Dennis Prager Writes On The Effects Of The Firing Of Brendan Eich

Uninstall Firefox  by Dennis Prager

Tuesday, Apr 8, 2014

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In 31 years of broadcasting, and 40 years of writing, I have never advocated a boycott of a product.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, when the left attempted to destroy Chick-Fil-A for its owner’s views on same-sex marriage, I suggested on my radio show that the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, stand in front of a Chick-Fil-A restaurant while enjoying some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. In that way, I argued, he could show one of the great moral differences between the right and the left. Though Ben and Jerry are leftists, we conservatives do not believe that company owners’ views should matter to consumers. We believe that products should speak for themselves. If the ice cream is good, despite whatever repugnance we might feel regarding the views of the makers of that ice cream, we will still purchase it.

The left does not see things that way. The left is out to crush individuals and companies with whom it differs. This is especially so today on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this took place last week. The governing board of the widely used browser, Firefox, forced the company’s CEO, Brendan Eich, to resign. The Firefox board had learned that in 2008, Eich donated $1,000 to the Proposition 8 campaign in California. Proposition 8 amended the California Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In classic Communist fashion, gay rights organizations demanded that Eich publicly recant. When Eich did not, gay rights and other leftist organizations called for a boycott of Firefox. Firefox immediately forced Eich out.

All these years, the left, after coining the term “McCarthyism” in order to disparage the right, had fooled most people into believing that it is the right that suppresses liberty. The truth, of course, has been the opposite. Worldwide, with the exception of Nazi Germany (which was a uniquely race-based totalitarianism, neither left nor right — while it rejected Marxist class-based struggle, it supported socialism (“Nazism” was short for National Socialism), every genocidal totalitarian regime of the 20th century was leftist. And domestically, too, the left has much less interest in liberty than in forcing people to act in accord with its values. A totalitarian streak is part of the left’s DNA. How you think matters and what you do away outside of work matters: More than 20 states prohibit judges from being leaders in the Boy Scouts — because the left deems the Boy Scouts homophobic.

During the McCarthy era, the left (and not only the left) screamed when people were falsely charged with supporting Stalin and Communism, one of the greatest evils in human history. But the left also screamed when people who really did aid and abet Stalin were dismissed from their jobs. In other words, for those on the left who celebrate Eich’s ouster, it was evil to deprive a man who supported Stalin of a job, but it is right to fire a man who supports the man-woman definition of marriage. Such is the left’s moral compass.

It is important to further note that gay employees at Firefox acknowledge that Eich never discriminated against gays, whether in employment, benefits or any other way. But that doesn’t matter to the left because a totalitarian streak is part of the left’s DNA.

As Princeton Professor of Jurisprudence Robert George warned on my radio show, today the left fires employees for opposition to same-sex marriage. Tomorrow it will fire employees who are pro-life (“anti-woman”). And next it will be employees who support Israel (an “apartheid state”).

The reason to boycott Firefox is not that it is run by leftists. Nor is the reason to support the man-woman definition of marriage. It is solely in order to preserve liberty in the land of liberty. If Firefox doesn’t recant and rehire Eich as CEO, McCarthyism will have returned far more pervasively and perniciously than in its first incarnation. The message the gay left (such as the Orwellian-named Human Rights Campaign) and the left in general wish to send is that Americans who are in positions of power at any company should be forced to resign if they hold a position that the left strongly opposes.

And right now that position is opposition to same-sex marriage.

Think about that. In the United States of America today, the belief that marriage should remain defined as the union of a man and woman is portrayed as so vile by the left that anyone who holds it is unfit for employment.

A handful of those on the gay (and straight) left have spoken out against the forced resignation of Eich. If their words are to mean anything, they must join in the call to boycott Firefox. Otherwise, their protestations are meaningless, made solely to preserve their moral credibility.

The battle over Firefox is the most important battle in America at this particular moment. If you use Firefox, uninstall it. Instead use Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, Safari, or try Pale Moon for Windows, which is based on the Firefox engine and will import all of your bookmarks. For mobile devices, you can try Puffin.

America can have liberty or it can have Firefox. Right now, it cannot have both.