It wasn't free speech and public dialogue, it was a spineless witchhunt. Quit trying to sweeten the cyanide.
A number, though, arguably violated California Penal Code Section 422 (I say "arguably" because whether they did depends on how seriously the threat recipient took them). Of course they may not be in California, but many other jurisdictions have similar laws.
I did not see any such comments on HN, although admittedly I did not follow the story closely on reddit, tumblr, or twitter.
There were certainly mails or blog comments (I'm not sure which, and the two are equivalent anyway when comments are moderated) with such threats in response to Lars Lohn's blog post (quoted near the bottom of <http://www.twobraids.com/2014/04/back-into-light.html>).
Of course I have no way to prove that to you. An earlier version of Lars' post (before he deleted it in his fit of pique) had an explicit edit mentioning the threats, but even Google's cache now only has <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eKzKHuO....
I'm told (more second-hand than in Lars' case, but by people I trust) that others received similar threats as well. Again, I have no way to convince you that this is true.
Surely you all are not imaginative enough if you think that the union of the set of behaviors one can form that are within their rights are all desirable behaviors.
I mean, strictly speaking the NSA was well within its legal rights to do what it did. But what was that quote by Jon Stewart, "I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here, Mr. President. No one is saying you broke any laws. We're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
> Surely you all are not imaginative enough if you think that the union of the set of behaviors one can form that are within their rights are all desirable behaviors.
I didn't say that all of behaviors seen were desirable, and upon rereading my comment, I have no idea how you got the impression that I was.
> I mean, strictly speaking the NSA was well within its legal rights to do what it did. But what was that quote by Jon Stewart, "I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here, Mr. President. No one is saying you broke any laws. We're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
Exactly which behaviours seen during that scandal do you think should have been illegal or were borderline illegal? I am getting the feeling that you saw something that I did not.
Bear in mind that I draw a strong distinction between "undesirable" and "should probably be illegal".
I wish you the best of luck with this argumentative approach -- I've been trying it for weeks, and no one on the other side appears to realize that legally or socially preventing what happened with Eich and the Mozilla community would be far, far more destructive to discourse, speech, etc than what happened here. The position itself (that what happened to Eich was somehow wrong, in a sense that can be well-defined) is internally inconsistent.
Does that sound incosistent?
> How about, nobody fucking makes another guy lose his job for what he votes or backs?
So, if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the KKK, they should be somehow forced to keep him on? This position isn't inconsistent, it's incoherent.
What if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the Republican Party?
But either way, no one is saying Mozilla should have been forced to retain Eich against their will. Rather, Mozilla's Board had decided he was the best guy for the job, despite his thoughtcrime, until enough people and companies started ganging up on them and threatening the viability of the project.
Expressing your speech is one thing, boycotting is one thing (indeed, think of all the people now boycotting Mozilla), but trying to burn down a project a là OkCupid is a whole 'nother bag.
Then... people would be free to boycott them? The company would be free to decide, like Mozilla did, whether it's worth keeping that executive on?
I agree that the OKCupid thing was a little distasteful, but that's mostly because it was so blatantly a ploy to get themselves some of the press surrounding the situation. I still wouldn't want to enact any policy that would ban them from doing so, however.
Not a single one. Now I'm also wondering what you're seeing.
> Bear in mind that I draw a strong distinction between "undesirable" and "should probably be illegal".
Great, because that's what the opposition to the witchhunt has consistently been: Not that the majority of the witchhunt activities have been technically illegal, but that the acts themselves are undesirable in a community of differing views.
The precedence set by what happened to Eich because of his bigoted views (again, legal or not) should be sending panic through the progressive communities. But instead it's the opposite, people claiming that hunting this witch is OK because look, he's actually a witch.
And it's usually the same kind of people who will trot out the quote about "First they came for the Jews, ..." who are hypocritically clawing down the door to catch this particular member of the untermensch.
Actions have consequences.
That's also what KKK said, when lynching someone.
If you think your argument through a bit further, I'm sure you'll see the distinction.
Well, zealot Christians (and organisations like the Inquisition) hated people "for what they did" (e.g extra-marital affairs, being an atheist, not going to church enough, magic spells, etc) not for what they were. I don't see how that's any improvement over hating them for what they are. Hate is hate.
I also have a three digit IQ and I don't believe Eich hates gay people. In fact he has worked closely with lots of them perfectly for ages (by their own admission). He might love marriage too much as a specific, and historically specified, tradition though, which is a different thing.
Sounds like we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.