You are confusing a few issues here. The civil disobedience of the Civil Rights era was targeted at changing laws. In fact "civil disobedience" specifically means disobeying the law in order to change the law. People are free to protest whatever the don't like that said I am uncomfortable with the idea that even if someone follows the law and is able to separate their personal views from how they conduct themselves at work that they should be forced out of their job. That is compelling someone to change their thoughts even though they aren't really acting on them in a way that affects the work environment. So for practical purposes you would still patronize the business. That is my point. Given that we live in a pluralistic society it is impractical and unrealistic to not do business with people you don't agree with politically or share the same values with. My point is that in our society we no t only should we have to tolerate those with different views. Really? Someone who legally supported a proposition that passed the state of California and who has not discriminated in their business dealings is comparable to a rapist and child molester? One is about supporting a position the other is about criminal action. Yes I adressed that in the other thread. It is still illegal and violates the law. So let me get this straight. Based upon the two comments above you are willing to tolerate discrimination in practice just to oppose discrimination in thought.
Right, so we shouldn't do anything lest the electability ratings of our positions go down. I would argue it sends a strong message that the organizations on the forefront of building the future are strongly progressive, and willing to fight for those values.
I will take your argument seriously if you actually try to get laws changed to remove state sanctioned marriage. I will even be glad to support it as I think marriage could be handle by contract law. Until then this is strawman argument because no actual effort has been done on this.
I feel as if you're trying to construct some bizarre position you'd never really embrace in order to deflect away from your inability to coherently debate on this topic. But for argument's sake, I'd actually be a fan of letting there be as much sexual liberty as possible, and giving equal access to privileges of love whatever that love might be. This is balanced by reasoned consent at all levels being a prerequisite. So it's just unfortunate that constructs like polygamy have been very clearly defined in the traditional male-dominant, woman-property sense, which does lead to exploitation. Otherwise, meh. I do know there are some awesome informal poly relationships that work, some female-led which really break the norm (and great on them!). I think in general, the more people are unconstrained from irrational (as opposed to rational with regards to consent, protection etc.) societal norms on sex, the better. Obviously, people who fight for gay rights generally think the same way.
Choose your battles, gay and lesbians gained nothing concrete from this, but the right wing sure did.
Values, ethics, and morality is definitely linked to an ability to lead. We aren't talking about a middle manager here, we're talking about the CEO. Part of leadership is having the faith of your employees and being seen as someone who understands their perspective. When a CEO makes political donations that are disenfranchising to those he leads, then certainly his employees can decide to look for work under a leader they believe in. I find it someone inexplicable that if I understand you correctly, you are saying an employee should compromise their life values for a paycheck and should not care that the work they are doing to help generate a profit - that part of their sweat and labor is going to be used to push a cause they find wrong. You could say that the work each employee at Mozilla is doing is to help fight gay marriage. In that context I think it's perfectly fine for someone to make a conscientious choice to work for someone else. How that is forcing the CEO to "change how they think" is a bit of a leap. The CEO has made his choice, that their views and beliefs are more important that leading a diverse company and having the respect of his employees. What is your point? That if someone is dying of thirst they will take water from their enemy to survive? Of course. That's nothing to do with living in a pluralistic society, it's common sense. You can go to China and I am sure you'll find the same thing. It's not about tolerance it's about weighing action against necessity. It's more to do with Maslov than tolerance. Ideals aren't meant to be lived to rigidly, they are things we strive for to achieve within reason. Even environmentalist create pollution by driving or taking a flight. That doesn't mean they don't fight CO2 emissions. The point is that you can apply your moral framework to your business dealings. Some may argue that it's actually more ethical to support a criminal who has done his time and paid his punishment and is reformed than someone who is doing something wrong in the present by supporting discrimination. This isn't about making two things equivalent, it's about whether or not you can use personal ethics to make business choices. Not at all. My point is that businesses respond more to the press than the law. You look at Chick-fill-A. They donated money to anti-gay groups. Their sales went up when there was a reaction. And yet...despite this, they have retreated from their original position and stopped donating to extreme anti-gay groups. My point is only to say that the free flow of information, and greater awareness can do wonders to correct corporate behavior. While the law can fail. Despite laws, Denny's has been running into trouble with discriminatory practices for decades. It has not fixed it's behavior despite losing lawsuits. But it will change it's behavior - not from the lawsuits or threat of lawsuits, but because it's sales are taking a hit since blacks are a significant portion of their customer base. They are taking steps not to address the lawsuit which are minor in cost compared to the sales cost...such as appointing an African American as their head of HR. The point is that business behavior isn't a function of just laws, or dollars. But it can be influenced usually universally by public awareness. That's a powerful weapon here. And if people are more aware about what the CEO of Mozilla has done, and want to express their opinion on twitter or by moving to another company, that's perfectly fine. I doubt it will force the CEO to change his mind. Nor do I think it's "forcing him out". He's a CEO, he's well aware of how all of this works. We as workers are not protected for our political or value views. Many people get fired or forced out for views not congruent to a company. I don't see why a CEO should get a pass when others don't.
Are the workers who tweeted for his resignation, now going to rail against their coworkers that tweeted their support? After all, how can they work with people who supported him?
Do all the people who want Obama out of office rail against coworkers who support Obama? Why do people keep trying to make ridiculous leaps of logic? I find Commodore's complaints especially amusing, given his position on the Kansas law and his Rand Paulian belief that anyone should be able to discriminate against anyone for any reason in the private sector, and that the marketplace will take care of it. What happened here seems like exactly what he advocates for.
It seems that he is saying it is ok for businesses to be given free choice in discriminating who they serve. So Denny's should be allowed by law to turn blacks away at the door since the 1950's were such a great time in the south. But that if you are black and you work for Denny's you shouldn't be able to demand changes since you lucky to have a job. Rocketsjudoka seems to be saying that if the CEO of a company has views you find distasteful and offensive, that it is wrong to leave to go work for a CEO that you feel is more aligned with your values since that means to be consistent you'd have to research every product and service to make sure the companies and CEO's are aligned with your values, and such behavior is impossible in a pluralistic society . I actually think some people do that by the way.
While this isn't directed at me in particular, it comes right after posts to me, so just in case you had the idea that I felt this way, I want to clear that up. I never suggested that the company should fire the guy for his views. I'm not that much of a hypocrite to call for the firing of a person for professing their views on an issue, when my own views are often controversial, and were the shoe on my foot, I'd think that my own right to free speech was being trampled on. What I said was that the company would force the fellow out because his views would hurt their business, both with their employees, and their customers. Not all the employees, and not all the customers, but enough to make the CEO's position untenable. As for what I would do were I an employee of Mozilla and this came out? I'd do exactly what I made clear that I would do. I would leave the company and work for another that wasn't headed by a contributor to discrimination, at least one that hadn't made those beliefs known, so they wouldn't be known to me. I have strong feelings on this subject, whether it be discrimination against color, ethnicity, religious beliefs, against a particular sex, usually women in this country and elsewhere, or discrimination against those of a different sexual orientation than my own. I was almost fired from a job I had in 1970 (the reasons I had the job, one of two I had at the time, was to save money for a long trip to Europe) for complaining to my manager about getting a far larger wage increase than the female employees that made up the bulk of this production facility's workforce. Most had been there for years, I had been there for less than 6 months. They knew far more about the job than I did. In fact, they taught me my job (packing ice cream products that would appear on the shelves of your local 7/11), yet my raise was more than double the percentage that they were given. So I went to the office, asked permission to speak to the guy in charge, and privately told him that I felt that it was patently unfair. He looked at me like I was out of my mind, told me to go back to work, to forget about it, and for god's sake, say nothing to the women (many supporting families) about the size of my raise. Not if I wanted to keep my job. "It's how we do things here, Deckard. Now go back to work and consider yourself lucky that you were given a good raise, and that after these comments, you still have a job." I did, and it's bugged me ever since that I didn't quit on the spot, or attempt to organize a strike. My time there was limited, so I bit my lip and carried on. It hasn't happened since.
Why is it a ridiculous leap of logic? I am asking about this specific company and this specific incident and their specific employees who already got what they wanted with regards to their CEO. I am not extrapolating onto any other situation (e.g. President Obama). At Mozilla, there is a group of employees who were against their CEO even though his private decisions had seemingly never invaded the work space or never had the opportunity to invade the workspace. In the meantime they have coworkers that they work with every day that vocally supported the CEO. How can they not work for the CEO, but can work on a daily basis with their coworkers?
Because that standard only applies to the CEO, who is the public face of the company and represents everything the company stands for. His life is no longer private as his worlds have collided. It doesn't matter for an employee who you probably share your cubicle with and work closely and intimately on projects together, who you see every day and spend every work hour with. Only the CEO, who most employees probably would never see or recognize.
since when did a CEO's private personal views represent everything the company stand for. the CEO might be the face of the company, not every single personal, political opinion he has is going to be aligned with whatever the company believes, those two things have nothing to do with eachother. I can see the argument that the CEO's controversial views on a subject might be bad for business, so the employees wants to get rid of him. Let's get real, do any of you know what actual personal political views your CEO have on race, sexuality, government, etc. You don't, because what they say or do in their private time is none of your business. The donation to the prop was a private donation on based on his personal stance that was unfortunately leaked. But I'm sure if you can dig up this kind of thing about every single CEO in the world if you put 24/7 surveillance on them, and you are gonna hear about their views that doesn't agree with the employees. So why the hell are we freaking about this one guy, just because his private opinion was leaked while other people's privacy are respected?
Really? You don't see a huge difference between (a) being upset at working for someone who actively worked against something you believe in (b) being upset at people because they weren't upset at working for the person in (a) ? Because those co-workers didn't actively fund a campaign that worked against something they believe in. And because they aren't working for those co-workers. A closer comparison would be if those co-workers donated to Prop 8. But even then, you'd still have the issue that a co-worker is very different than a superior and the face of your mission-based organization. I suspect those people would not be best friends with any co-workers who they learned actively worked to pass Prop 8.
This also ignores the fact that, as far as I know, no one actually said they can't work for the CEO - they just voiced that they wanted him gone. It's unclear what would have happened if he had stayed.
Humor me How much money will the right spend on huge banners that read "Bigot forced to resign by liberals, vote GOP" when it's game time?
I think it's more analogous to not caring what time he comes in to work or if he double parks in the company lot.
Employees are certainly free to feel that way but I would say for a corporation that is a bit extreme thinking. Yes the CEO does benefit from the success of the company but then again so do the other employees, shareholders and everyone else who has a stake in the success of the company. By your logic then if one of the shareholders donates to some cause you don't agree with then by your own labor you are working for that cause. Anyway as I've said earlier I am not contesting whether Mozilla has the right to force Eich out. They do. I just don't feel that this is an incident that justifies removal. No laws were broken and Eich's views had never been an issue before to Mozilla. My point is that all business decisions have to be weighed and that in a pluralistic society it is ridiculous to expect that we can do business with only those we agree with. As you note there is practical necessity to this but I would go even farther to say that in order to create a peaceful tolerant society that is yet still diverse this is important. I hate to sound like one of those conservatives who claim victimization but they have a point here. Tolerance isn't just a matter of tolerating those who agree with us. What does it say about the side professing to uphold tolerance to take a zero tolerance position over someone who holds a counter view even though professionally they have never acted on that view. For what it's worth I thought the Chick-fil-A situation was silly too. It was a sideshow that didn't help the cause of gay rights or the cause of those opposed to same sex marriage. Here you are making the same libertarian argument that the market will solve everything but we know that isn't the case. The market is a powerful force but at the same time discrimination doesn't always follow economic reasons. In fact it distorts the market. Again your argument would be to allow discrimination in action while targeting discrimination in thought and just hoping the market fixes things. As I said regarding that KS law debate that is a very dangerous way of thinking because it goes deeper than just saying that business can discriminate for non-economic reasons but also calls into question the whole idea of what it means to be a business operating in the public realm. For example if you take your argument that you would rather allow business to legally discriminate based on their views and then let them suffer the wrath of the marketplace how would that work with the Hobby Lobby case? It seems to me under your views you would let them opt out the ACA requirements for insurance with contraceptive coverage and then hope the market place addresses it by either people boycotting Hobby Lobby or refusing to work for Hobby Lobby. For one there are many who support Hobby Lobby's position and two there are many more who don't really care or know either way. A situation like that though opens up a Pandora's Box of whether any corporation opt of our regulations based on ownership's deeply held beliefs. This is why knowing your own history I find the position you are now advocating bizarre and inconsistent. And again I am not saying that the employees of Mozilla or the board of Mozilla shouldn't be allowed to remove Eich. I am expressing a personal opinion that I don't think this is something he should be forced out of his job for. My position is this. We live in a pluralistic society but we should work to make this a society that is more equitable and just. To that end we need to work to change our laws. What people think though is another matter. While I also think we should work to change people's thinking I don't see how this is helping that. To me forcing someone out of their job for something like this is not helping the cause but essentially imposing a thought police. It is not enough that you act in a way that I agree with but that you also have to think in a way that I agree with.
CEO is a significant shareholder and then some. He not only has share but he also gets a salary and performance bonus on top of that. He's also the leader of the company and you can't separate a leader from their core values. It's no surprise that the companies who rise often have corporate values that align closely with their leader's. Actually I don't think Mozilla should force him out. I think he has to make that decision on his own as a leader. It's not about laws being broken in this case, it's about profits and the what's best for the company. A business has to make the best decisions. I think this flies in the face of corporate responsibility and the sustainability movement. The whole idea of consumers making choices about the products they buy and the impact they have on their world is one of the greatest controls on corporate behavior to emerge in the past few decades. Taking that away in order to satisfy some ideal version of how a society should be seems a bit strange to me. Why not let consumers say, hey, I am going to choose products that represent the values I believe in? Actually, this is half of what branding is all about - if you work in marketing, it's convincing people that your brand is the one that best aligns with who they are as people. People do this - in fact, I would wage that you make purchase decisions not solely on what's good for you but for what's good for the causes you care about. Choosing to use more energy efficient lightbulbs because you believe in the dangers of global warming is no different than deciding to use a different browser. Deciding you don't want to wear shoes made by unfair labor practices is another example. Choosing companies that have sustainable practices is another. I don't see how you can draw the line in one place but not the other. Are you saying people should not be influenced by these things in a multi-cultural society and instead choose only what is best for themselves and ignore consequences to others? I just find that hard to believe coming from you. It all depends on what you define as tolerance and intolerance. To some people this guy having anti-gay views - that he is being extremely intolerant. Do they have to "tolerate" that? Are they not allowed to speak out and say, "Hey, that's wrong!". What does it mean to tolerate? It depends on how much you value awareness of an issue. A lot of times I agree. But in this instance it does bring light and keep the spotlight focused on something that needs to be part of the national consciousness. I am not sure if it had zero value. You gave me a hypothetical to begin with - should businesses be allowed to discriminate on whom they should be able to serve if they disagree morally. Well they can actually and they do. You can't discriminate based on race or religion of course, but you are allowed to discriminate on beliefs, sex, and a whole lot of other things. You can refuse service to someone who isn't dressed a certain way, who talks too loud, who isn't attractive, who isn't of a certain political believe, etc. That's all fair game and businesses legally do that. They can't bias against race, but they can ban dress strongly associated with a race. Look, I agree, a business that doesn't serve gays is not in the public interest. But being gay isn't protected. And sometimes you need bad laws in place in order to rile up support against it and bring a greater public awareness to an issue. So like I said, the KS law might not be a horribly thing - if you don't mind being Machiavellian about it. It may take these type of laws to force the federal gov't to add gays as a protected minority - which is really what the aim is here. It's a good question. I am not sure to be honest. Should a privately held business that claims its core value to be anti-abortion be forced to provide health coverage for its employees that include contraceptive coverage? It's tricky because of the opportunity for abuse if you say it should be given that right. I really am not sure. But it has resulted in a backlash. The fact that you know about it says a lot. If they succeed - do you not think there will be protests and pressure applied - it will get press for it for sure. It will be interesting to see how the ruling goes. I don't get the "forcing someone out of their job" mantra. I am not advocating that. If I used that language before, I retract it. I am just saying it's fine for people to bring a spotlight to him and protest the fact that he has been given a leadership position. Whether or not this makes him fit to lead or not isn't my choice. Nor is it up to an employee. It's up to Erich and the board of directors/shareholders. Whether they should force him out has nothing to do with his views - it has to do with their bottom line. I've said that before. People should not lose their jobs for their views, but people should know why their views are important and controversial. And CEO's are not like other job holders, as I have said before, there is a question of leadership and reflection on the brand. A CEO is the key position that brings a human being the closest to being synonymous with a business. The decisions of a CEO and their values reflect strongly - whether we like it or not. We learned this lesson painfully in other companies - such as with Enron. Should Erich be "forced out"? That's a decision for the people who employ him. But employees should feel perfectly fine moving to a company where they will sleep easier at night. And customers should be free to use a different browser. That's the way the business world works. You said a conversation would be more valuable. Some sort of other way to bring a greater understanding. I agree. But Erich has that Power! He can sit down with those employees who are upset and have a one on one conversation - or a group conversation. He is the leader. Why can't he step up and lead? Why do CEO's need to be coddled as these helpless creatures? He rose the ranks to be the leader of a massive company - why can't he lead now when he's made a mistake?
