Re:Peter Thiel to Donate $1.25M in Support of Donald Trump
by notthemessiah on Sunday October 16, 2016 @12:26PM
(#12719370)
He's saying he doesn't want to disenfranchise women or any particular class, he wants to disenfranchise everybody. He's framing the democratic political process as something that doesn't get anywhere and something that gets in the way of progress, so he prefers authoritarian power over the checks and balances of a democratic political system.
Re:Peter Thiel to Donate $1.25M in Support of Donald Trump
by striking on Sunday October 16, 2016 @12:37PM
(#12719434)
Thanks for the explanation. It's clear I failed to grasp his argument.
Re:Peter Thiel to Donate $1.25M in Support of Donald Trump
by notthemessiah on Sunday October 16, 2016 @12:55PM
(#12719554)
He was trying to deflect the criticism from his controversial essay, so his only option was to be obsequiously vague in his wording while killing the strawman of "Thiel wanting to take away women's right to vote".
I was curious about this, so I looked it up. From Thiel's writings on Cato Unbound:
> Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
Later:
> It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.
I'm not quite sure what he's trying to say. It sounds more like nonsense than any sort of actionable malice to me. (But then again, I don't really care about Thiel in the first place, so maybe I'm a little biased.)