First they came for the bro-grammers, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a bro-grammer.
Then they came for the abrasive European computer geniuses, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an abrasive European computer genius.
Then they came for the non-native English speakers who were not able to easily assimilate into western political correctness, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a non-native English speaker who wasn’t able to easily assimilate into western political correctness.
Then they came for me, but there was nobody left to speak up.
This is not an incitement to violence and/or property damage
It should go without saying, but we live in unhinged and delusional times. “Burn the Contributor Covenant with Fire” is not in any way an incitement toward violence or property damage. The item in question is digital. It is merely a metaphor expressing intense disapproval of the Contributor Covenant. I am not willing to use it on my own projects.
Purpose
I include this in my own projects in place of a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file. The Contributor Covenant is the most prevalent Code of Conduct on Github. Many generators for open source frameworks include it as the default Code of Conduct. While to the casual reader, it may seem benign, those who were most instrumental in its creation and adoption have weaponized it. In particular, Coraline Ehmke has used it to bully and silence any whose ideas do not conform to the radical political left, even kicking founders off their own projects.
Statement on Diversity and Inclusion
I’m all for actual diversity and actual inclusion. The vast majority of those who are the most vocal about “Diversity and Inclusion” and get the HR enforcer jobs tend to be deeply offended by actual diversity or any inclusion of those with whom they might disagree. If you replace “Diversity and Inclusion” with “Conformity and Exclusion” you’ll get a pretty good idea of what the actual goals are.
People are Unique Individuals
People are unique individuals. Each human being is truly unique in all of human history. Each human being has a unique background, set of beliefs, and perspective on life. These differences enrich us.
Reducing people to a set of classes and attributes is demeaning
As a method of enforcing conformity to political correctness, the Contributor Covenant is all about categorizing people according to (but not limited to) the classic government protected classes. This collectivist mindset pressures people to conform to the expectations that progressives have for that class. “You’re not [insert protected class here] enough” is used exclusively by the political left as a method of social manipulation to bully people into thinking and acting alike based on attributes they may possess.
Inclusion also means including people with whom you disagree
As somebody who holds minority views on a great many subjects, I could not function if I limited my interactions to only those who agreed with me. There is not one human being alive that I cannot learn something from or teach something to. If I were to write off people who disagree with me (even on things that I care about most) with the non-person dismissal labels that the progressives use to try to destroy people, it would impoverish me.
For all the talk of “empathy” the enforcers have little empathy for people who have trouble complying through no fault of their own
The enforcers love to jump on people for violations related to tone and wording. This displays little empathy for contributors who are participating in a second (or nth) language. Even among native speakers, you lose much in translation from speaking in person to audio to digital. How inclusive are you truly being if everybody who is a non-native speaker or those who have disabilities or mental illnesses that make it difficult for them to comply with arbitrary and one-sided enforcement of a code of conduct? If you are a non-native speaker of a language, you had better learn some politically correct platitudes. You’re going to need them, lest the champions of Diversity and Inclusion devour you and kick you off the project.
The Contributor Covenant was designed by Code of Conduct Trolls for Code of Conduct Trolls
As much as the original Contributor Covenant docs and FAQ claimed that they were not intending to ruin people’s lives for conduct outside of their project, it quickly became clear that the primary creator of the CC is Code of Conduct Troll Prime. You look to the conduct of the writers of a document to see its likely to be use and enforcement. The U.S. Constitution may have looked good on paper to some. However, Alexander Hamilton intended it as a malicious Trojan Horse document. He said what he needed to convince people to adopt it. Then his true colors emerged. In the same way, the Prime Mover of the CC was just itching to get people who have unapproved thoughts to adopt the Contributor Covenant. You’ve adopted the Contributor Covenant? Let the purges begin.
The enforcement is intentionally asymmetrical
Like Orwell’s Animal Farm, some protected attributes are more equal than others. If, for example, you actually believe the sacred text(s) of your ancient religion and they are not in line with 21st century political leftism, you’re out of luck. There is a zero percent chance that an offended religious conservative will be able to kick a progressive contributor off of a project. However, if a religious conservative said something 10 years ago that the progressives now deem offensive, the Code of Conduct Trolls will be out for blood.
The Contributor Covenant is Calvinball
The Contributor Covenant proudly proclaims on its homepage that it is a “living document.” Given the history of other “living documents” that means that whoever gets the enforcement power has carte blanche. You can arbitrarily change the interpretation of the rules. Then you can take retroactive disciplinary action on anybody who at any time in the past had behavior that is now not in compliance with the living document. At least if you play real Calvinball, you know in advance that the rules are subject to change on a whim and there isn’t a Trojan Horse generator that turns every new game into Calvinball.
I’m not agreeing to set up an enforcement bureaucracy on my project
Part of adopting the Contributor Covenant is agreeing to set up an enforcement bureaucracy. On small projects, committing to this level of overhead is impractical and unrealistic. Most open source projects are small projects and having a default for your framework where you need an enforcement committee is overkill. Even if there were not all of the other problems with the Contributor Covenant above, this should be enough to disqualify it as a default.
The project maintainer(s) reserve the right to moderate content but are under no obligation to do so
If you act like a jerk on the project, the maintainers reserve the right to moderate your content. However, they are under no obligation to do so and make no warranty express or implied to take action.
Include this in your own project
If you want to include this in your own project, you can find the BURN THE CONTRIBUTOR COVENANT WITH FIRE! repo on Github.
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