Corporations Aren't People, Except When They're LiberalsApril 13, 2014
by Calvin Freiburger
The forced resignation of Mozilla Corporation CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich may be a disgrace, but it couldn't have come at a better time to demonstrate just how empty of genuine guiding principles the Left is.
For those just tuning in, the gay mafia recently called for Eich's head upon learning he had donated $1,000 to Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot initiative defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman.
Despite the fact that Prop. 8 didn't touch the domestic-partner registry that gave gay Californians all the benefit and contract powers that come with marriage (i.e., anything that could be reasonably construed as an actual right), and despite the admission of Mozilla executive chair Mitchell Baker that she "never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from [Eich] that was not in line with Mozilla's values of inclusiveness," he had to go because his personal support for marriage didn't fit Mozill's "organizational culture" of "diversity and inclusiveness."
In other words, Mozilla makes decisions based on the judgment that opposing same-sex marriage is inconsistent with their values and conscience.
Say, what's going on at the Supreme Court these days?
Yes, this expression of "Mozilla's official support of equality an inclusion for LGBT people" happens to coincide with the Obama Administration's efforts to force companies like Hobby Lobby to subsidize abortifacient contraceptives against their will, because corporations aren't people and therefore cannot hold beliefs or exercise consciences.
By that logic, what does it matter what Mozilla's CEO thinks about same-sex marriage? Why look to the company for anything pertaining to "marriage equality"? All that matters is the bottom line, right? If anything, Mozilla's conscience claims would be even weaker than Hobby Lobby's, since there's no evidence a donation Eich made as a private citizen affected his work at Mozilla in any way, while Hobby Lobby faces an ultimatum of violating their faith or accepting heavy fines.
The truth is that all the Left's hand-wringing over corporate personhood is a facade. They're not applying some broader principle that they would respect even if it led to outcomes they dislike. All that matters is that they get the result they want. A "corporate conscience" aligned with the Progressive Utopia is just fine, but one that won't get with the PC program must be regulated, sued, and demonized into submission.
By contrast, look at conservatives, reaction to Eich's persecution. Many of us have condemned its immorality, unfairness, and hatefulness, and many of us have chosen to boycott Firefox, but virtually nobody has denied that Mozilla would have been legally entitled to fire him. None of us are proposing new laws or threatening lawsuits to force them to take him back.
That's because we actually believe in freedom, even when we dislike the way it's exercised. And because we recognize that the question of whether corporations count as people is a massive red herring,
the real question is whether the people who operate through such business structures give up their First Amendment rights just because they go into business. Because we understand that "we're not taking away the Greens' freedom, just their corporations" is as asinine as barricading my driveway, then telling me, "we didn't impede your freedom of travel, just your car's."
Hypocrisy in politics is nothing new, even hypocrisy this glaring. But liberalism is somewhat unique in that it has certain tenets built in to help its followers pretend they aren't hypocrites. As Jonah Goldberg explained earlier this week:
They cheat by denying their ideological motivations, even to themselves. Indeed, it is a constant trope of liberalism to believe, dogmatically, ideologically, that they are just empiricists and fact-finders doing what is right and good in a battle against dogmatic ideologues on the right. The more honest approach would be to simply admit your biases upfront and defend the principles that inform your biases. Instead they prefer to make arguments grounded in the assumption that the liberal "frame" is really a perfect window onto reality.
To their dogma, liberalism isn't an ideology at all, but simply the baseline for human decency and rationality, so it is by definition exempt from the standards which conservative views and actions must follow.
That's what
makes the above double-standard okay, opposition to abortion-inducing drugs is a regressive prejudice, while supporting gay marriage isn't a subjective belief at all, it's the default for any respectable member of polite society.
Hence, the need to blacklist. It's for equality.
http://patriotupdate.com/articles/corporations-arent-peopleexcept-theyre-liberals/
