Dangerous ideas: Employers firing someone for voicing personal opinion

Nobody on the left is going to have a problem with this. You see, the left is tolerant of your personal opinion right up to the point where you express an opinion contrary to their own. Let’s say Chick-fil-A forced a manager at a store to resign because said manager contributed to a campaign promoting gay marriage. Can you imagine the backlash? It would be unprecedented. 

Of course, Chick-fil-A would not do that since they are a tolerant company, but Mozilla just forced their co-founder and CEO Brendan Eich to resign after the world found out he donated $1,000 to a group in support of California’s Proposition 8 (gay marriage ban) vote in 2008. Six years ago. The measure passed, but was thrown out by the Supreme Court. From ABC News.

After the announcement that Eich would become CEO last week, some Mozilla staff protested his appointment while three of Mozilla’s directors resigned. OKCupid protested by refusing to allow users to run the dating website with the Firefox browser. …

In a statement on the Mozilla website, executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker, said today: “Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.

This is not my America anymore. This is management by bullying. This sets quite the precedent and has happened before. Eich was never accused of using Mozilla resources, employees or time in support of Prop 8, he simply wrote a check to a group in favor of the ballot measure. This had nothing at all to do with Mozilla. Don’t give me the “he resigned” line, he was forced out.

More from Baker’s self-serving statement full of hypocrisy

Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.

Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.

We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public. This is meant to distinguish Mozilla from most organizations and hold us to a higher standard.

To be honest, I’d like to officially tell Baker to go to hell. (I’m ticked off, and rarely use such language in a post.)

Remember now kids, it’s completely acceptable to trash and dismiss someone who has a different opinion, while telling the world over-and-over again that you value that opinion and support a culture of openness. I say that’s totally unacceptable, but fair warning folks, if it’s good for you…

I’d like to look into the ability to block users using the Mozilla Firefox browser. I’m certain it’s doable, I just don’t have the time to implement it so it may or may not happen. For now, do what I did … I deleted the Firefox browser from my computer. Why bother with them? People like Mitchell Baker are the true intolerant bigots in this world.

More at Hot Air and Big Government. AP at Hot Air has a similar suggestion to my own.

Start by dropping Firefox, if you use it now, and go from there. If you don’t, this will keep happening.

Well, maybe Ed Morrissey and the folks at Town Hall will start the effort to block Mozilla users from accessing their sites?

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

10 Comments

  1. dustinvictory on April 4, 2014 at 8:57 am

    Jim, ?you have stated on numerous occasion that if you were the manager/owner of a large corporation that when the “affordable health care act” was implemented that you’d fire anyone that voted for our current president….. ??



    • Steve McGough on April 4, 2014 at 9:14 am

      Jim didn’t write this post. Yet, the logic is now acceptable right? (Since liberals can force out employees with different points of view.)



    • dustinvictory on April 4, 2014 at 12:31 pm

      No one claimed that Jim wrote this. The article plainly states who did. ?Jim posted it. ? ?I was simply pointing out a huge contradiction. ?A who said any of this “logic” is acceptable? ?I sure didn’t. ?I just can’t understand why the radio show host finds it acceptable when it agrees with his personal political views but not acceptable when the actions divas agree with his personal political views. ? It’s now ok to fire someone because of who they voted for as Said by the host but its not ok for them to be fired when they gave contributions? ? None of that is ok. ?
      Posting this article in such a manner is Just simply hypocritical ? ?



    • Steve McGough on April 4, 2014 at 12:44 pm

      Jim didn’t “post” it either! As I understand it,?Jim never even mentioned this story on the air today. I’m not even sure he read it.?Maybe you don’t know, but I have full rights to do what I want on this site, with zero co-ordination with Jim or anyone at the radio show. You’re making an assumption that is incorrect, and I guess I made an assumption about your original comment. There is no contradiction here at all.



    • Dimsdale on April 4, 2014 at 2:11 pm

      Much like the victim in this story, the only people that would dole out secret voter information and exact punishment thereof, would be liberals.? How would said manager /owner know who you voted for otherwise?? It isn’t (yet) like the abusive card check that liberals love so much.



  2. bien-pensant on April 4, 2014 at 9:55 am

    There is more to this than is being reported. Eich was hired, people were uncomfortable with his hiring, and Mozilla got rid of him. It seems to me that the $1,000 contribution to “defend marriage” was a convenient excuse to the LGBT crowd. This California, after all, the home of Lefty Intolerance.
    Don’t many companies give to opposing causes as a matter of course? Hedge their bets, so to speak? I’m thinking Eich has the basis for a law suit if these are the true facts. Something about First Amendment?
    Something tells me there is more to this story



    • Steve McGough on April 4, 2014 at 10:36 am

      I guess the employees were uncomfortable for working for the co-founder of the company. He was upper management and leadership since day-one, not a recent hire. But the real crap came about when they made him CEO. Also, the company had nothing to do with the donation, it was a private donation he made himself. I don’t think there is a basis for a law suit since he “voluntarily resigned.”



  3. Shock and Awe on April 4, 2014 at 7:11 pm

    My family personally experienced the fascist elements of the movement. My father wrongly fired and blacklisted, we were thrown from our home and his private files broken into



  4. Dottie on April 7, 2014 at 9:27 am

    Mozilla/Firefox has been deleted from all my computers as well as their email client Mozilla/Thunderbird. ?



  5. johnboy111 on April 7, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    Just got a new computer..I was told by my “reagan.com” e-mail ?that I had to run Mozzilla/firefox in order to gain access to site…can anyone help me delete them??



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