Tuesday, April 8, 2014

This is How Democracy Works Now

By Patrick Buchanan

"There is a gay mafia," said Bill Maher, "if you cross them you do get whacked."

Maher, the host of HBO's "Real Time," was talking about the gay activists and their comrades who drove Brendan Eich out as CEO of Mozilla. Eich, who invented JavaScript and co-founded Mozilla in 1998, had been named chief executive in late March.

Instantly, he came under attack for having contributed $1,000 to Proposition 8, whereby a majority of Californians voted in 2008 to reinstate a ban on same-sex marriage. Prop 8 was backed by the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and the black churches, and carried 70 percent of the African-American vote.

Though Eich apologized for any "pain" he had caused and pledged to promote equality for gays and lesbians at Mozilla, his plea for clemency failed to move his accusers. Too late. According to The Guardian, he quit after it was revealed that he had also contributed — "The horror, the horror!" — to
the Buchanan campaign of 1992.

That cooked it. What further need was there of proof of the irredeemably malevolent character of Brendan Eich?

Observing the mob run this accomplished man out of a company he helped create, Andrew Sullivan blogged that Eich "has just been scalped" by gay activists. Sullivan went on:

"Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole thing disgusts me, as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society."

Yet, the purge of Eich, who, from his contributions — he also gave to Ron Paul — appears to be a traditionalist and libertarian — is being defended as a triumph of the First Amendment.

James Ball of The Guardian writes that far from being "a defeat for freedom of expression," Eich's removal is a "victory — the ouster of a founder and CEO by his own people, at a foundation based on open and equal expression."

Eich's forced resignation, writes Ball, "should be the textbook example of the system working exactly as it should."

Ball seems to be saying that what the gay mob did to Eich at Mozilla is what the heroes of Maidan Square did in driving President Viktor Yanukovych out of power and out of his country.

This is how the democracy works now.

Mitchell Baker, the executive chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation, who escorted Eich out, said in her statement: "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."

George Orwell, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

What Baker is saying is that you have freedom of speech, so long as you use your speech to advocate equality.

And what do we do with those who use their freedom of speech to express their view, rooted in religion and history, that traditional marriage is not only superior to same-sex marriage, the latter is a contradiction of the natural and moral law.

And what of those institutions that teach and preach that outside traditional marriage sexual relations are wrong?

One such is the 2,000-year-old Catholic Church whose 1976 catechism, "The Teaching of Christ," describes homosexual acts as "sexual vices" and "sexual perversions."

Is that just yesterday's church and yesterday's belief?

Well, one of the compilers of that catechism was Donald W. Wuerl of Angelicum University in Rome, who would appear to be the same cleric as Cardinal Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., who is now one of the inner circle advising Pope Francis I.

Yet, it is not only Catholic, Mormon, Evangelical and Protestant churches that believe this, but the Islamic faith, perhaps a majority of Americans, and more than a majority of the world's peoples.

Up until last year, Barack Obama opposed same-sex marriage.

What the Brendan Eich episode teaches us, where a man was driven from a position he had earned, because of his beliefs, and was abandoned and left undefended by false friends and gutless peers in Silicon Valley, is this:

In the new dispensation, opposition to same-sex marriage disqualifies you from leadership and may legitimately be used to bring about the ruin of your career.

This is the new blacklist.

The old blacklist declared that if you were a member of the Communist Party that toadied to Stalin, and you refused to recant and took the Fifth Amendment, you would not be permitted to work in Hollywood. We are Americans, said that Hollywood, and we believe in American values.

Now, nearly seven decades later, the Stalinists of the '40s are martyr-heroes in Hollywood. And in Silicon Valley conservatives and traditionalists who oppose same-sex marriage are to be denied top jobs and driven into social exile.

The new blacklist means that while diversity of races, genders and sexual orientations is mandatory, diversity of thought and opinion is restricted. In Silicon Valley, they burn heretics.


Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM






10 comments:

  1. So who violated Eich's property rights during the process where he was being convinced to resign as Mozilla CEO?

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    Replies
    1. He didn't actually DO anything wrong. But he should suffer because of his beliefs, right?

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    2. Correct; he didn't do anything wrong. He did not violate anyone's property.

      Also, no one else violated his property, so no one else did anything objectively wrong to him.

      Where is the problem here? When one believes subjectively that someone is wrong they are well allowed to use social means to try and change their mind or stop them, and that's what happened to this guy.

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    3. Bill A, the article does not call for coercive action against the activists who drove Eich out. It's simply pointing out the difficult one might have if you don't toe the PC line of thought these days. Eich was running a software company. Unless the activists pointed to examples of Eich only hiring right wing Christians or something like that then their actions just show how intolerant they are of those who hold different beliefs than their own. Many people I work with hold views very different to my own. Many of those views even offend and disgust me, but I do not call for those people to be driven out of the company. Again, the article really just shows how intolerant the PC crowd is.

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    4. The whole concept of the Mozilla organization is this sort of kumbaya style business, where everything is out in the open, no trade secrets, no profits (501c3 status), everyone happy, a type of communal experiment. Fine with me, I'll take the free stuff.
      Totally agree with Bill here, what's the panic?
      People making decisions uncoerced by the government, I'm all for that. as far as I know, no wrongful termination suits have been filed.

      Obviously, the fact that Mr. Eich was a co-founder and the inventor of JavaScript (which basically allowed for the existence of Mozilla in the first place) was of no concern here. To a non-profit, image is everything, bottom line a distant nothing.

      Although I have to say I am curious why Mr. Eich both donated to make dotgov use force to ban two consenting adults from forming a "marriage union", while at the same time donating to the Ron Paul campaign (The same Ron Paul who says that governments should not be in the marriage business at all - or any business between consenting adults for that matter). Wazzup with that?

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  2. This is How the SEC Works Now///OR DOESN'T.


    SEC Goldman Lawyer Says Agency Too Timid on Wall Street Misdeeds
    SEC Headquarters

    A trial attorney from the Securities and Exchange Commission said his bosses were too “tentative and fearful” to bring many Wall Street leaders to heel after the 2008 credit crisis, echoing the regulator’s outside critics.

    James Kidney, who joined the SEC in 1986 and retired this month, offered the critique in a speech at his goodbye party. His remarks hit home with many in the crowd of SEC lawyers and alumni thanks to a part of his resume not publicly known: He had campaigned internally to bring charges against more executives in the agency’s 2010 case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)

    The SEC has become “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,” Kidney said, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by Bloomberg News. “On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening.”

    Kidney said his superiors were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases. The agency’s penalties, Kidney said, have become “at most a tollbooth on the bankster turnpike.”
    Goldman Executives

    Kidney, who was part of the initial team that was building the Goldman Sachs case, pressed his bosses in the enforcement division to go higher up the chain. He later took himself off the team after being given a lesser role, according to people familiar with the matter.

    In particular, the people said, Kidney argued that the commission should sue Tourre’s boss, Jonathan Egol. Kidney also wanted to bring a case against Paulson & Co. or some executives at the hedge fund, which helped pick the portfolio of securities that were underlying the Abacus vehicle and then bet against it.

    The SEC ultimately decided not to sue Egol, the Paulson firm or any individuals from the hedge fund.

    Andrew Williams, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment.

    While Kidney declined to comment on the Goldman case in particular, much of his role is laid out in a September 2010 report by the agency’s inspector general’s office,

    which reviewed whether the SEC succumbed to political pressure in bringing the enforcement action.

    Kidney’s name is blacked out in the report.
    http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/sec-goldman-lawyer-says-agency-too-timid-on-wall-street-misdeeds.html

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  3. "Equality is necessary for meaningful speech"

    Orwellian speak alert!

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  4. The tech-social media sector has been taken over by progressive, meddling types using the same playbook that has worked so well in national politics. The same crowd has now discovered the Bitcoin, cryptocurrency sector, one only need look at the formation of 'Foundations' and an upcoming DATA confab taking place at Council On Foreign Relations (CFR) offices in Washington DC.
    According to this article http://bitcoinmagazine.com/12018/data-series-interview-john-beccia-general-council-circle-internet-financial/
    ”The DATA annual meeting has quite the star studded list of speakers. Here’s who will be sharing their thoughts in DC next week:”
    It is telling that CFR is allowing use of their facilities for this event. One suspects this is the up and comers that hope to ingratiate themselves into said model. The cryptocurrency pushers that thought they were sticking it to the man, are once again enablers for subjugation of the masses (and themselves).
    DATA Website: http://www.datauthority.org/
    DATA event website https://s4.goeshow.com/coulter/DATA/ereg532341.cfm?pg=home
    http://info.datauthority.org/wordpress/blog/2014/03/08/data-announces-2014-board-of-directors/
    The newly elected DATA Chair Constance Choi’s mission stm.
    Constance Choi, General Counsel, Payward Inc. (Kraken), and first interim DATA board member said, “DATA is thrilled to have a strong collective leadership, particularly at this critical juncture in the organisation’s formation. DATA will focus on publishing best practices in AML, data security and consumer protection in dialogue and coordination with policymakers and regulators, and strive to provide accurate information, transparency, leadership and trust from the ecosystem.”

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  5. The tech sector used to lean fairly strongly libertarian, even if they would not have identified themselves as such. I'm not sure when it became a hotbed of PC leftists. Anyone know?

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  6. Government ought to get out of the marriage business.
    But it is not.
    Then it at least ought to get out of the *discrimination* business.
    It is not.
    And Eich, far from urging the state to get out of the marriage business entirely, decided to donate to a cause in which government would continue discriminating among tax payers. If you are forced to pay taxes, i think few things would be worse than to be discriminated by the government and considered a lower life form, despite also being robbed for taxes.

    Lets use an example: let's say the maffia runs a neighborhood. We want it to go away, but it won't and we have to accept it. Now suppose the maffia allows white shopowners to keep 50% of their profits, while it only allows blacks to keep 30% of their profits. The blacks cannot avoid the maffia, but are discriminated against for being black. Now suppose there is someone (a white male) who urges the maffia to continue allowing the blacks to only keep 30%, instead of the maffia treating everyone equally. He is arguing this because he believes whites are superior and should be treated better. It would be obvious how immoral the white man's stance would be. To me this is the same with people who support government discrimination when it comes to marriage. Of course government should just go away completely, but it isn't. And that is the reality. The least we ought to expect is equal treatment under all the laws.

    On the other hand, as much as PC-leftist pressure generally revolts me, i see no physical force being used here against Eich. You want to support state force (including discrimination against a certain group of tax payers), you get no support or sympathy from me. This is basically a libertarian boycott in action, where non-violent measures are taken against a businessman whose ideals or policies they don't like.
    How can we complain about this while hypocritically arguing in favor of it as a replacement for state intervention in the free market, when we want to whine about it when it is leftists doing it?

    *I do feel i have to make a necessary distinction: a government treating people equally is necessary in the case of people wanting the equal treatment; but not in the case where they are trying to avoid it (for instance, in the case of a military draft where certain groups were excluded).

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