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The principles that rule this blog

Principles that will govern my thoughts as I express them here (from my opening statement):


  • Freedom of the individual should be as total as possible, limited only by the fact that nobody should be free to cause physical injury to another, or to deprive another person of his freedoms.
  • Government is necessary primarily to provide those services that private enterprise won't, or won't at a price that people can afford.
  • No person has a right to have his own beliefs on religious, moral, political, or other controversial issues imposed on others who do not share those beliefs.

I believe that Abraham Lincoln expressed it very well:

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot
so well do, for themselves — in their separate, individual capacities.”


Comments will be invited, and I will attempt to reply to any comments that are offered in a serious and non-abusive manner. However, I will not tolerate abusive or profane language (my reasoning is that this is my blog, and so I can control it; I wouldn't interfere with your using such language on your own!)

If anyone finds an opinion that I express to be contrary to my principles, they are welcome to point this out. I hope that I can make a rational case for my comments. Because, in fact, one label I'll happily accept is rationalist.

Friday, April 04, 2014

A boycott that worked

OKCupid is an online dating site. It is firmly committed to the idea of equality of gay couples and has facilitated gay as well as straight matches. Brendan Eich was an officer at Mozilla, the company that produces the Firefox browser, and in 2008 donated $1000 to the campaign to take away marriage rights from gay couples in California (Proposition 8, which passed in a referendum, but has since been overturned by judicial action). Recently Eich was promoted to CEO at Mozilla, and OKCupid chose to act — by telling Firefox users who connected to their site about this and suggesting that they switch to another browser. If this is not the first case that a Website has recommended to users that they change browsers because of the social policies of the browser maker's CEO, I would be surprised.

And it worked. Eich resigned as CEO. Mozilla officers indicated that the company supports equality. It looks as though at least in this case, the boycott accomplished its purpose.
Posted by Opinionator at 8:16 AM Labels:

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