edynoid's comments

The "right-wing" categorization is probably not that helpful, I agree.

If I understand you correctly, by turning the argument around (against LGBT, atheist, liberal, etc. people) you want to challenge my point that it is okay to criticize and resist certain opinions and draw consequences from them.

I feel like there is a big difference between the scenario at hand and systematic persecution of certain groups of people.

You seem to assign a huge value to keeping a job. Do you think this is equal to being tracked down and killed by police? That's what e.g. LGBT people face in some countries, is that what you mean by that?

From my point of view, that employee actually tried to advance a very hostile political agenda with what he wrote, that might have harmed many people. Of course, this harm is not as visible as being fired, but it does hurt the opportunities for women, who have to try twice as hard in an environment, where you need to fight with people over whether you are even biologically capable of doing your job.

On the other hand, following your example with the guy making pro-LGBT statements: you make it sound like LGBT is some sort of political agenda by itself. But people usually just _are_ lesbian or trans without making a huge fuss out of it… I do not see how this compares to writing a 10-page essay systematically attacking half of your co-workers.

And, no, I would not defend Google for firing somebody for, say, being a lesbian. That's a completely different scenario.

For the record, I am not alleging this in particular. For all I know, it might be true. Although given Breitbart's history reading anything on that site does not hold much value.

After all, they have run stories about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring and continuously deny the scientifically evident reality of climate change, for example.

Admittedly I have not fact-checked a statistically significant sample of their articles. But their Wikipedia article for instance tells a tale of published falsehoods, conspiracy theories and the like.

The political disagreement is an orthogonal factor, but does play a role, of course.

This sounds like that weird right-wing notion of "censorship", that has become popular recently. Let me elaborate a little…

When I hear "censorship" I am thinking of government agents sitting in newspaper editorial rooms striking out all statements in an article that does not align with the government's point of view. It means actively suppressing certain kinds of information from being distributed.

What is happening here, looks more like this: a Google employee publishes an email. Lots of people in the company find the content objectionable. Subsequently they decide that they do not want to work with somebody having these opinions. I do not see, how that is even close to censorship. It is not like he has a right to keep that particular job. He can still go out on the street and shout his opinion at the crowd.

Censorship, intimidation & oppression are very strong words to describe a situation, where somebody lost their job, because they wrote an objectionable essay on a company mailing list.

There is a difference between a right to express your opinion, which I support, and a right not to face any resistance or social consequences for voicing that same opinion. The latter of which is made up by the political right trying to relabel it as "free speech".

You can't cry censorship every time you are criticized for something you said. And let's be honest here: white men with regressive points of view are still not particularly threatened of not being heard. After all, they are well represented in pretty much every single powerful institution like parliaments, courts and executive boards. They'll manage to get their opinion heard, I'm afraid.

That is barely credible given the source is Breitbart.