[jgwil2]

Being fired or pressured to resign from a prominent, public position because of something you say is not a free speech issue. You can say whatever you want as a private citizen, but as an employee of an organization you are held to different standards.

[frabbit]

Would you be saying that if an advocate for gay marriage, abortion, trans-gender rights etc were being forced to resign from a leadership position at Chic-Fil-A ?

[brorfred]

An advocate for gay marriage, abortion, trans-gender rights etc would never have a leadership position at Chic-Fil-A and would be fired in a heartbeat if they came out with such opinions. A anti-gun advocate would not be allowed to sweep the floors at the NRA. A vegan would never be allowed to do PR for a meat plant.

[jgwil2]

The point is taken, but in this case we're not even talking about something that is a partisan issue. We're talking about excusing or justifying sexual predation.

[frabbit]

I'm not sure that that's what rms did.

This Guardian article makes me think that he has been unfairly treated. Even though I think that he is completely wrong to assume that an elderly man could reasonably expect that a very young person is having sex with them for any reason other than either direct coercion (violence, mental-abuse/gaslighting) or the indirect violence of capitalism (need to support self or family [1]).

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/17/mit-scient...

I think it is quite clear that he was explicitly NOT claiming that the accusor was willing, but that she was coerced into appearing willing. I think it is quite clear that he also calls for more care and clarity in the language around this and the post on Medium gets it completely wrong, as does your last phrase.

1. This can include drug dependency, can also include the need to pay for "luxuries" like going to college: it's pretty much all the same to me -- these things are withheld due to force in our society. The picture is even clearer in the extreme case of "voluntary" sex work by people in developing countries.

There are a lot of similarly coerced situations in our capitalist societies. You want to eat? Go down the mine.

[alanh]

It’s an innocent typo, but nevertheless I am amused by imagining Chic-Fil-A as a super upscale, urban, on-trend, exclusive version of Chick-Fil-A where models instragram themselves pretending to eat

[mr_spothawk]

This is probably the most important message that any of us could be communicating to the Cancel Culture crew.

Thanks for putting it so succintly