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Comment by kafkaesq | Hacker News Reader

Ugh. The Brendan Eich issue was about freedom of association -- in particular, the right of Mozilla employees and stakeholders not to be associated with the bigoted groups (and their hateful TV ads) Eich was supporting -- rather than freedom of speech.

If you're still not clear as to the distinction, please see: https://xkcd.com/1357/

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What a ridiculous line of reasoning. If the ceo at my company likes to tango and donates to a tango club, it doesn't mean that I like to tango.

I'm absolutely supportive of gay marriage, but the people pillorying Eich find it necessary to contort their logic in the strangest ways.

If the ceo at my company likes to tango and donates to a tango club,

...this would of course be in no way analogous to the activity Eich was supporting.

Of course not because tango is perceived as being harmless and therefore an ethical injunction against firing people for liking tango is unnecessary.

Firing people for having wrong opinions on important things that are not directly related to the job is more controversial.

responding to someone's opinion with "Ugh." is exactly what the op article is about

It's not their opinion that merits the "Ugh." It's that people seem to be perpetually misinformed about many basic factors regarding the Eich case.

People hate to have their heroes torn down, even if their hero is just the creator of a fifth-rate programming language that nobody would willingly use if it weren't the only available zero-compile option on Berners-Lee's juggernaut of an application platform.

Turing's suicide is merely a distant memory.

> Ugh

Congratulations, you just lowered the value of the rest of your comment significantly.

Do there exist any social circles where the use of the term "Ugh" is reflected positively?

I think that the "association" in "Freedom of association" means the right to get with people (associate as in form a group).

The "association" that you speak of is a different concept: figurative association (how people compare or liken groups one to the other).

I do not think that it is right to conclude something about the one based on the other.

What about the freedom of Brendan Eich to associate with his employees and stakeholders who wanted a better web browser?

Note that Eich was NOT opposed by his employees. He was opposed by outside activists.

I don't see the current CEO of Mozilla resigning because they are meat-eaters, which, as a Firefox user, I find deeply offensive.

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending your actions by citing freedom of association is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for what you do is that it's not literally illegal to do so.

I'm not saying that the sanction against him was the best course of action, or that it was even necessary.

Just that people who think that his "freedom of speech" was in some way violated -- or that the anger directed against him was simply about his being on the wrong side of a ballot issue -- are at least very misinformed about certain things.

>his "freedom of speech" was in some way violated

Not just his freedom. There is a chilling effect that makes people more afraid of expressing their opinions for fear of losing their jobs.

Of course, I'm not arguing about the legal definition of freedom of speech, I'm making a moral argument.

>the anger directed against him was simply about his being on the wrong side of a ballot issue

What was it about? If his opinions on gay marriage make everyone involved in Mozilla look bad, then certainly the reputational effects of firing someone for his political opinions have to be taken into account as well. People might start being less enthusiastic about working for Mozilla if they feel they have to walk on eggshells all the time.

That would be the freedom FROM association.

Freedom of Association is the right to join or remove yourself from a group for the sake of collective right.

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