Concerning ‘Remove Richard Stallman’
medium.com
medium.com
This apparently put it beyond the reading comprehension level of the reporters at Vice and Daily Beast, and of Selam G., and so his point was completely misunderstood/misrepresented.
The very concept of statutory rape reinforces how clear this judgment is. The reference to "statutory" means that the mere facts of the act taking place mean that the conduct is off limits. Things like "consent" or even a misrepresentation of the person's age are generally considered irrelevant.
As a society we've decided that there aren't really exceptions to this. If sex with minors occurs it's not OK, there isn't much need to further investigate why it happened.
Stallman, and anyone else commenting here, has really no basis to claim ignorance of this phenomenally clear social norm, which if broken will result in being fired from just about any public facing institution. It's on a pretty short list of such norms, alongside things like displaying your genitals in a board meeting.
While I appreciate the efforts to make this into some kind of principled argument, I don't find "first they came for the people advocating for sex with minors" to be particularly compelling.
At no point Stallman was defending sex with minors. And yet, here you are, extremely offended at him for something he didn't say.
"I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)"
"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing."
- Richard Stallman
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761718975/free-software-pione...
> The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
Just ctrl+f for necro. You'll find it.
While I'm sure it wasn't your intention, a casual reader of your post might get the impression that they were all part of the conversation he appears to have been fired for.
He was cancelled because of a email thread related to Epstein that media outlets lied about. If the blog statements were enough to cancel him, why now and not a few weeks ago or a year ago?
Probably because people just noticed them?
Saying “he’s been doing this unacceptable thing forever and appears to be consistent” is not really compelling either.
It just wasn’t considered enough whereas media headlines (falsely) stating he defended Epstein resulted in immediate action
> Our culture has made a very bright line decision that being an atheist is unacceptable. Expressing doubt about this cultural norm, or especially advocating against it, is considered unacceptable. Of course one can argue with the merits of those two facts, but they are plainly true and fairly widely accepted.... While I appreciate the efforts to make this into some kind of principled argument, I don't find "first they came for the people advocating for not believing in God" to be particularly compelling."
Does the problem become clear now? (Substitute abolitionism, suffragism, civil rights, etc. for atheism if you like.) Ironically, much like the conservatives they oppose, progressives are arguing that it is acceptable to crucify people who say something that is agains the status quo and tradition.
1) There are social norms
2) They change sometimes
Neither of those is relevant though here.
Are you arguing that no social norms violation should ever result in being fired?
Assuming we agree that advocating for some things may get you fired from your job, it’s then possible to follow up with my observations:
1) Saying it’s cool for adults to fuck minors is definitely on that list
2) I’m ok with that
I could see the decision as having been at least somewhat voluntary if he wants to keep the FSF’s mission relevant (GNOME and the SFC were threatening to break ties).
But they still have free will and a choice. At the end of the day, sexually harassed women make a Faustian bargain. They didn’t have to. But they did. It might be the devil but when you choose to consort with the devil, you play in hell.
A lot of times(admittedly not always), the solution is to walk away. Walk away. The damage to the ego can be dealt with and maybe even vindicated. But it’s wiser to walk away to a place of strength to strategize and wage a bloody war to win rather than engage in puny battles for fragile hollow victories. It’s easier to nurse a wounded ego and come back to fight another day than endure systemic harassment that rips your very spirit apart. Stupid battle of the sexes.
However, the author did not pay the same regard to Salam G., the author of the original post reporting on the most recent of Stallmans shitty proclamations. The author shows no sign of understanding why it's important that Stallman was fired, nor did he show he had done to work to try and get it.
You can safely ignore this. I came away worse for having read it.
Not sure that's fair. In the conclusion he writes:
> The goals Selam G. seeks to advance are good ones. Institutions like MIT need to closely consider their past and present treatment of women. People at those institutions, and perhaps even Stallman himself, need to have their worst impulses checked, or possibly even be removed altogether.
He was arguing for something like a due process in firing Stallman, not for not firing him.
I feel confident with my assessment. He showed no indication that he understood the current movement to hold powerful men accountable for their actions. For example, where's the due process for the women Stallman excluded by his horrible behaviour for decades?
Stallman went down for being a creepy perv for decades. He should have gone down for one of the many lines he crossed before today. Eventually, when you give a creep enough passes he'll say something so creepy it's indefensible, Yet here you are trying.
So it seems like we agree that this particular aspect (snap firings) of the USA sucks. So why is this _not_ the one to fight? If we both think the core issue is a problem, it doesn't seem intellectually honest for one of us to say that a specific instance of that general concept doesn't count because the dude at the heart of it is scummy.
If you can build a strong and convincing argument that his termination is wrong, it'd be trivial to apply that argument to the case of the fast food worker. And therefore have a better shot at improving their lot.
If you have an issue with Stallman’s comments, then you go after those comments, not misquoting and twisting his words into something he clearly did not write.