The fascists are here

I’ve been doing this a long time, bringing you the issues of the day through my prism of conservatism. It’s what’s known as an opinion. We all have them. We take for granted that, in the United States, we’ll always have the freedom to express them. We can no longer take that for granted.

The case of Brendan Eich at Mozilla is one of the most frightening examples of fascism that I’ve witnessed in my long career of voicing my opinion. The fact that many of you are

learning of this for the very first time is even more startling.

You may not have heard of Mozilla but you may have heard of their primary product. They make the web browser Firefox. Brendan Eich was one of the founders of that company. Eich also invented the computer programming language JavaScript. It’s the language that allows you to browse the Internet.

It seems back in 2008 Mr. Eich made a $1,000 contribution to Proposition 8. That’s the California proposition that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. Radical, right? The state constitutional amendment was passed by the people of California but later ignored by state officials.

In March of this year Eich was elevated from Chief Technical Officer to Chief Executive Officer. It’s not clear when his contribution to Prop 8 came to light but upon his appointment as CEO the radical gay dating site, OKCupid.com, went nuts and launched a boycott of Mozilla and Firefox. The board of directors caved and fired Eich. Well, they claim they didn’t fire him, that he left because of the controversy, but that’s nearly impossible to believe.

Here’s an excerpt from the company’s statement on the Eich affair:

You need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to 

stand for both at the same time can be hard.

Figuring out how to stand for free speech and equality can be hard? Actually, it’s quite simple. When you fight for equality, fight for everyone’s equal opportunity to be free. Ironically, the Eich incident came the same week the Supreme Court ruled that campaign contributions constitute free speech.

Apparently it’s the free speech part Mozilla is having a hard time with.

What’s frightening is so many people think it’s perfectly appropriate for Mozilla to sack its CEO over a campaign contribution. This is the primary reason leftists want the courts to grant them access to contributor information. It’s to exact their punishment on those who contribute to organizations they don’t like.

I wrote in The Conservative’s Handbook that political correctness is the liberal version of fascism. This is exactly the kind of fascism I was referring to. 

There’s a group in Hollywood called Friends of Abe. It’s an organization of conservatives and right-leaning independents. They get together and hear speakers and gather information about various issues. They had grown to a point where they needed office space, thus they needed to be able to accept donations from their members. They applied for 501(c)3 status with the IRS. The IRS dragged it’s feet, as we famously know they do, but finally approved the status.

During the approval process, the IRS insisted on access to a password-protected section of their website that included a list of members. They refused and ultimately won that argument.

It’s sad that those of us in favor of full disclosure find ourselves insisting on secrecy in order to protect people from the new American fascists.

If that list is ever made public it’s only a matter of time before they ‘Eich’ someone else.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.