<story><title>On Recent Controversial Events</title><url>http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>zaptheimpaler</author><text>&amp;gt; It really doesn&amp;#x27;t matter what your view about the controversial issue is; a leader who refuses to stop talking loudly about unrelated issues eventually creates an untenable distraction from ....&lt;p&gt;I can understand his position, but this is part of the picture of a core problem in society today.&lt;p&gt;Its NOT that leaders aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to speak about controversial issues - its that they aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to advocate ONE side of an issue, while the other side is perfectly OK. You probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t say &amp;quot;diversity is important but not our only goal&amp;quot; as a CEO, but you CAN say &amp;quot;diversity is the best&amp;quot;. That kind of large scale censorship only stifles dissent without changing the dissenters mind. Which is a state of affairs the far left happily accepts - &amp;quot;toxic people dont deserve a voice&amp;quot;. Just pray you don&amp;#x27;t speak against mob or they&amp;#x27;ll cancel you. Better yet, just don&amp;#x27;t even think those unthinkable thoughts. Submit to the collective.  All your opinions can be inferred  from your tribe anyways. You don&amp;#x27;t really exist, only your tribe does.</text></comment>
<story><title>On Recent Controversial Events</title><url>http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>haberman</author><text>&amp;gt; organizations need not and should not elevate spokespeople and leaders who speak regularly on unrelated issues that organizations find do not advance their mission, and&amp;#x2F;or that alienate important constituents. I, like many other software freedom leaders, curtail my public comments on issues not related to FOSS. (Indeed, I would not even be commenting on this issue if it had not become a central issue of concern to the software freedom community.)&lt;p&gt;I really respect this.  Kuhn is articulating a principle here and then gives an example of how he himself makes a sacrifice to adhere to this principle.  This makes him much more credible to me than if he was using the principle solely as an instrument against others.</text></comment>