suggests an irrational bias against his employees.

I'm not arguing that Eich should or should not have the job. I don't have enough data to say. But I am saying that apparently having an irrational bias against gay people is legitimately problematic for gay employees, and is therefore material in considering his fitness for CEO in a way that isn't true for other political views.

It's actually an interesting question: When does a political opinion become untenable?

Slavery was once a political opinion. Women's suffrage as well. There are many other more extreme examples from abroad.

Calling a position political doesn't absolve its owner from consequences.

I think in the Bay Area, opposing gay marriage has crossed over, and is no longer simply a political opinion upon which decent people may disagree.

and is no longer simply a political opinion upon which decent people may disagree.

So....what shall be done with the people who have been deemed indecent?

Rounded up, perhaps? Subjected to re-education?

No, they'll simply deny they ever held the view in a few years, all on their own. See: Segregation.

Why might they do that, theoretically speaking?

Edit: A downvote for asking a question? Really? Is the answer that terrifying?

Because they'll be socially shunned by people who find their views to be embarrassing.

Is shame, then, the way social issues should be addressed?

Separating this sort of stuff into "social issues" is I think an incorrect way to look at it.

We're talking about changing normative group positions in a complex society that has delegated huge swaths of norm policing to immensely powerful institutions.

So, shame is one way. You have to make it shameful in the first place - and then you still have to change the institutions.

Hopefully because they'll no longer be able to justify - even to themselves - why they thought those views made sense in the first place.

>When does a political opinion become untenable?

Never? People should be judged by how qualified they are, not what their political views are. Even if I was hiring a vocal neo-nazi I would try to not let that effect my decision.

I could not disagree more. Hiring the neo-nazi as the CEO of a major corporation who will make decisions that will directly effect the lives of anyone working for that corporation and of those who use the corporation's products is promoting those beliefs. It is saying that, despite you taking actions to strip away basic human rights of groups of people, we want you to represent us.

These are the decisions that lead to corporations acting greedy and caring only about their bottom line. We should not be promoting this way of thinking. Some things are more important. The more someone's actions can impact other people, the more they should be judged by their character.

I think you're right that this is the actual question. Perhaps to my original posts detriment, there obviously does come a time when holding a particular position on an issue is unacceptable. For example, as pointed out many times here, being against interracial marriage in modern times.

I think in America the issue hasn't crossed over yet, but those in favor of gay marriage wish it has, because it's always nice to be on the superior side, and makes the argument much easier when you can just call your opponent a few names to send them scurrying away. Essentially, those who agree with gay marriage ran out of patience with those who disagree. I think on 'live' political issues like the gay marriage debate, this is bad.

I also think those against gay marriage would do better if making an honest argument about their reasoning. For example: "Gay marriage is morally wrong in my opinion, and I believe the government should legislate on moral sexual issues." It's legitimate to think a government can and should have the authority to legislate on moral issues.

As someone who opposes all marriage, I am sad to learn that I should not be hired.

I'm very tired of this brand of relativism that is unfortunately rather popular in tech circles, no matter how progressive we like to think ourselves.

"Similar Parallels"

No, there is a looooong gradient along which the issues you mention (and issues like homophobia) can be placed. Society moves in a certain direction - if you graph public attitude towards homosexuals, there is a clear trend. Similar graphs can be drawn for abortion, womens rights and immigration reform.

On the other hand, directly equating "raising taxes" with robbery sits at a very steady equilibrium of whoever currently uses that sort of logic to kill arguments. Most recently (ie. past couple of years), it is mostly being picked up by the libertarian mindset which is in turn utilized by the more mainstream political right in the US.

We all make choices and our combined choices influence how that graph progresses, but you can directly compare an individuals position with the median position in society. Removing or blocking people from powerful positions when they seem to be too removed from that median is a fundamentally and democratically sound mechanic.

Except in this case, the median Californian voted for Prop 8.

That's besides the point: My argument is that we need to understand it in a historical context.

52% of Californians voted for Prop 8 in 2008. But: Had you asked 10, 25, 50, 100 years before that, what would the outcome have been? Draw a graph along that line through 2008 and you can track the development of public opinion.

Except I disagree that blacklisting people for political views is a valid democratic mechanism.

You're basically making the "be on the right side of history" argument, but you presume to much. For example public opinion on abortion has been roughly flat for fifty years.

> For example public opinion on abortion has been roughly flat for fifty years.

Maybe in the US, but internationally is another matter entirely.

Also: I'm not agreeing with your wording of "blacklisting people for political views". I do, however, think that the higher your potential impact on society, the higher the scrutiny towards the outlier nature of some of your opinions should be.

In other words: The further up an employee in a company or a politician in the respective political field moves on their ladder, the more is it justified to hold them closer to the standard set by median public opinion on certain matters.

U.S. abortion law is far to the left of even Western Europe. And there was never a legislative action in the U.S. that legalized abortion per se. Instead, it was a very controversial court decision. This has clearly frozen and polarized the debate. It's not out of the realm of possibilities the same could happen in the gay marriage debate.

There's only a "clear trend" on homosexuality if you limit your timeframe.

Attitudes toward homosexuality in ancient Greece, for example, were pretty liberal. They were also really different from anything we have today, such that it defies putting it anywhere on a spectrum that modern folks would be familiar with.

Society moves in many directions, often simultaneously, and we should be careful not to confuse the movement of the last century or so with either inevitability or rightness.

(I personally think that consenting adults should be allowed to have whatever sort of sex and marriage they feel like, I just object to the idea that there's a clear trend on the issue overall.)

> Attitudes toward homosexuality in ancient Greece, for example, were pretty liberal.

As they were in India. That's why it's usually more instructive to look at the median, rather than the outliers.

Furthermore: It's debatable to what extent it makes sense to include historical timeframes on which we have lacking or inconclusive data.

How much of history do we really have good data on it, though? How do you figure out the median with so much missing data?

All in all, it sounds like you're agreeing with me: it's wrong to claim a trend.

I don't see any problem at all with pointing out a local trend. Abolition, women's suffrage, civil rights, desegregation, women's rights, gay rights - in every case, a low-status class of people promoted to more equal rights. Also, in every case, xenophobia replaced by inclusion.

Just because half the population is still dragging their heels about the latest oppressed group to get this kind of attention, like they always do, does not mean that there's anything special or more complicated about this case. It's still privileged people being asses to less privileged people for as long as they can possibly get away with. Like they always do. Imagine if people could be accepting in the general case, without being dragged to it?

I agree that there's no problem with pointing out a local trend, but I didn't read it as being local in the original comment. Statements like "Society moves in a certain direction" make it sound like a statement that's supposed to apply universally, and it very much does not.

Sure, all of your examples point in the same direction, because you chose examples that point in that direction. There are plenty of examples to be had of the opposite direction.

We happen to be in a locale, both in space and time, where there's a strong trend towards more inclusion and more rights. But if you expand out to the planet and the long term, I simply don't see the trend. Things get better in some times and places, and worse in others, and overall we just sort of oscillate around.

> All in all, it sounds like you're agreeing with me: it's wrong to claim a trend.

I'm undecided, but leaning towards seeing a trend (yes, even with historical uncertainties). I'm absolutely willing, though, to attest that to the fact that I'm seeing a trend that would suit me.

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