To quote a comment I made elsewhere in the thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001722):

If you want to argue about the level of taxation, the right size of government, regulations on business, whether public or private is the most efficient way to accomplish a goal, or myriad other areas of policy like those, go right ahead. Those kinds of things are absolutely reasonable subjects for healthy and reasonable debate. (They're rarely on-topic for a software project, but in some types of communities, or in companies, or in random side conversations, sometimes they are.) Those are almost never the kinds of political opinions that people have in mind when they're suggesting that "political opinions" should be an explicitly protected category, though.

It's funny how the people worried most about whether they'll feel unwelcome for their political opinions are often those whose political opinions revolve around making others unwelcome, or hurting others, or questioning (or asking with superficial politeness about) others' right to exist. Those kind of "political opinions" do not and should not get any protections, in a code of conduct or anywhere else. You're legally allowed to say them, but you should not expect to do so without any consequence.

> You don't need a CoC to get civil behavior.

If you're lucky enough to have a community that all has a common understanding of how to behave well and treat others well, perhaps. But even then, writing that common understanding down helps others in the future.

Usually, when we have undocumented information that people need to know, we call it "tribal knowledge", and we try to fix that by documenting it.

This conduct was unacceptable then and it's unacceptable now. Nobody gave CoC enforcers a monopoly on virtue.

> political opinions

Being hateful and hurting others goes beyond "political opinion".

> which are, by the way, quite mainstream

And, after today, just a little bit less.