Mozilla Is A Culture

For John, BLUF:  What is new is old.  There is nothing new under the sun.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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In my previous post on this issue I noted that I was interested in knowing "the rest of the story".  What else was in the mix that caused Mozilla to drop Mr Brendan Eich as CEO.  Perhaps in the interest of full disclosure, I am a user of Mozilla's Firefox Web Browser on my PC.

While there have been several comments at the post, one came directly to me:

I think you answered you own question:  apparently the founding fathers decided that corporations have the same rights as any citizen, at least the court rulings recently would lead us to believe that.  They have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms and etc.  I guess.

So corporations, like Catholic schools, get to set guidelines of what social behavior is acceptable for employment, and corporations can set guidelines on what social behavior is appropriate.  It certainly isn't zealotry to tell your employees not to have abortions (Federal budget implementation does that), soon it won't be zealotry to tell them you won't pay for birth control and it is only a matter of time that they will be able to tell them not to use contraception and that they can't support oppose bans on gay rights.

Professor Reynolds and Mr. Sullivan seem like idiots:  blacklists? walks of shame?  Who called for that other than them?

I guess the "right to bear arms" was meant as a cynical dig, but I have had an armed rent-a-cop confiscate my camera film (so you know it was a long time ago, back when the DC-8 was new) on the outside of a fence on the West side of Lakewood Blvd.

I am not sure what is meant by "Federal budget implementation" banning employee abortions, but moving on, yes, employers have some rights.  The question is, is there a dividing line between what the employer must provide and what the employee must do.  I would expect that a Catholic School teacher who notoriously gets an abortion might face the ax.  On the other hand, if said teacher quietly has her problem taken care of, who will know and thus who will care?  "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)  Not all have felt the need to flaunt it.

As for declaring Professor Reynolds and Mr Sullivan idiots, I think the jury is still out.  And, besides, I have a lot of nominees ahead of them.

But, that brings us to the article in The International New York Times, by Farhad Manjoo, "Why Mozilla’s Chief Had to Resign", which can be found here.  The gist of the article is that Mozilla is a culture and not really a corporate entity.

In fact, Mozilla goes right back to our Puritan roots.  They are a City upon a Hill.♠  They know the truth.  No Quakers, no High Church folks and definitely no Catholics.  And no one opposed to gay marriage.

Oh, my position?  The Government does contracts.  Rabbis, Imams, Ministers, Priests do marriages.  The Government should have contracts for all relationships where value is exchanged.  I would even have Common Law Marriage for those who cohabit and conceive and produce a child.  But that is just me.

As for Mr Brendan Eich, he may be traumatized, but I suspect his skills will carry him on to future successes.  As for Mozilla, will they evolve or will they turn in upon themselves and die out?  Puritan Massachusetts evolved.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going."