| >These things are not at all the same. And in this case, we're talking about a CEO, the public face of a company, not an otherwise private citizen. A job is a job. The "a CEO is a public face" is a shallow excuse. The same excuse (essentially not being suitable to be a public face for the company/employeer) has been used to fire people from teachers to waiters (far from CEO positions). >Should I put words in your mouth, about how we'd still be living with Jim Crow if you had your way? "Let's not offend anyone who's racist, lest they feel like their rights to bigotry are being undermined!" I don't understand the argument here. I never wrote anything about voting against laws like the Jim Crow ones. Just that bigots have a right to their opinions too. And in fact, when the Jim Crow laws were discarded, those bigots still held their opinions. (Well, it's actually even more complicated than that. For example Jim Crow laws had little to do with pure bigotry and a lot to do with monetary exploitation of the blacks. More than bigots, their advocates were ruthless disgusting businessmen.). >It's also pretty rich to compare abolitionists -- people campaigning for an expansion of human rights -- to someone who did the exact opposite. How about Eich's human right to his job? Or his human right to vote for whatever he likes? Or is it like someone who is against a human right (as considered by some) is OK to lose other rights of his? >Anyway, you're essentially arguing that free speech means freedom from consequences, and it just doesn't. It should, or it has no meaning. If free speech means solely the ability to say something publicly (and then suffer possible consequences), then that was available in every era and to everybody. If so, losing your head for talking against the church in 1600 was also a "free speech" environment. Getting fired during McCarthyism was also compatible with "free speech". >Free speech is not absolute, as has been demonstrated time and again. I'm not saying what free speech has been historically, so what has been "demonstrated time and again" doesn't say a lot in this argument. History has a bad track record with regards to free speech. I'm saying what free speech should be, and how its champions like Voltaire envisioned it. >Likewise you can't try to deny an entire class of people their rights and expect zero consequences b/c free speech. Well, it seems that generations over generations of Californians could not only try, but actively deny that class of people their rights and have zero consequences. In fact when Eich supported his position, it was also the LAW that denied then. And the majority of the population (IIRC) agreed with that. It was put to vote -- that itself means that not only you could "try to deny", but that your right to do so, voting no on the matter, was sanctioned by the state. |
As it stands now, having a job is not a human right. I think maybe it should be! But it's not. There's not even a right to a living wage in the US. There's certainly no right to be a CEO of Mozilla enshrined anywhere, and I believe CA is an at-will employer. So.
Maybe if he's blackballed from the entire industry, I'll characterize that as oppressive. But this is one job at one company. He's lost one (1) job. It may be unjust but life is hard when you have views the public finds objectionable. I can't imagine a system under which this would not be so.
Anyway, I'm not sure what alternative you envision here. Should people have just sucked it up? Expressed criticism more politely? Your premise precludes you from policing others' speech. I'm just not sure how you square others' freedom when it comes to disagreeing with the company's decision to hire an avowed bigot.