I'm a big fan of Apple products but the shenanigans of the current CEO have really left a sour taste in my mouth.
True businessmen know to separate politics from business.
On a related note, I've always felt that Steve Jobs, like John Lennon, were deeply conservative, despite the liberals trying to claim them as role models for themselves. Bob Dylan as well.
I think that Steve Jobs was what I would call an un-self-examined conservative. In other words, his actions as a capitalist and his words in the speeches he's made, do not match with supporting the goals of the socialist Democrat party. He never had time to stop and REALLY examine what he really believed and thought about fiscal and family issues and compare it to the party he was reared to believe represented what he thought. . . and had he done so, he may very well have discovered that it did not.
Apple, under Jobs, cooperated with regulations when necessary but protested when they did not make economic sense. However, Apple did not even maintain a lobbying presence in Washington or Sacramento! Even when Apple wanted something from the local government in Cupertino, Steve Jobs himself would appear before the City Council. . . this occurred even when Apple Inc was applying for the building permits for their new headquarters campus and ring building just months before Steve died. It was only after the Democrats started attacking Apple in 2012 that Apple started maintaining a full time lobbying presence in Washington under Tim Cook.
With Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple fought for worker rights in their supply chains because it was the right thing to do, even though it might cost more, but also for the practical capitalist reason that it would result in better products. Steve once said that if you kept your workers happy, they will tend be proud of their work and the products they make and do a better job.
At Apple, Steve ran the company as a benevolent dictatorship with movement into and upward in the structure as a meritocracy. . . that was certainly NOT a Democrat attribute where longevity and need would be the sole justification for any upward mobility and more of a conservative attribute.
Steve's and Apple's ecological efforts were quiet until Greenpeace decided to target Apple because of publicity reasons that involving Apple in anything garners. Greenpeace attacked Apple because Apple had not published their plans to meet the e-Peat requirements for energy conservation. . . ignoring the fact that Apple products were already list as e-Peat GOLD products. Apple had just not bothered to publish their plans to get to what they had already quietly done!
Perhaps he would have been a fiscal conservative Libertarian, but never a socialist tax and spend Democrat. . . but he just did not take the time to examine his positions because he was immersed in running Apple and really just couldn't be bothered. He certainly did not support the idea of group victimization. . . Apple believes in the individual and the creativity of individuals, not group think. Apple also supports family values in keeping smut apps off their App Stores and installing parental controls in their devices.
Ditto!