The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant. Still, there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation.In context, it's clear he's saying it's bad that people can be fired or evicted for being gay.
Cook opposes free trade. He opposes freedom of association. If I don't want to hire someone, with my money, isn't that an issue of freedom of association? Isn't it an issue of freedom not to spend my money on things I don't want? (And isn't it the same issue if I have hiring authority as a proxy for someone else?)
An employer should be able to fire people for no reason at all. Cook wants to make a list of government-approved and governemnt-disapproved reasons for firing, so that we can live in a totalitarian country.
Cook doesn't want a free market where landlords use whatever criteria they deem best for deciding who to rent to. He wants the government to step in and control privately owned buildings. I advocate people interacting only for freely chosen mutual benefit, when they voluntarily want to. Cook advocates that I not be allowed to think for myself about homosexuality issues (is homosexuality so simple there's no room for diversity of opinion?). Cook wants his intolerance of some opinions to be enforced by the government, using guns if necessary.
Cook doesn't want free choice and free thought. He doesn't want freedom. He wants the government to decide how people should act, and make them. He's an authoritarian who wants to force his vision of utopia on everyone else, even though we don't want it.
And Cook is so blind to issues like freedom that it doesn't occur to him to comment on them. He doesn't bother trying to tell us how he isn't destroying freedom. He's so immersed in authoritarian thinking that he doesn't see any legitimate concerns about freedom. He hasn't noticed the issue of freedom and figured out a way to get what he wants while preserving freedom. Freedom isn't on his mind. Diversity of thought isn't on his mind. He's busy demanding "tolerance" of what's already tolerated (tolerance doesn't require liking something or trading with someone), but doesn't consider his own intolerance.
And all this is being said in a tone of moral righteousness. By attacking the American value of freedom, he thinks he's a moral crusader, standing up for justice. Cook values his privacy, but he thought trying to destroy the future of civilization was just so important he had to sacrifice his privacy for the cause.
And Cook is an altruist.
At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” I often challenge myself with that question, and I’ve come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That’s what has led me to today.
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