Who said you weren't "allowed to voice" your opinion? Only the government (or terrorists) can stop you.

That's very different from social pressure. You have a right to speak, and to not be physically restrained from doing so, but you don't have a right to be free of any social consequences that follow. You're free to talk your way into a job, or out of one.

You seem to have missed my point. Every desirable opinion that people hold today was once an undesirable opinion in years past.

It's only by radical people going against the grain that we have ended up with the relatively free and liberal society we have today.

Support for "heavy social pressure" is support for the status quo. Personally, I'm hoping for some improvement in the state of things during my lifetime.

Unfortunately, people who share your point of view don't appear to have thought it through very far. For instance, a consequence of what you're saying would be that Mozilla wouldn't have had the right to fire Eich over his unrelated political actions. To some of us, that's almost as objectionable as restrictions on speech.

Here's a hint, if you want to understand my point of view: it's easy to identify the Bad Guy in any conversation. It's whoever resorts to the threat of physical force first. Apart from that, it's all fair game: no one has the right to remain unoffended.

I agree with you, but let me make a counter-argument. My apologies for coming across a bit pedantic perhaps, but I think this is an important problem.

Social pressure can have a big impact, and while it's not the same as physical force (or the threat of it), I think there are cases where it can be harmful enough to blur the line that I once thought would be easily drawn at 'physical force'.

There are areas in 'free societies' where being openly gay, or openly atheist is legal, but is (or was) socially unacceptable. Finding work as a gay or atheist teacher in such areas might be close to impossible, but for various reasons leaving such an area might be equally close to impossible or at least highly undesirable.

As a result, there are gay teachers who, practically speaking, cannot be gay, not even in the 'privacy' of their home, even though legally they are protected from physical violence. There are also atheist couples who are all but forced to go to church on Sundays lest they incur the social exclusion of all those around them.

While I don't know if a state-enforced no-discrimination policy is a good or even acceptable solution, I find it hard to dismiss this thought outright. Perhaps it is.

And so in the case of Eich, for example, the only reason why I feel that Mozilla had the 'right' to fire him is that I find it hard to believe that this keeps him from living a good life outside of Mozilla. But if society were to change and all companies were to fire Eich for his views, then perhaps government intercession to prevent this might be necessary.

Because yes, I do think we need to protect those who have ideas we don't like, to the point where we might have to actively interact with them on a regular basis. In fact, I think it's a good thing. 'Good' beliefs should regularly be challenged.

That said, I'm peppering the post with 'mights' and 'perhapses' because I also see the drawbacks and practical difficulties of this approach. Forcing a Christian school to allow a gay atheist teacher to work there might not solve the social exclusion issue, for example.

But all I'm trying to say is that I find it much more difficult now to take the stance that we should draw the line at physical force. We're too reliant as humans on social contact and fulfillment to ignore the dangers of social exclusion.

Right. You are free to have your opinions. But if you offend the wrong person, you will most likely get fired from your job, shunned completely from your community, or bullied online.

It's not even about the truth anymore. Even mainstream news organizations spin and lie about what actually happened, with real-world consequences (and no consequences for the news orgs or the reporters). Every news outlet spread lies about the Ferguson incident, before we even had any credible witnesses or facts. When the facts finally came out, they continued to spread the same lies (and many continued to believe them).

In the past couple of years, there have been dozens of reporters that have gotten fired for an obvious mistake that was deemed 'offensive' by the likes of political activist groups and used as fuel to fire them. It's just another form of bullying.

Many people don't even know that Al Sharpton will threaten companies and demand money or work in exchange for not going after them publicly. Pepsi paid him thousands per year in the 90s and XM radio actually gave him his own show for a couple of years to get him to stop talking about the "homeless charlie" incident that happened a few years back. A quick Google search will show you many companies that essentially pay him hush money. It tells me that when he cries racism, it's not about bettering society, but lining his pockets. It seems this is public knowledge now. Why isn't he in jail?

I don't really use Facebook besides some simple private messaging between friends. Why? I can predict the coming storm that many people don't seem to see. Anything online can and will be used to instantly form an opinion about you and your life style. Not having the right "culture fit" might just mean someone in management doesn't agree with your political opinions.

The ex-Mozilla CEO is another good example of the problem with today's society. He donated a small amount of money to a cause he believed in and was bullied and ridiculed online until he quit.

If it had been the reverse (he supported gay-marriage and was bullied until he quit) many of those same people would be crying out about how we need to stop online bullying and probably demand the government step in. If I were the Mozilla CEO, I would have set an example and found the people that worked for the company that spewed the most hate against me and fired them on the spot.

As I've gotten older, I have found that most people are the same: they preach open and honesty..until it's for a cause that they disagree with. Then, they just want to silence and discredit the opposition.

Few are for actual freedom, which is sad.

> As I've gotten older, I have found that most people are the same: they preach open and honesty..until it's for a cause that they disagree with. Then, they just want to silence and discredit the opposition.

This is depressingly true. Tolerance of only the ideas that the group agrees with, otherwise it's [insert something dumb here] and it needs to be stopped!

The depressing truth I find in all of this is that often, seemingly irrelevant viewpoints seem to trump actual issues that are actually under the control of the individuals concerned.

Gay marriage is an extremely important issue. No doubt. But the CEO of Mozilla has hardly any influence upon that. He runs a software company. He may employ a few homosexuals, that's about it. His donations are relatively meagre and Firefox doesn't censor content its' viewers access.

Where's the backlash against negative practices perpetrated by a few that impact on huge swathes of the population? Companies conspiring with the USG (see PRISM), anti-consumer practices (Apple, Microsoft etc), companies that kill (tobacco, fast food, etc).

It seems like we're stuck in a place where social issues that affect minorities result in visceral, emotional responses, whereas the bigger stuff is 'just business', like we're just bored of it. That bugs me.

Perhaps it's just the attribution onto an individual.