Mozilla, the company that makes the web browser Firefox, committed the only unforgivable sin progressives have – it hired someone who didn’t toe the progressive line to be its CEO. Uniformity of thought is the new black, and a straying from that plantation lands you on the new blacklist. That’s where Brendan Eich finds himself now for daring to stray from the progressives’ plantation on gay marriage.
How did Eich stray? Did he take to the streets, shout from the mountaintop, or even take an active role in a campaign? No, he wrote a check, for all of $1,000, to support the campaign in favor of California’s Proposition 8 – the gay marriage ban which was supported overwhelmingly by voters. Not to have gays rounded up and killed or put in camps (those are progressive traits), or even to have homosexuality outlawed, but simply to not change the definition of marriage to fit the political flavor of the moment.
Eich had no intention of changing Mozilla’s corporate policy toward gays, but that didn’t matter. Tolerance isn’t enough. As Erick Erickson put it, "You will be made to care."
After weeks of badgering, and only weeks in his new job, the pressure on Mozilla become too much and Eich resigned. Another scalp claimed for thinking "wrongly" according to the tolerance crowd.
How did this even become an issue when the vote on Prop 8 took place in 2008? How did a man most people have never heard of become the focus of a nationwide campaign to deny him his job for thinking differently? A dating website.
The website OkCupid posted a letter that appeared only when users accessed the site using Firefox as its browser that said, "Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid."
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It continues with a lie about Eich wanting to make gay relationships "illegal," because why let the truth stand in the way of an agenda? And it concludes, "OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure."
It reads pretty much the same in its original German.
Mozilla has a history of supporting "equality," and Eich pledged as much just two weeks ago, and explained himself and his donation two years prior. But none of that mattered. Nor did it matter that his personal beliefs, which were shared by President Obama until political expedience demanded he change, would have no impact on how he ran the company. The fascist mob wanted a scalp.
Normally how a company conducts itself is none of my concern, especially a website I’d never visited. But this isn’t a story about one company having an issue with another company; this is a story of how the new strain of fascism is spreading across the United States like a cold on a plane.
Eich’s donation in support of Prop 8 was confidential, by law. The only reason it is known, why any of the donations are known, is the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked the donor list to a gay rights group who posted it online. Someone in government broke the law and gave what amounts to a “hit list” to progressive foot soldiers who have been targeting donors for their personal beliefs.
In this case it was gay groups, but these tactics are a favorite of progressives. Under communism people who didn’t embrace their agenda were purged, under fascism the nonconformists were sent to re-education/work camps, or killed. Progressives can’t simply murder or imprison people who flee their thought plantation, though they’d like to, so they try to ruin them in the meantime.
Fascists are always going to be around. They are the core of the progressive heart. But it’s a new and disturbing development when agents in our own government are aiding progressives in their thought jihad.
The president doesn’t give care – if anyone on his staff bothered to tell him. He’s called all scandals related to the IRS targeting Americans for their beliefs (as long as they disagree with him) as “phony.” Democrats have fallen in line, obstructing ongoing investigations into any and all Obama administration scandals.
This disinterest from Democrats is ironic since such groups are allowed to keep their donors’ names secret because of actions by Democrats in the 1950s. Alabama, then a racist Democratic stronghold, wanted the member list of the NAACP for reasons one easily can imagine. The NAACP, fully aware Democrats and Jim Crow were one in the same, sought to protect its members from targeting and refused. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously groups could keep their members secret.
The case, NAACP vs. Alabama, was important because it protected people from being targeted because of their views and allowed them to work for their objectives anonymously if they wished. No longer – at least if you’re not a progressive.
The Eich case was summed up perfectly by Andrew Sullivan when he wrote, “Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society.”
The plight of a wealthy CEO may not inspire sympathy, but what it represents should worry everyone, regardless of politics. This week it’s gay marriage. Next week it will be something else. But it always will be something. More and more, hearing “celebrate diversity” means listening to like-minded drones, albeit of different colors. Those who think outside their prescribed, accepted thoughts have no place in progressive America.
The vast majority of Americans, even those who vote for Democrats or call themselves progressives, are not in tune with the radical fascistic activist fringe that is steering their ship. Decent human beings have limits – and the idea of people being targeted and destroyed because they disagree with those in power is abhorrent. Unfortunately, none of those decent human beings seem to be working for OkCupid, this administration, or in Congress as Democrats right now.
Correction: As Allahpundit points out, the donor list for Prop 8 was made public under California law, not an IRS leak. The IRS leak was of the donor list for the National Organization for Marriage. The Eich case perfectly illustrates why the NAACP fought to keep their membership list from Democrats – so they wouldn’t be targeted for the “sin” of disagreeing with those in power. California law mandates anyone who gives more than $100 to a ballot measure be publicly identified and, therefore, subject to the prevailing whims of the politically correct thought police. In fact, Eich isn’t their first victim, only the latest. Read this post on Scott Eckern, run out of Hollywood for daring to disagree. Fascism, even in the name of “tolerance,” is still just fascism.
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