RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a disturbing day for free speech and this country, and it’s been trending. For 25 years… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking that at some point we’re going to bottom out or reach a point where a majority of Americans are just gonna put their foot down and say, “No more!” But it hasn’t happened.
The fear and intimidation of average, ordinary Americans is at an all-time high — fear and intimidation that is silencing people. I’ve been following a story for the past five days, and I purposely have not mentioned it, as I didn’t want to have any influence on the outcome. I wanted to see where this went on its own.
Yes, I’m talking about Brendan Eich from Mozilla. I wanted to see where this went before I weighed in on it. There is cowardice; there is totalitarianism. Political correctness doesn’t even get close to describing what this “story,” for lack of a better term, is all about.
Suffice it to say that Brendan Eich is an average, ordinary guy who happens to be pretty brilliant. He’s a computer tech/engineer and one of the cofounders of Mozilla. Now, you may not know the name Mozilla, but if you use the Firefox Internet browser, it comes from Mozilla.
Brendan Eich, E-i-c-h, is one of the cofounders, and just recently Brendan Eich was named CEO.
And then, because of the law in California requiring that all people that donate more than $100 to anything in a proposition/ballot initiative have to be made public, some people found out that Brendan Eich four years ago donated $1000 to Proposition 8, which was the California initiative to establish marriage as that between a man and a woman.
When it was discovered that Brendan Eich had donated a $100 to Proposition 8 four years ago, the literal… What is the proper name for people who engage in this kind of behavior? “Fascist” is probably the closest way. You can call ’em Nazis, but nevertheless they went into gear, and immediately Brendan Eich was described as “filled with hatred” and anti-gay bigotry all over the tech media.
He had donated $1000 to Proposition 8, and he had a personal opinion on gay marriage that was identical to President Barack Obama’s in 2008. In 2008 President Obama and his entire Regime officially were opposed to gay marriage, until they came up on some tough times campaign donation-wise. They needed some campaign money, so Obama sent Biden out to all of a sudden announce the Regime had changed its mind on gay marriage.
Brendan Eich, you look at the picture of the guy, looks like he wouldn’t harm anybody or anything. This is not the kind of guy that would hold a magnifying glass up on an anthill in the summertime and try to fry ’em. He’s not a mean guy. He donated a paltry $1,000, and now he has been drummed out of Mozilla. As such, he’s been drummed out of the tech business now, more than likely, because he believes that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.
He is being described now as a bigot and “filled with hatred” because he believes that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. He tried to hang on when the controversy hit. He said, “Look, my personal political views have nothing to do with the way I plan on running Mozilla.” That didn’t fly. They had to get the scalp. They had to take him out. They had to send a message to anybody else that your view must comply.
If you are in the tech industry, and if you work anywhere in the tech business, and you’re gonna become a powerful executive anywhere, you had better toe the line. You had better be in favor of everything the militant gay activists are in favor of or we’re gonna claim your scalp. We’re going to destroy your career. And everybody is afraid of them. So Brendan Eich is gone, for the identical position that President Barack Obama held at the exact same time, in 2008.
Brendan Eich, by the way, did not become an activist on gay marriage, or anti-gay marriage. He just gave ’em some money. He didn’t join any marches; he wasn’t out trying to raise money. He just donated $1,000 and it was discovered four years after the fact. Four years after he made the donation 2008, it was discovered. Maybe more than four years. Figure four years is when it was discovered.
They think that it was the LA Times, but it doesn’t matter.
It was gonna be discovered anyway.
The law in California states that anybody who gives more than a hundred bucks will be identified. (interruption) It was? That…? (interruption) That law was enacted after these donations were made? (interruption) Okay. So I’ll double-check on that, but I have just been informed that says that the law that anybody who donates $100 or more in a California ballot initiative must be made public, came after the Proposition 8.
Brendan Eich, just so you know, he also invented JavaScript, which your browser cannot work without. I don’t think too many people know what it is. But, at any rate, this is just… Nobody stood up and fought for the guy, not one person, and I find that amazing. All of this is supposedly done in the name of tolerance. “Yeah, yeah, we had to get rid of this guy because he was intolerant
“We had to get rid of this guy because we had to get rid of hatred.” And the hatred and the bigotry and the intolerance here is all on the side of the fascists on the left! They don’t care. They are delighted, folks. I gotta tell you, they’re as happy as hell with this outcome because they know that it tends a message to anybody else what now can be done if you hire somebody they don’t approve of.
This is only in the tech business, folks. It’s only gonna grow and expand. Now, a bunch of people have written about this, one of them John Hayward at Breitbart, and he makes the point as I just did that this is the same opinion at the same time that was once held by the president of the United States, until he changed his opinion based on his need for money.
Mr. Hayward points out that if we had a president who was a real leader, he would have stood up here and just put a stop to all of this and would have urged everybody to calm down; we’re not gonna claim any scalps here. After all, this is a point of view that millions of Americans have, and just because we all don’t agree on something doesn’t mean you lose your job in America if you don’t agree with, in this case, militant gay activists.
But, of course, Obama did not stand up because this is exactly the kind of thing that a descendant of Saul Alinsky inspires in people and promotes and quietly applauds, privately applauds. So from the same people who say, “We need to cooperate with one another,” the same people who tell us, “We need to cross the aisle and work together to find come common ground and move ourselves forward,” and all these people demanding that we all be “tolerant” of each other and understand and condemn the hatred…
All of the bigotry, all of the hatred, all of the fascism is on the side of the people who are preaching and accusing others of hate, which is true of so many people on the left. In addition to that, I didn’t know until I read Jonah Goldberg’s column today that is published… I think it’s the New York Post, but it’s in National Review. He’s a columnist at National Review.
Apparently there is a reporter at Gawker, one of the Gawker guys — which is, by the way, for the most part gay website operation, Gawker, Gizmodo, and any number of others. Apparently there’s somebody there that apparently holds some sway, some influence with others in the business demanding that people like me be put in jail because of what I’m saying about global warming and that there is a professor…
We’ve talked about this particular professor. There’s a professor at some Northeastern, Ivy League school or semi-Ivy League school who is promoting putting people in jail who do not agree with the official stance from the left on global warming. Now, you in this audience, you need not fear, because in this story it is not you who believe me who would go to jail because you are just mind-numbed robots.
It is who I who would go to jail.
I think the phrase is be “put in cages.” And, believe me, 25 years ago this kind of stuff, we’d laugh about it and make jokes and do parodies and satires. All the while it was for real. All the while these people really meant it. I’m telling you right now: If they could cage people that disagree with ’em on whatever it is, global warming or anything, they would do it. And they’d get some people in academia…
You get the wrong judge somewhere, you never know. This guy that called yesterday (I don’t mean to make an example of him), 33-year-old Ian, one of his points was, “Rush, everybody’s scared out here, scared of doing things on their own. We’re scared of this, scared of that.” Remember we had a story last week about overprotected children. We had a nation of kids who are adults but they’ve been overprotected.
He said, “Rush, you start talking about self-reliance and taking care of yourself and it scares people.” This censorship movement that’s called political correctness that’s actually fascism, obviously scares a lot of people, too. I have the statement from some woman, some official at Mozilla, explaining how everybody won here with this guy Brendan Eich being dispatched. It’s an amazing thing.
She’s scared to death, too.
Everybody’s scared to death over, what, 2% or 3% of the population?
They’re just scared to death.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, this is why the IRS terrorizing and targeting the Tea Party is important. That’s why this matters. What this is ultimately all about is the left being allowed, being able to find out who is donating to what so that they can be harassed and intimidated and then hopefully ultimately silenced. They want to find out who all of the donors are to the Tea Party.
It’s not just they don’t want these organizations, these 501(c)(3)s to spring up. Once they do, once they have been granted tax-exempt status, then they want to find out who all the donors are so that every donor can get the Brendan Eich treatment, if they “deserve” it. And they will deserve it because they’re donating to the Tea Party, or Tea Party-related candidates. That’s really what the IRS targeting of the Tea Party is ultimately all about.
Now, “Prop 8 Donors Find Out Who Backed California’s Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment” is a headline at the Huffing and Puffington Post on March 5th of 2009. “A federal judge today denied a request to keep the names of donors to California’s anti-gay marriage initiative secret, saying the public has a right to know who’s giving money to state ballot measures.
Supporters of the initiative, which was approved by voters in November, had sought a preliminary injunction to hide the identities of those who contributed to their campaign,” ’cause they knew what was going to happen, that donors would be targeted and harassed and intimidated and threatened and scared. And that’s exactly what’s happened here in the case of this poor guy who didn’t ever do anything to anybody.
He gave $1,000 to supporters of Prop 8, which simply said ,”We believe marriage is that between a man and a woman,” and that has become hatred and anti-gay bigotry all of a sudden.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, there was another Huffing and Puffington Post article that the judge’s ruling that donors could be made public, Prop 8 donors. I pointed this out. “Backers of the measure have claimed that further dissemination of the information on the site has led to various forms of harassment, ranging from boycotts of their businesses to death threats.” I’m having a mental block. This not about Prop 8, not even in California.
Some businessman in Oregon or in the state of Washington, some Republican whose name escapes me — this is the 2012 campaign year — it was learned, it was discovered he’s given a lot of money to Romney. And they targeted this guy and tried to destroy his business. I’m having a mental block on his name. He ended up being talked about on Fox News. It was all over the place.
This guy hung in there. Despite these assaults on him and his business, he hung in there. He was not intimidated into silence. But, you know, these people, they claim that all this is how they are inclusive and this is how they’re promoting diversity, and they’re not. They are exclusionary. There’s no diversity tolerated here. You’ve gotta be one way. There is no openness.
There is no kindness, there is no compassion, there’s no inclusiveness, and there certainly isn’t any diversity on the left. It’s just a bunch of brownshirts. And if you are not wearing one, you either soon will be, or you’re gonna be ruined. There is no dissent. They have no interest in debating anybody. They have no interest in discussing anything. If you disagree with them, you die. Figuratively. You’re dead. You don’t exist.
“You’re a non-person anymore, and we’re gonna take you out.” “[T]he website EightMaps.com shows the names and occupations of people in San Francisco who donated to the Prop 8 campaign overlaid on a Google Map of the city indicating where they live.” They just didn’t find out their names. They published their addresses and where these people lived who donated to Prop 8 so that they could be harassed.
“In his ruling, England noted that ‘small, persecuted groups whose very existence depended on some manner of anonymity,’ such as the Cold War-era Socialist Workers Party, should be exempted from having to disclose their donors.” So small, little groups of ragtag communists and socialists were allowed to be kept private (’cause they could be harassed), but nobody else.
So, you see, communists who want to destroy the country get the protection of anonymity ’cause they’re so small and they’re so insignificant. We can’t harass these poor people. But not people like Brendan Eich! Brendan Eich, he gets no anonymity whatsoever. Brendan Eich gets no presumption of innocence. He gets no anonymity. He gets no privacy whatsoever.
Frank VanderSloot was the Romney donor that they hassled. Now, I have here, ladies and gentlemen, a statement by Mitchell Baker, the executive chairwoman at Mozilla. It says “Mitchell.” I don’t know, she might pronounce it “Michelle.” I don’t know. You know, there are so many variations on the old fashioned name Michelle now in terms of how it’s spelled and how it’s pronounced that you can’t keep up anymore.
It’s the one name that a spell check is totally confused by. I know people that spell “Michelle” Michaele with an e on the end of it. You’re supposed to figure it out. So I don’t know how… To me, Mitchell is male name, but she might pronounce it Mitch’ell. Anyway the name is Mitchelle Baker. She’s the executive chairwoman at Mozilla, and her defense of their intolerance and forcing Brendan Eich to quit is intolerant.
I mean, they were intolerant of his view that marriage is a man and a woman. That has now become hatred. “Marriage = a Man + a Woman,” that’s hatred. That is anti-gay bigotry. So we can’t include that in our company. Here’s her Orwellian defense of their intolerance. It’s on the Mozilla blog. By the way, again on Mozilla. If you use the Firefox browser, Mozilla does it. It’s an open-source thing that some people like.
“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.” Well, let’s just beat ourselves up here. Let’s just bend over, grab the ankles, and flog ourselves here. All they did was name a cofounder of the company as CEO, and then four years after the fact they learn he gave $1,000 to Prop 8.
That means, “We know people are hurt and angry.”
Maybe the people who are “hurt and angry” are overreacting. Maybe they’re not entitled to feel that hurt and that angry. What about people that don’t even know this guy, reacting with this kind of rage and anger? People who don’t even know Brendan Eich are demanding that he be canned, demanding that he step down, demanding that we get his mind right. That equals hurt and anger, “because we [at Mozilla] haven’t stayed true to ourselves. We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act.”
What do we expect you to act like? We expect that Mozilla would not appoint a guy like Brendan Eich, a cofounder to CEO, because he gave some money to Prop 8? Is that what you think everybody expects of Mozilla? In other words, everybody “expects Mozilla” to also be intolerant and not even consider their cofounder for CEO because he happened to give money to the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman?
Wow.
“We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.” I mean, this is a total, total cave. They’re just begging to be forgiven. (paraphrased) “Oh, we should have known that Brendan was a hate-filled bigot and we should have never made him CEO! Please forgive us.” So they’re apologizing for being too slow to condemn somebody for having a different opinion on a politically correct issue.
They’ve known about his heresy for almost a week. This learned that this guy actually believes that marriage is between a man and a woman! Whoa! They’ve known of his hatred, they’ve known of his bigotry for a week now. It took them too long to act. “Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. HeÂ’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community.”
Yeah, Mr. Eich chose to step down like people chose to confess their guilt Stalin’s show trials. “Mozilla believes in both equality and freedom of speech.” The hell you say! You do? “Mozilla believes in both equality and freedom of speech”? How can you say that with a straight face after dispatching a CEO because he engaged in free speech? The Supreme Court just affirmed: Giving money to a political cause is free speech.
So he just got canned because of free speech, and yet you say, “Mozilla believes in both equality and freedom of speech”? No, you don’t. Not even close. That’s why this is Orwellian. As Orwell wrote, “Some animals are more equal than others.” Orwell also said, “Some people can’t be trusted with free speech,” and now Mozilla is gonna decide who they are. “Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality.
“Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.” It’s not hard at all. You simply are tolerant. This is truly alternate-universe stuff. “Equality,” there isn’t any at Mozilla, “is necessary for meaningful speech.” You’re not interested in “meaningful speech.” You’re interested in speech that conforms. “[A]nd you need free speech to fight for equality.” Uhhh, you don’t have free speech.
You can somebody for what they say and you claim you’ve got free speech? “Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness.” No, it doesn’t. Your organizational culture reflects exclusiveness, exclusionary behavior, and no diversity whatsoever. Mozilla has just illustrated how intolerant it is. But they put out a statement (summarized): “Oh, no!
We are the most tolerant people, and we’re the most inclusive, and we got the most free speech, and we’ve got the most equality.” Every kind of “diversity,” I guess, except diversity of thought. Not gonna allow diversity of thought, are we? No. “We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation…
Well, that’s a lot of damn qualifications that you seem to be attaching to people. “We welcome contributions from everyone, regardless of,” and then you gotta list-of-things that you take no note of? This has always amazed me about the left. “No, no, we’re not racists,” and everybody’s a black-American, a brown-American, an Asian-American, a green -American, an Hispanic-American.
Everybody, to the left, is identified by what’s on their surface first! Nobody is ever identified by who they really are on the left. They don’t take the time to get beneath the surface on anybody. There’s an African-American? “A black person! That equals slavery.” A woman? “Ah, there’s a woman. She’s been mistreated. She’s probably been denied abortions.”
They have all these crazy caricatured things that they attach to people. There are no individuals. They just plug everybody into a group, whatever group they think they fit in based on their skin color, or their gender or their race or their sexual orientation or their sexual transference or whatever other category they can come up with to dehumanize people, all the while they think they are expanding the scope of humanity while they essentially deny…
Listen to this. “We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.” If you do, you wouldn’t have had the time to come up with all those categories to plug people into. Of course in all that, “We welcome contributions of everyone regardless of,” blah, blah, unless you have a contrary opinion.
And then your age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographic location, religious views matter not a whit! Because if you have a contrary opinion, it doesn’t matter where it comes from, what you look like, what you’ve been, who you want to be. Which is why the man who founded Mozilla, Brendan Eich, had to be forced out because of having supported a position that Mozilla doesn’t like — five years ago.
Even though he has since… By the way, he apologized for his heresy, did you know that? I forget to mention that he apologized for his heresy. Didn’t matter! “We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness…” Who are you trying to kid! Your “culture of openness”? “[E]xtends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public.”
Unless they happen to be at variance with gay activists, in which case they’re not welcome here. They don’t say that, but that’s obviously the case — because that’s how we make sure they lose their job, see? “We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public,” so we can find out who we have to get rid of!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: What happened to Brendan Eich, folks, is exactly why you need to care about what the IRS is attempting and has attempted to do with the Tea Party. I’ll tell you why the militant gay activists are delighted about this. I’m telling you, they’re celebrating. They’re not worried that this is bad. They’re not feeling a guilty conscience.
To them, Brendan Eich’s not even a human being. They’re not worried about how the guy’s lost a job, or how he’s gonna feed his family. They don’t care about that. No, no, no. They’re excited, folks, because this sends a message to any and all corporations who might be crazy enough to donate to a conservative or a conservative cause.
The message is, “We will find you, and we will punish you.” Boycotts, threats. What if Brendan Eich opposes gay marriage because of his religious views, hmm? Or maybe his culture or his gender identical or sexual orientation, all these things that Mozilla’s claiming to celebrate?”
Here’s Mike, Fort Worth, Texas, as we get to the phones in the first hour on Open Line Friday. Hi, sir.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Good. Good, good, good. Glad you called out there.
CALLER: This morning I saw that report, and I was so mad, I could spit. And then I got on the radio and I heard you on there, and I said, “I’m gonna call Rush and keep dialing until I can get through because I’ve had it with this.” I mean, these people, we need to turn the tables on ’em and we need to use their tactics and let’s demonize them as the intolerants that they are.
RUSH: Well, how are you gonna do that?
CALLER: Well, I mean, there’s enough of us people out there that are starting to get tired of this stuff. We need to start talking about who they are and see if they have businesses and let’s boycott their businesses. You know, and we need to do all we can to support Brendan Eich.
RUSH: There’s something that some of these activists may not be considering here, and it’s something we’ll never know, by the way. This is the kind of thing that can make employers say, “You know what? I don’t need this kind of hassle. If this is what’s gonna happen to me if I end up hiring a bunch of gay activists, I don’t need this. I just don’t need it.”
There could be a hiring backlash that nobody would ever even know exists. ‘Cause nobody’s gonna be public about it. But if this is the kind of crap that’s gonna happen, every employee be targeted by some other group of employees. You can’t run a business this way.So you might want to stop and consider that possibility.
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RUSH: I wonder what would happen if Mozilla named a Muslim as its next CEO. Muslims are opposed to gay marriage. In fact, here it is: “Muslim Leaders Stand Against Gay Marriage.” I wonder what would happen if they found a Muslim. They’re inclusive and they’re open. A Muslim CEO at Mozilla. What about that?