Brandon Eich was a victim of market forces, conservatives should applaud

[MNBrewer]

Last edited Sat Apr 5, 2014, 03:59 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/04/1289639/-Brandon-Eich-was-a-victim-of-market-forces-conservatives-should-applaud#

Brendan Eich is a tech legend, the inventor of Javascript—a programming language that powers much of what's cool on the web. He is also a bigot, a donor to California's successful Prop 8 effort in 2008 to enshrine hate in the state constitution by banning same-sex marriage.

<snip>

The problem with Eich is that, well, he's a bigot. And worse than that, he hasn't "evolved" since 2008, like so much of America. He held steadfast to his beliefs, out-of-step with the world his product serves. So the Mozilla community erupted in anger, and after a half-assed effort to hang on, Eich resigned the position. So of course, you have people screaming about "persecution" from the usual conservative suspects to contrarians like Andrew Sullivan.

<snip>

Of course this is intolerance. Would Sullivan rush to this guy's defense if it turned out he was a Grand Wizard in the KKK? Of course not. We are allowed to be intolerant of people who operate outside the bounds of civil decency. This wasn't governmental action infringing on any Constitutional rights. This was Mozilla developers saying they refused to do work with a bigot, private websites blocking access to the Firefox browser because they refused to do business with a bigot, and employees of the firm speaking up because they refused to work for a bigot.

In short, it was the free market expressing itself. Eich was perfectly within his rights to stay at Mozilla, but he would then face a hostile market and eventually faced the reality that he couldn't do his job in that environment. The free market spoke, and a free market enterprise was forced to react.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

1. Link please n/t

[MNBrewer]

2. Added to OP

[nomorenomore08]

3. They only favor the "free market" when it serves their interests. They're basically authoritarians

who favor lassez-faire economics insofar as it helps them get rid of the people they hate.

[uriel1972]

4. There are those who defend Eich here...

and basically saying we have no right to boycott goods and services.

[Joe Magarac]

5. "Free Market" Oh please.

He was the "victim" (and I put great big scare quotes around "victim" because he is no victim) of a power struggle in the executive suite.

I shed no tears for the homophobic ruling class bastard, but the main thing here is a struggle among ruling class bastards where the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy.

He will land on his feet and still be filthy rich, regardless.

If we benefit just a little from the fallout, fine. I'll take it. But not kid myself.

As for the so-called free market, that's the invisible pink unicorn of capitalism.