Conor Friedersdorf’s complaints about Brendan Eich’s forced resignation from Mozilla are more coherent than Andrew Sullivan’s, but he still misses the point. His argument seems to be that perfectly reasonable people oppose gay marriage both now and in the past, and they shouldn’t be defined as bigots unworthy of employment.
That makes sense, but it has nothing to do with what actually happened. Mozilla hired a CEO who didn’t merely oppose gay marriage but donated $1,000 to keep it illegal. Some people said that they wouldn’t use Firefox if the CEO didn’t renounce his support for Proposition 8. He probably didn’t need to do that to keep his job. He probably just needed to handle the blow-up with more empathy. But, whatever, he wasn’t fired. He resigned.
This is supposed to be some kind of illiberal travesty, but it isn’t. If the CEO of a company wants to make donations to hot button political causes then they should expect that a segment of the population is going to refuse to do business with their company. It’s reasonable for a board of directors to consider the political activism of candidates for CEO if that activism is likely to result in boycotts and negative publicity.
There is nothing illiberal about refusing to do business with people who you think are morally repugnant. The only free speech issue here is the people’s freedom to tell everyone about a CEO’s political contributions.
It’s really a battle to define opposition to gay equality as outside the mainstream and as morally reprehensible. If you are on the wrong side of that battle then you probably aren’t enjoying losing this battle. But it has nothing to do with the First Amendment or free speech.
The rich and the corporations hold all the power. Until the people rise up and flex their own muscles, that is, as we did in this instance.
I am pretty sure we have more power than we know, but it’s hard for me to remember that when the near constant chipping away at things that really matter wears me down and makes me feel helpless or hopeless, depending on the day.
This is a good reminder to me that they are vulnerable when we hit their pocketbooks.
Friedersdorf and Sulivan are adhering to the Charles Koch theory of free speech, which is that “free speech” consists of rich people spending money to maximize their influence and the rest of us knowing our place and remaining respectfully staying silent. They want everyone to adhere to rules of fair play that, as part of some wacky coincidence, means that freedom of speech is a fine tool for comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, but is useless for doing to the opposite.
To the extent that Congress’s “creation” of corporation law allows corporations to be shielded from the Constitution, there is a free speech issue. It’s kinda silly to exempt 40-60 and more hours of most people’s time from the protections of the Bill of Rights through implicit government action.
However, if he resigned instead of “resigned”, he terminated the relationship with Mozilla and cannot be considered to have been punished for what he said at all. Nor can Mozilla claim that it is somehow noble for his departure.
I know people who have “resigned” or who have been fired for telling corporate managers of an impending catastrophe. Their careers were penalized; the manager failed upwards. The department and sometimes the company failed. Freedom of speech and protection of freedom of speech is essential to operation of the society of liberty envisioned by the Enlightenment and written into the US Constitution after the fact in order to secure ratification.
But this flap fails on the “money is speech” delusion. Money is power to buy legislators, executives, and judges. It can be paid directly, laundered through campaign expenses, a non-profit charity, or a political movement’s expenses. But it is not speech even when it buys media. Brendan Eich was buying the power to discriminate against gays, pure and simple. And that attached itself to Mozilla’s brand; as CEO, Eich had a business decision to make and he acted in Mozilla’s interest if he voluntarily resigned. And everyone is now clear that Eich is a homophobic bigot, which must come to Eich as an embarrassment that he couldn’t get away with it in secret.
The donation occurred in the past, Eich could have used the moment to talk about how he changed his views. He apparently hasn’t changed his views. So he lashes out with the accusation of having his speech suppressed even as he is having access to the media megaphone.
Meanwhile, in cities and towns across American police forcibly shut down the reappearance of Occupy Wall Street protesters in public spaces. It doesn’t matter if Bill de Blasio is mayor, the policy is the same. If you want to talk about suppression of First Amendment rights, talk about this instead of some well-heeled CEO and his Citizen United privileges.
This X 100. How can the pseudoliberal critics of the public outcry against Eich ignore the systematic suppression by the government of opinions opposed to the depredations of our corporate masters? In one case, private citizens are expressing disapproval of actions that are no longer socially acceptable. This is the essence of how a society defines its ethos. In the other, the coercive power of the state is used to systematically silence citizens expressing opinions that are both widespread and popular, but which threaten the hegemony of oligarchs. The First Amendment only applies in the latter case.
Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh…
Show me a society where this hasn’t been the case.
Sure, it’s probably a universal tendency of states and oligarchs, but that’s the very reason we have a First Amendment. We can acquiesce or we can insist the Constitution actually means something. Admittedly it’s an uphill battle when we have a SCOTUS with such a warped view of free speech but yelling about it is the weapon we have.
I’d say the view isn’t warped but PERVERSE.
So the right is going to rally against “right to work” laws any day now, right? They’re going to stop railing against tenure that allows for teachers to teach without having parents calling for their heads because they’re teaching something they don’t want their children to know about or hear? They’re going to support union rights, which protect people from truly unfair firings?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Their sole transgression was observing during a show in London that they were ashamed the then-President of the United States claimed to be from Texas. How many shows were canceled? How many people refused to buy their music? How many radio stations quit playing their songs?
And what did Lil Andy and Lil Conor have to say about that? Anyone remember?
Interestingly, this goes against the “reasoning” of the Free Market Five on the Supreme Court. They argue that money (speech) is held accountable by being disclosed. (I think that was what they said in McCutcheon.)
So, yeah, if you’re going to allow unlimited money like Eich’s, then like any speech, it can’t be anonymous.
It’s almost like the Right isn’t afraid of being hypocritical…
Someone on Balloon Juice posted this wonderful youtube clip of Alan Shore from Boston Legal on a righteous rant in the courtroom about free speech in america.
I think it’s well worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYzeyQGE6yU
Conor Friedersdorf’s complaints are, like everything else he writes, motivated first and foremost by team spirit. And nothing else.
Exactly.
Even more enjoyable than watching that bigot hounded from office, in a delicious inversion of how Gays have historically been treated, has been hearing the squeals of outrage now that Team Bigot’s little “intolerance” trap has been laughed off the stage.
There is this bizarre RW meme going around how liberals are being tolerant the way they are supposed to. Of course the RWers aren’t bringing it up because they’re interested in promoting social justice. They want liberals to tolerate the intolerant. Somehow in their amazing little minds they think if liberals can “tolerate” gay marriage, well they should also “tolerate” people who work against it. It’s just all about “tolerance”. LOL.
They are so twisted it reminds me of Austin Power’s fawshaah:
lord, i need a nap:
should be: “how liberals aren’t”
and while I’m at it:
Of course the RWers aren’t bringing it up for the purpose of promoting social justice.
So when is Booman going to demand to see the actual votes cast by whoever-is-in-his-crosshairs? The secret ballot is the hallmark of democracy. So should any other related political action that the person does not publicize.
Was Eich out there trumpeting his donation? No he wasn’t. And therefore he should be allowed to make whatever donations he wants without having to come under public scrutiny. True, the records are public, but that doesn’t mean we have to treat them as such. They can be treated as private matters that are none of our business.
I’m a firm believer in privacy. For me it’s a supreme right. For instance, I don’t believe it’s okay to out a gay Republican who happens to advocate and vote for anti-gay legislation.
Arguments that conservatives are hypocrites on this issue don’t change whether it’s acceptable to expose a person’s private political leanings. It’s not. Neither is this kind of argument acceptable (from Americablog):
Because that’s the sort of thing used to quash free speech, including the non-political nasty stuff. “How much can we tolerate” takes you into totally subjective territory, absent of principles, where the only resolution is to appeal to majority opinion. And that’s terrible for society.
This is stupid. WTF is this yammering about “privacy” of a PUBLIC record? Are you unable to comprehend the meaning of “public”? And when you’re a raging PR disaster for your employer, you get shown the door. That’s how it works regardless of the details of an individual case.
You simply cannot lead people who won’t follow you..
This is another case like the filibuster or life-tenured Supremes with the last word.
All three make a pitiful joke of democracy, political integrity, and the constitution.
But partisans on both sides want to keep them in place so they can exploit them in their turn.
Partisans like you.
Hell, you are such a party machine man you actually oppose popular election of senators.
“It’s really a battle to define opposition to gay equality as outside the mainstream and as morally reprehensible. If you are on the wrong side of that battle then you probably aren’t enjoying losing this battle. But it has nothing to do with the First Amendment or free speech.”
A battle to do that to the opposition, to make it unspeakable, is NOT a battle against free speech?
That’s how far gone you are.
You’re a loon.
I’m still not going to use mozilla. Never have before and certainly won’t start now. Hats off to OKcupid for a brilliantly executed publicity stunt. I won’t use that site either.
I used to be a huge Firefox proponent. I no longer use it, as the protection against spoof sites has gotten out of control, and for me, it is almost unusable. Plus it is much slower than Chrome.
The whole issue with “free speech” is almost always entirely wrong. First, there have NEVER been protections against the CONSEQUENCES of speech. Secondly, “free speech” is about government suppression of dissent. Nothing in it about the private marketplace.
Just because the Constitution doesn’t protect the guy doesn’t make what happened to him right. “Rights” can be abridged by private actors, too. And that’s what’s happening here.
Look, I’m a strong supporter of gay marriage rights, but that doesn’t mean I want to live in a society where someone gets hounded out of a job because he gave $1,000 to oppose gay marriage at a time when that was the majority position.
Those of you who would justify this won’t be so happy when the shoe is on the other foot.
This position is very confused. I would be appalled if a rank and file engineer were forced out of a job for this- it has nothing to do with that person’s job. But that’s not at all what we’re talking about here. A CEO represents his / her company. A CEO who becomes offensive enough to a significant enough proportion of the company’s stakeholders to cause a major PR shitstorm for the company, for whatever reason, is gone.
Please. All employees “represent” their company. Someone has a bad experience with a Disney employee, they stop going to Disney. Someone finds out that the local McD’s is managed by someone who actively supports gay rights, they stop going.
Please. All employees “represent” their company.
Not at any where near the same level.
BTW
HE RESIGNED, which means he saw the problem his public expression of a culturally unpopular private opinion was becoming.
He could have tried to explain himself to the public(IE Modzilla customer base)but he didn’t, he chose to resign instead. He chose NOT no use his first amendment right to defend himself or his actions, but chose to resign. I see no problem given he didn’t even try to defend himself after others complained. He chose not to use his rights in the end but just resign.
Every American has the right to express their opinion. When enough opinions are expressed, sometimes corporations take steps to protect their bottom lines, which in a capitalistic system they must. If his personal opinions publicly expressed were having detrimental effects on the bottom line of Modzilla, because of the massive push back from other citizens and he decided to resign instead of using his constitutional right of free speech, to further clarify his current stance, I would say in end the he created the result.
I’m sure if he wanted to say anything, to defend himself the press would have listened, even some on the right give him the same sort of reception Dick Cheney got after shooting a person in the face.
He didn’t even try that so he must have known he was in an untenable position because of the public’s reaction to his actions. Like a good capitalist he put the corporate good over his personal good, which is what corporate leaders are supposed to do, in theory at least.
Perhaps this, from a recent post by Scott Lemieux on LGM, will help people get clearer about the Eich situation: “To state the obvious, if Eich had donated to an initiative campaign dedicated to the re-criminalization of interracial marriage, or to an anti-Semitic group, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because virtually nobody would be defending him. Nobody really thinks that CEOs have some kind of unlimited right to free political speech, and the arguments being made in defense of Eich generally tend to minimize the importance of gay and lesbian rights.”