Nadine's point was that people should not be unduly punished for making intellectual arguments for or against anything. "Being punished for what they say" is precisely what happened to Stallman.
No, I don't agree. He was partly punished for what people THOUGHT he had said, and for past transgressions, and in large part for what people were TOLD he had said. Not for what he actually said.
Yes. important distinction. Things he said and did in the past, which people got upset about, which are completely unrelated to the current Epstein context.
You're allowed to revoke consent to an interaction or business relationship at any time. It's not a punishment to anyone else to say "this situation (employing rms) isn't for me and I don't want to be in it any longer".
If Nadine means this absolutely, she opens herself up to easy counterpoints in the extreme.
Ex:
What if I work at a hospital and make an intellectual argument in favor of eugenics?
What if I have Jewish coworkers and publish statistics about the percentage of media executives that are Jewish?
In these cases, "punishment" may also just mean that you've made people unwilling to collaborate with you, or you've done something that undermines your neutrality in your work.
When working or living with others, there are still social consequences for things that are intellectually defensible.
This argument doesn't seem applicable to Stallman, since his problematic arguments had nothing to do with his work, and since many people were willing to collaborate with him. The argument against him seemed to be that it's wrong, "exclusionary", to have a community figure who anyone finds too offensive to collaborate with, even if the community members are largely okay with him.
The point Nadine is making is that society and liberals, in particular, have become hypocritical and extreme in their willingness to "unperson" anyone with an unacceptable viewpoint. Even as they make the argument that criminals should be re-integrated into society over time, they simultaneously will dredge up old tweets or decades old comments and use them to get someone fired from a job. Even in the case of contemporary statements, modern liberals have become almost puritanical or inquisitional in their approach to root out people with unacceptable viewpoints and to shame them until they're forced off a platform, a job, an organization, or sufficiently scarlet lettered to satisfy their bloodlust for all non-compliant thinkers. It is opposite of the classical tradition of liberalism, as Nadine pointed out, and it really doesn't make sense.
Neither of your examples are good ones. Society has become too sensitive and exerts too much energy, counterproductive at this point, into rooting out the impure among us and not allowing colorful personalities like Stallman to 'just be'. Unless Stallman has willful intent to harm someone in particular, and not just that someone has chosen to take offense to his statements, it's a disproportionate response. It's also an impossible slippery slope to satisfy. It's becoming increasingly draconian and regressive and making the world a much more miserable place than just sometimes accepting that some people in the world are going to think differently than you, and that it's generally ok, and you can still get along if you try and if both parties are willing (generally true!).