Josh Marshall once again puts my position into writing in a way I didn’t think possible.

A Few Thoughts on Brendan Eich

Particularly here:

So is Eich’s departure a good or bad thing?

I would say first that people shouldn’t be run out of their jobs for having heterodox political views or heterodox views in general. That’s something basic to a free society. Not necessarily or really not at all as a matter of law but as a matter of the cultural norms of a free society.

But being a CEO isn’t just any job. And I think it has and should have fewer de facto and de jure rights than your regular run of the mill job. It’s in the essence of being a CEO that you’re the public face, the public representative of the organization or company you run.

It’s a very imperfect analogy but we would all find it unacceptable for a president to reach into the bowels of the civil service or even into his or her administration proper and can someone just because they held some unpopular view. But no one would think anything of it if a president fired a cabinet secretary for almost any reason. An imperfect analogy. But I think there’s a functional parallel.