The mob and the decline of civility

It would seem that the new McCarthyism - this time of the left - is set to define western culture and politics for some time to come. In the U.S.A. the newly appointed CEO of the computer software company Mozilla, Brendan Eich, has been hounded from office by what one can only describe as a howling cyber-mob of the uber-correct liberal left. The reason: not that he was bad at his job or guilty of discriminating against minorities in the workplace but for a purely private opinion (and a voting record in what is, presumably, a representative democracy) on the subject, predictably, of same-sex marriage. 
It was sad, too, to seer Mr Eich, who by all objective standards is the 'victim' here, having to make the ritual genuflection to the new social totalitarianism by apologising for 'causing pain.'  In any free society this kind of 'pain' is simply the price which has to be paid by everyone for having to hear opinions which differ from their own. This is precisely what those who are obsessed with the ideology of equality cannot bear.
The future for freedom of religion, indeed, freedom of speech itself, is increasingly bleak.
A brief report from CBS 6 here and comment from Ryan Anderson here

And on the subject of the declining civility of our society, but this time from the other end of the political spectrum, let's not be too overcome by the fascination of certain sections of the mass media with Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, whose forthright way of expressing himself is in sharp contrast to the perceived blandness of the mainstream political class and their employment of the dark arts of spin. 
However, we may have considerable reservations with its scandalous 'democratic deficit' and with the way the European Union has contemptuously turned its back on the foundational faith of the continent, without stooping to the kind of personal abuse we see in the video below. Among other things, it's  the civility of our discourse which separates us from the barbarism of the mob .... and those they would raise to power. The fact that someone is our enemy's enemy doesn't necessarily make him our friend.