It is almost as if Pew wished to hide something...
But, hey, if your only objection is to the source of data, which you suspect of bias, what is your ball-park estimate? Say, it is not 51%, but only 40%... Does that change anything I said above?
Could you offer some proof of this — something the rest of us, who do not have your powers of telepathy, can verify on their own? Something, that makes Trump's suspecting Obama's eligibility uniquely different from Clinton suspecting same?
Or suspecting that McCain or Ted Cruz may not be eligible either?
You will need to provide substantial proof that the judge is racist before you can make a statement like that.
That judge has just awarded a scholarship to an illegal immigrant. Is it not fair to suspect, he may be biased against someone, who wishes to deport such illegal immigrants?
White judges are suspected of bias against Black defendants all the time (as are White juries) — why is it "racist" to suspect a Latino judge of similar bias against other races?
That Judge is apart of a group called "San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association", not the "La Raza" association
Distinction without difference. Any attempts to promote people based on their race automatically discriminates against other races and is thus racist — by definition.
That's pretty much racist.
"Pretty much" does not count.
directly attributed to anybody from the Middle East, who's appearances are starkly contrasted to caucasians.
The biggest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia, which is about as far from the Middle East as is the US. Fail.
That happened in 1973. He took over his father's business in 1971.
A YouTube clip with some talking-head talking about Trump is not proof, sorry. Maybe, he really forgot, who it was. Or, maybe, he lied. But that's not racism either way.
As for "disavowing" David Duke — wake me up, when Hillary Clinton "disavows" Al Sharpton, who is no less a racist than David Duke... Except she would not do that, because, whereas Duke's endorsement of Trump was unsolicited, Hillary actively sought Sharpton's. Maybe, if Trump ever went to a Duke's rally, you'd have had a point...
Discriminating based on race has nothing to do with discriminating based on religion.
Full agreement.
They're both discrimination
That's meaningless — discrimination in itself is neither illegal nor reprehensible. I discriminate against assholes, for example.
they're even both federally-protected classes
That federal protection applies to US citizens and residents. It is not applicable to those seeking to move in. For example, Federal government has a "visa lottery", which allocates certain number of winners to different countries — this is not illegal.
Just like a board made of pine has nothing in common with a board made of cedar.
No, the difference between race and religion is much greater than your clumsy attempt at sarcasm implies.
While race is about superficial traits like skin color or shape of the eyes, that people are powerless to amend anyway, religion is a collection of (deeply held) beliefs — such as a belief, that the only just and acceptable way of life is under a Theocracy. It is perfectly valid for people abhorring such a belief — and an American President is, actually, oath-bound to abhor this one — to discriminate against people holding it.
The First Amendment makes it illegal for the government to single out existing Muslims Americans, yes. But it is not obviously wrong to not want any more people holding such opinions come in. Even if somehow you convince me, any such ban would be illegal, thinking about it is neither immoral nor unethical.
My mistake, I thought you were trying to have a rational debate. I didn't realize you were just trolling the other guy.
False dilemma. I'm not "trolling" him — I'm defending Trump against accusations of "racism".
therefore the person I support totally does not have the same moral [...]
Blah-blah-blah. No, therefore this is not evidence of racism. Period. Nothing else.
religion instead of their race, which is totally different thinking
It is entirely different thinking, yes. Race is something we are born with. Religion is something we absorb growing up and even later in life. This makes the two traits very different and discrimination based on one is, indeed, totally different from the other. It may still be wrong, but it is totally different, yes.
I forked the discussion on banning Muslims into a separate subthread. If you wish to discuss that, be my guest. But it has nothing to do with racism.
Or they can use their anti-satellite weapons to break up the contraption into smaller (and thus more likely to burn in the atmosphere) pieces, while simultaneously:
Justifying their development of such weapons;
Testing them yet again;
Putting adversaries (the US) on notice, that their own satellites aren't immune either, should a push ever come to shove.
Seriously, they simply don't value human life as much as we do. Whereas Western governments consider a human life to be worth nearly $10 million, Russia, for example, values theirs at no more than $2 million. In China, according to WorldBank study, it is less than 2 mln yuan, or less than $300K.
So, it may make sense for NASA to spend an extra $1 million to reduce a risk to one human's life by 10%. But for the Chinese to spend $1 million, the risk has to be 30+ times greater...
Muslim and Arab are highly correlated, particularly in the minds of Islamaphobes.
You aren't offering any evidence about other people's minds. But Muslims and Arabs are distinctly different groups of people — your claim of there being a high correlation is false. With the most recent terror-attacks in the US perpetrated by Afghans, even the less educated among us know it.
The top three Muslim countries in the world — Indonesia, Pakistan, India — aren't Arabic at all. Plenty of Arabs are Christian and some are members of lesser-known religions.
Unlike Christianity, which, famously, "renders Caesar's to Caesar", Islam prescribes Theocracy as the only government order suitable to the faithful. The religion is inherently incompatible with the First Amendment.
With 51% of Muslims — of all races — already in the US favoring Sharia, an attempt to stop any further increases in their numbers may be reasonable. But even if it is not, the thought is not racist.
I like how you call him out for paraphrasing Trump, and then follow that up by paraphrasing Trump.
I'm not trying to prove anything here, he is. He has to offer evidence — I don't, my job is to simply plant reasonable doubt about his. A lawyer should know this better than us, laymen...
Even so, if part of your argument involves bringing up the definition of racism as a way to claim that someone isn't technically racist
Arguing without defining terms is fruitless and stupid... My opponent seemed to be suffering from the common mind-virus of the Left, which leads them to think, most incorrectly, that racism is "White's prejudice against other races". Setting him straight early in the debate is the beginning of healing...
It's an example extra layer of scrutiny applied only when the candidate is black.
False. The scrutiny comes from the candidate's father being a non-citizen and the murky accounts of the candidate's birth. Donald Trump has questioned Ted Cruz's eligibility too — right or wrong, the scrutiny is not racist. Fail.
But more to the point lots of white judges are members of ethnic professional groups
Citations?
no one accuses them of being racist
False. White judges are suspected of bias against non-White defendants all the time. Whether the suspicions are grounded or "dumb", they aren't racist. Fail.
Notice the stream of negative stereotypes
Sorry, I do not see a stream of negative stereotypes — maybe, you should've posted actual quotes, as requested.
If David Duke and other white supremacists have repeatedly and enthusiastically endorsed you unlike anyone else in decades? Definitely yes.
Unlike Hillary's endorsement by Sharpton, Duke's endorsement of Trump was completely unsolicited. If you begin rejecting all such "endorsements", you may not have time to talk about anything else — it is a strategic mistake for a politician to hand off the initiative to the opponents this way.
It was a lot more BLM than anti-Semitism
It was not — he was talking about diamonds being sent from South Africa to Crown Heights, for example. He was not "for Blacks", he was "anti Jews" — and stirring up rioters. You give me an example of David Duke doing anything like it...
But even if it were "BLM" — that alone is as racist as it gets. It really is mind-boggling, that the same person in the same post would attack one politician for "stereotyping" Blacks and defend another doing the same (with murderous results too)...
However you spin it, Al Sharpton is certainly no lesser racist, than David Duke. And yet, Clinton actively sought his endorsement — but you still accuse Trump of racism over unsolicited endorsement by Duke? How do you walk around with so much hypocrisy on you — does it not interfere with regular bodily functions?
Yes, that's the spirit! Brush off allthelies — by smearing those, who bring them up, if necessary.
Whatever it takes, stick to your champion until the end, however bitter. If only other Clinton-supporters were as iron-willed as you, she'd have had no problem going through that glass ceiling without even so much as a headache...
to give a fat middle finger to the pharma industry on this they could go and purchase them.
You are absolutely correct identifying government regulation as the primary expense. And yet, you blame pharma industry?
lobbied the FDA and government to require its purchase
That a maker of something — anything — would try to sell as much for as much as possible, is perfectly normal. That their lobbying efforts were successful — that's wrong.
The only way to hack the regulatory process is to donate a retarded sum of money to "charity" of a specific presidential candidate and various other lobbying groups.
And why is some government official (or a group), who aren't even elected, in a position to mandate purchase of stuff — regardless of price? Having created FDA as a corruption magnet, don't be surprised, they do get corrupted...
This is a perfect illustration for the point Libertarians have been pushing all along — there is neither a need nor justification for FDA. People with cavalier attitudes to their health, can use the cheapest remedies they can find — free citizens of a free country are entitled to risking their own lives. Those, who prefer somebody else to test it first, (and who currently rely on FDA approvals) can seek goods and services approved by competing non-governmental reviewers — such as Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping, or Amazon Reviews, etc.
Said a judge of Mexican heritage wasn't fit to judge him due to his heritage.
I did ask for actual quotes didn't I? And yet, you chose to paraphrase... What are you trying to slip here, uhm?
What Trump actually said, was that the judge — a Mexican racist himself ("La Raza" member) — may have a conflict of interest. If it is Ok to suspect, that an All-white jury may be unfair to a Black defendant, why is it "racist" to suspect, a Mexican may be unfair to a White one?
Has proposed banning members of a religion from the US (very similar to racism).
Not racism. Stick to the topic.
Regularly stereotypes blacks "you've got nothing to lose", suggesting that they're one monolithic underclass.
Never heard of it. Actual quotes, please.
Extreme reluctance to reject or disavow David Duke or other white supremacists
Why is every Republican supposed to "disavow" Duke — except to play into the opponents trap of accepting some guilt (sort of like disavowing beating of one's wife)?
Both — housing discrimination and attendance of KKK rallies — were about his father — if we start digging through ancestors, we may find some racists among Clintons too.
Do you have evidence of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee of 2016, being racist or not?
So, her being a liar is well-known and perfectly established — and has been for many years. Presumably, all those lies have not been enough to dissuade her from supporting her until recently. Why are you abandoning her now, when she needs you most?
OTOH Trump doesn't hide that he's a flagrant racist and that's totally cool.
Donald Trump does not hide it, that's true. That's because he, by all appearances, is not racist.
But, if you accuse him of racism, you have ample evidence, don't you? Let's see it, shall we? Be sure, though, to include only the things Trump actually said or did — not somebody else paraphrasing and otherwise engaging in hearsay...
An elevator goes up and down in a finite space and that's ALL it does
Which is why were able to automate them first — decades before coming for automobile drivers.
Some trains were also automated decades ago, though wider adoption is still met with fierce opposition from organized labor and their idiotic sympathizers. Even replacing the "conductors" with video-cameras was deemed to violate labor-agreements in NYC, getting rid of the nice, well-groomed and jovial motormen would've been a non-starter.
it's not in any way shape or form comparable to an automobile
Automobile is comparable in that it is increasingly possible to automate its functioning.
Trains and ships could've been automated even before automobiles, but the cost of crew in those is a relatively minor share of the overall cost of operation, so there was not as much incentive to fight Labor Unions on that. Humans are still involved, though, perhaps, not for much longer.
There's this thing in FCC regulations called "PRB-1", it is a reasonable accomdiation law that prevents local governments and municipalities from restricting ham antennas.
An FCC regulation is even worse (weaker) than an actual Congress-passed and President-signed law...
But, yes, I'm aware of the federal laws on the matter — my point was, such laws (and "regulations") need to be Amendments to be able to trump local laws, should they not be?
This will allow for the reasonable accommodation of amateur radio antennas in many places where they are currently prohibited by homeowner associations or private land use restrictions
Much as I hate such limits on use of private property ("painting permit" anyone?), is not such Federal overwrite of local laws and rules against the spirit and even the letter of the 10th Amendment?
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
It would seem, for a State or a lesser entity to lose a right — such as a right to ban antennas — a mere act of Congress is insufficient and a new Amendment is necessary.
... and they were right. They do indeed have the right to speak and boycott.
Sure, sure. And I have the right to find their speech reprehensible and condemn them for causing the degradation of Mozilla software, don't I?
she still owned the copyright on the video
So that — the copyright — is your sole argument? Suppose, the copyright was owned by the cameraman, who released the video to public domain? Or the video was "fairly used" by the news-organization to report on the story and/or whatever else?.. Or, maybe, it was leaked by an insider or hacked by "the Russians"?
So, hey, your only problem with folks driving a woman to suicide is that they violated somebody's copyright doing so... You said it...
But, according to TFA, you are wrong — it was not the revenue lost to "theft" of the creative work. It was the mockery and bullying, that killed her.
Now, suppose outing Brendan Eich required some moderately illegal sleuthing/breaking-in... This is Slashdot, where the right to anonymous speech is generally cherished (even if it is not cherished by the State of California). Would you have condemned the outing and the resulting boycott then?
Of course, not — because how the bullies get the information is irrelevant — it may be a FoIA request, an e-mail hack, or insider job (the last two far more illegal than copyright violation). What matters, is that they use it to bully their victims.
When Brendan Eich was "outed" as an opponent of "gay marriage", the online bullies forced his resignation from Mozilla's top job.
When blamed for the resulting degradation of Mozilla software's quality, the bullies insist, it was their First Amendment right to criticize and boycott Mr. Eich — and that he should have known, that "words have consequences" and censored himself.
Resigning is no different from suicide in this case — a person is driven to an unpleasant and unwanted action by the words of those, who hate/despise him...
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, yes, I too wish, we had something more reliable. But we don't. Pew Research, for example, has very detailed information about world-wide Muslims' preference for Sharia. They cover many different countries but, for some reason, not the US — their detailed, 8-page collection of statistics about American Muslims does not contain the one particular bit, which they have for so many other countries.
It is almost as if Pew wished to hide something...
But, hey, if your only objection is to the source of data, which you suspect of bias, what is your ball-park estimate? Say, it is not 51%, but only 40%... Does that change anything I said above?
Could you offer some proof of this — something the rest of us, who do not have your powers of telepathy, can verify on their own? Something, that makes Trump's suspecting Obama's eligibility uniquely different from Clinton suspecting same? Or suspecting that McCain or Ted Cruz may not be eligible either?
That judge has just awarded a scholarship to an illegal immigrant . Is it not fair to suspect, he may be biased against someone, who wishes to deport such illegal immigrants?
White judges are suspected of bias against Black defendants all the time (as are White juries) — why is it "racist" to suspect a Latino judge of similar bias against other races?
Distinction without difference. Any attempts to promote people based on their race automatically discriminates against other races and is thus racist — by definition.
"Pretty much" does not count.
The biggest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia, which is about as far from the Middle East as is the US. Fail.
So, he inherited a problem from his father. Big deal. Hillary Clinton's father was racist too
A YouTube clip with some talking-head talking about Trump is not proof, sorry. Maybe, he really forgot, who it was. Or, maybe, he lied. But that's not racism either way.
As for "disavowing" David Duke — wake me up, when Hillary Clinton "disavows" Al Sharpton, who is no less a racist than David Duke... Except she would not do that, because, whereas Duke's endorsement of Trump was unsolicited, Hillary actively sought Sharpton's. Maybe, if Trump ever went to a Duke's rally, you'd have had a point...
Fail.
Full agreement.
That's meaningless — discrimination in itself is neither illegal nor reprehensible. I discriminate against assholes, for example.
That federal protection applies to US citizens and residents. It is not applicable to those seeking to move in. For example, Federal government has a "visa lottery", which allocates certain number of winners to different countries — this is not illegal.
No, the difference between race and religion is much greater than your clumsy attempt at sarcasm implies.
While race is about superficial traits like skin color or shape of the eyes, that people are powerless to amend anyway, religion is a collection of (deeply held) beliefs — such as a belief, that the only just and acceptable way of life is under a Theocracy. It is perfectly valid for people abhorring such a belief — and an American President is, actually, oath-bound to abhor this one — to discriminate against people holding it.
The First Amendment makes it illegal for the government to single out existing Muslims Americans, yes. But it is not obviously wrong to not want any more people holding such opinions come in. Even if somehow you convince me, any such ban would be illegal, thinking about it is neither immoral nor unethical.
False dilemma. I'm not "trolling" him — I'm defending Trump against accusations of "racism".
Blah-blah-blah. No, therefore this is not evidence of racism. Period. Nothing else.
It is entirely different thinking, yes. Race is something we are born with. Religion is something we absorb growing up and even later in life. This makes the two traits very different and discrimination based on one is, indeed, totally different from the other. It may still be wrong, but it is totally different, yes.
I forked the discussion on banning Muslims into a separate subthread. If you wish to discuss that, be my guest. But it has nothing to do with racism.
Or they can use their anti-satellite weapons to break up the contraption into smaller (and thus more likely to burn in the atmosphere) pieces, while simultaneously:
Not that we don't already know that.
10 times cheaper, 3 times worse...
Seriously, they simply don't value human life as much as we do. Whereas Western governments consider a human life to be worth nearly $10 million, Russia, for example, values theirs at no more than $2 million. In China, according to WorldBank study, it is less than 2 mln yuan, or less than $300K.
So, it may make sense for NASA to spend an extra $1 million to reduce a risk to one human's life by 10%. But for the Chinese to spend $1 million, the risk has to be 30+ times greater...
Well, no thanks you, quitter. Stand up and fight for your beliefs — it is not like you have to endanger your life or a limb even.
You aren't offering any evidence about other people's minds. But Muslims and Arabs are distinctly different groups of people — your claim of there being a high correlation is false. With the most recent terror-attacks in the US perpetrated by Afghans, even the less educated among us know it.
The top three Muslim countries in the world — Indonesia, Pakistan, India — aren't Arabic at all. Plenty of Arabs are Christian and some are members of lesser-known religions.
Unlike Christianity, which, famously, "renders Caesar's to Caesar", Islam prescribes Theocracy as the only government order suitable to the faithful. The religion is inherently incompatible with the First Amendment.
With 51% of Muslims — of all races — already in the US favoring Sharia, an attempt to stop any further increases in their numbers may be reasonable. But even if it is not, the thought is not racist.
I'm not trying to prove anything here, he is. He has to offer evidence — I don't, my job is to simply plant reasonable doubt about his. A lawyer should know this better than us, laymen...
Technically right is the best kind of right .
Arguing without defining terms is fruitless and stupid... My opponent seemed to be suffering from the common mind-virus of the Left, which leads them to think, most incorrectly, that racism is "White's prejudice against other races". Setting him straight early in the debate is the beginning of healing...
False. The scrutiny comes from the candidate's father being a non-citizen and the murky accounts of the candidate's birth. Donald Trump has questioned Ted Cruz's eligibility too — right or wrong, the scrutiny is not racist. Fail.
Citations?
False. White judges are suspected of bias against non-White defendants all the time. Whether the suspicions are grounded or "dumb", they aren't racist. Fail.
Sorry, I do not see a stream of negative stereotypes — maybe, you should've posted actual quotes, as requested.
Unlike Hillary's endorsement by Sharpton, Duke's endorsement of Trump was completely unsolicited. If you begin rejecting all such "endorsements", you may not have time to talk about anything else — it is a strategic mistake for a politician to hand off the initiative to the opponents this way.
It was not — he was talking about diamonds being sent from South Africa to Crown Heights, for example. He was not "for Blacks", he was "anti Jews" — and stirring up rioters. You give me an example of David Duke doing anything like it...
But even if it were "BLM" — that alone is as racist as it gets. It really is mind-boggling, that the same person in the same post would attack one politician for "stereotyping" Blacks and defend another doing the same (with murderous results too)...
However you spin it, Al Sharpton is certainly no lesser racist, than David Duke. And yet, Clinton actively sought his endorsement — but you still accuse Trump of racism over unsolicited endorsement by Duke? How do you walk around with so much hypocrisy on you — does it not interfere with regular bodily functions?
Yes, that's the spirit! Brush off all the lies — by smearing those, who bring them up, if necessary.
Whatever it takes, stick to your champion until the end, however bitter. If only other Clinton-supporters were as iron-willed as you, she'd have had no problem going through that glass ceiling without even so much as a headache...
You are absolutely correct identifying government regulation as the primary expense. And yet, you blame pharma industry?
That a maker of something — anything — would try to sell as much for as much as possible, is perfectly normal. That their lobbying efforts were successful — that's wrong.
And why is some government official (or a group), who aren't even elected, in a position to mandate purchase of stuff — regardless of price? Having created FDA as a corruption magnet, don't be surprised, they do get corrupted...
This is a perfect illustration for the point Libertarians have been pushing all along — there is neither a need nor justification for FDA. People with cavalier attitudes to their health, can use the cheapest remedies they can find — free citizens of a free country are entitled to risking their own lives. Those, who prefer somebody else to test it first, (and who currently rely on FDA approvals) can seek goods and services approved by competing non-governmental reviewers — such as Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping, or Amazon Reviews, etc.
How is that racism?
I did ask for actual quotes didn't I? And yet, you chose to paraphrase... What are you trying to slip here, uhm?
What Trump actually said, was that the judge — a Mexican racist himself ("La Raza" member) — may have a conflict of interest. If it is Ok to suspect, that an All-white jury may be unfair to a Black defendant, why is it "racist" to suspect, a Mexican may be unfair to a White one?
Not racism. Stick to the topic.
Never heard of it. Actual quotes, please.
Why is every Republican supposed to "disavow" Duke — except to play into the opponents trap of accepting some guilt (sort of like disavowing beating of one's wife)?
Would Bernie Sanders disavow Lenin? Has Hillary Clinton disavowed Al Sharpton, who, unlike Duke, actually encouraged racial violence and is responsible for at least one Jew getting killed by a Black mob? No, she not only didn't disavow the asshole, she actively sought his endorsement and attended a rally at his organization.
So far, the number of actual racist quotes is a perfect zero... Keep trying...
Both — housing discrimination and attendance of KKK rallies — were about his father — if we start digging through ancestors, we may find some racists among Clintons too.
Do you have evidence of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee of 2016, being racist or not?
-1 Offtopic, thank you very much. Don't hijack my subthread.
Yes, one step further off-topic, than beginning to discuss Trump's racism to begin with...
When NY Times called her a "congenital liar" in 1996, the only question was, whether "congenital" was the right term — the "liar" was deemed quite apropos.
Fast forward 20 years to 2016, her loyal supporters — such as yourself — beg her to, please, stop lying .
So, her being a liar is well-known and perfectly established — and has been for many years. Presumably, all those lies have not been enough to dissuade her from supporting her until recently. Why are you abandoning her now, when she needs you most?
Quotes? What did he say?
Donald Trump does not hide it, that's true. That's because he, by all appearances, is not racist.
But, if you accuse him of racism, you have ample evidence, don't you? Let's see it, shall we? Be sure, though, to include only the things Trump actually said or did — not somebody else paraphrasing and otherwise engaging in hearsay...
Which is why were able to automate them first — decades before coming for automobile drivers.
Some trains were also automated decades ago, though wider adoption is still met with fierce opposition from organized labor and their idiotic sympathizers. Even replacing the "conductors" with video-cameras was deemed to violate labor-agreements in NYC, getting rid of the nice, well-groomed and jovial motormen would've been a non-starter.
Automobile is comparable in that it is increasingly possible to automate its functioning.
Trains and ships could've been automated even before automobiles, but the cost of crew in those is a relatively minor share of the overall cost of operation, so there was not as much incentive to fight Labor Unions on that. Humans are still involved, though, perhaps, not for much longer.
How sad to see the nice, well-groomed and jovial men operating elevators replaced with the soulless automation.
We are going to miss the nice, well-groomed and jovial cab-drivers too...
An FCC regulation is even worse (weaker) than an actual Congress-passed and President-signed law...
But, yes, I'm aware of the federal laws on the matter — my point was, such laws (and "regulations") need to be Amendments to be able to trump local laws, should they not be?
Much as I hate such limits on use of private property ("painting permit" anyone?), is not such Federal overwrite of local laws and rules against the spirit and even the letter of the 10th Amendment?
It would seem, for a State or a lesser entity to lose a right — such as a right to ban antennas — a mere act of Congress is insufficient and a new Amendment is necessary.
This seems to imply, there is profit to be made.
I think, this disqualifies Hackaday from TFA's plea for techies to do something, that is important, but for which nobody would pay...
Just what that might be, though, remains a mystery...
Sure, sure. And I have the right to find their speech reprehensible and condemn them for causing the degradation of Mozilla software, don't I?
So that — the copyright — is your sole argument? Suppose, the copyright was owned by the cameraman, who released the video to public domain? Or the video was "fairly used" by the news-organization to report on the story and/or whatever else?.. Or, maybe, it was leaked by an insider or hacked by "the Russians"?
So, hey, your only problem with folks driving a woman to suicide is that they violated somebody's copyright doing so... You said it...
But, according to TFA, you are wrong — it was not the revenue lost to "theft" of the creative work. It was the mockery and bullying, that killed her.
Now, suppose outing Brendan Eich required some moderately illegal sleuthing/breaking-in... This is Slashdot, where the right to anonymous speech is generally cherished (even if it is not cherished by the State of California). Would you have condemned the outing and the resulting boycott then?
Of course, not — because how the bullies get the information is irrelevant — it may be a FoIA request, an e-mail hack, or insider job (the last two far more illegal than copyright violation). What matters, is that they use it to bully their victims.
When Brendan Eich was "outed" as an opponent of "gay marriage", the online bullies forced his resignation from Mozilla's top job.
When blamed for the resulting degradation of Mozilla software's quality, the bullies insist, it was their First Amendment right to criticize and boycott Mr. Eich — and that he should have known, that "words have consequences" and censored himself.
Resigning is no different from suicide in this case — a person is driven to an unpleasant and unwanted action by the words of those, who hate/despise him...