The Hounding Of A Heretic
Good morning, All,
We take absolutely no sides here, but did want to bring up the matter of the pretty much forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich over a donation he made that evidently rankled the OKCupid crowd. And quickly mushroomed.
Not too long ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook told shareholders that If You Don’t Believe in Global Warming, Sell Our Stock! Bold words, but what did not seem to grab any headlines is that former Obama EPA Chief Lisa Jackson is now an Apple employee, despite the fact that she was pretty much forced to resign from the agency amid questions about whether her agency was complying with open-records laws. She was also sending fraudulent emails, btw. In the brouhaha of the Eich story, what you might have missed is another story involving that tech executive that hit the news: the EPA was testing deadly pollutants on humans – without their knowledge or consent – during Apple employee Jackson’s tenure at the agency. Where’s the outrage there?
The issue is the intolerance of anyone with a view that differs from that of the so-called popular opinion.
Judging someone by their politics rather than by their achievements is a slippery slope and particularly hypocritical in an industry that supposedly screams for diversity. And selective diversity is no more than intolerance by any other name.
“The whole episode disgusts me–as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society,” wrote journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is widely regarded as the intellectual father of the gay marriage movement. “If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.” Popular opinion is a shifting target and more importantly, the pendulum swings both ways. Just a caveat, as we go onward and forward.