"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." (C.S. Lewis)
I guess you don't remember the odds on Obama surviving his first month in office. Not only were assassination attempts expected, they were probable enough to have betting odds at Paddy Power.
You probably don't remember Bush Jr's 2004 victory, either, where literally millions of people took to the streets. Also notable that it looks like the election really may have been rigged.
From outside the country it's fascinating to watch. Half of the democratic party was accusing Hillary of vote rigging in the spring, and HN loved a couple of statistical analyses to that effect. But now that trump says it, HN says it is dangerously undermining your democracy.
Another favorite is the recent explosion over the (brilliantly played) sexual abuse video and accusations against trump. It was a fantastic power punch, coming from the same people who forgive or ignore some 21 different accusations against bill Clinton of extramarital affairs and even 3 of violent rape. That he made frequent lewd comments is well established in court. Hillary herself is accused in something like 13 of those cases of slandering, threatening, or bribing the victims to keep quiet. None of this (on either side) is proven of course, but there are videos and accuser testimonies enough for everyone. Of course, this cuts both ways: trump supporters hate hillary for the same reasons hillary supporters hate trump, and the Americans seem completely blind to their own doublethink. Everyone thinks the other side is literally the American Hitler.
Pao is totally within her rights to choose which brand of sexual abuser she wants to support. And I guess I'm within my rights to put a bag of popcorn in the micro for the last few weeks of the traditional, irrational 2 month hate leading up to November 8.
A point of fact, though, Bill Clinton is not running for President.
In 2004 I worked for a third party candidate, who had a direct line to live numbers as they came in. He also called to thank me that evening. One of the things he related to me was that they were watching vote counts as they got announced and he was doing very well, but once he hit a certain threshold the software seemed to switch and he would start losing votes.
This isn't a case of his percentage going down as more votes were counted, but his absolute vote count going down as more votes were counted-- something that should be an impossibility. And not just in one precinct but in dozens of them, particularly in areas of a particular software maker's machines.
I don't consider the elections valid because the machines that count the votes have closed source software and come from two politically connected companies.
The sad thing is that MIT described a solution that would allow online voting in such a way that anyone could independently audit the election without knowing who voted for whom (you could verify that your vote was in fact counted and that the total count is correct, but not know who your neighbor voted for)... they announced this in the 1990s I believe, but of course it wasn't adopted.
Who cares. He's a shitty husband, whatever.
Do I care that Trump sleeps around? beyond thinking "gross", no.
> 3 of violent rape
Yes, those are worth caring about.
Also to this point: Trump has been attempting to delegitimize the election. This is very dangerous. If he has evidence of "rigged polling places", he should share that evidence. But inciting myths is dangerous for our democracy.
As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence?
Again, as somebody who isn't all that familiar with the state of the states isn't the choice between a moron and someone who is systematically immoral?
Either way, its a sad state of affairs.
Not really, no. Hillary has made some questionable choices, but I don't think that makes her any more or less "systematically immoral" than Trump - she just has a longer record, because she actually has political experience.
For example, both Trump and Clinton were in favor of the Iraq war. Trump got to backpedal and pretend otherwise later, because he never had to take a binding vote to express his opinion one way or the other. That doesn't make him a better person.
It's hardly as if Trump is any different, when you look at his attitude towards Russia, and that's before he's even gotten any political power.
About the only way to avoid this would be to elect an entirely isolationist President who refuses to talk to the outside world, which isn't really an option these days.
I'm sure there are more than one of those people voting for Trump because of some issue they disagree with Hillary on, or some single issue they disagree with Trump on.
Say I really side with an issue that is on the Republican platform, gun rights for example. We've come to the point lately where that just means I must also be a racist, homophobe, bigot. Guilt by association. Even to the point of people losing their job or life over it.
Really? We think that's OK? Then in this case she's doing it simply because he has money and gave it to said candidate?
On the reverse I've seen some people with the "pot should be legal" argument get completely put down by some on the more conservative side saying they must also be for free everything!! Which isn't always the case.
Well, being as wealthy as Thiel is basically frees you from the day to day realities of being discriminated against.
I'm not saying minorities who are rich aren't also victims of prejudice and such, but when you are rich and relatively famous (and any kind of minority) you are very unlikely to be openly discriminated against the same way a "commoner" minority will be.
... which makes his support for Trump seem even more selfish to me.
I would remind you that the chief claim in US v. Windsor was about the tax implications of a lesbian wedding not recognized at the federal level, which incurred a higher estate tax penalty (to the tune of ~$380,000) which is unconstitutional under the 14th.
That seems exactly like something that Peter Thiel probably cares about if he ever chooses to marry.
I mean, I see more hateful things being said to celebrities than just about anyone else.
More like being murdered for being gay or black or ... and the police refusing (sometimes openly) to investigate, which used to happen well into the 1960s in the US.
Sure, when it comes to hateful semi-anonymous bad things said about people on twitter or whatever, celebrities are prime targets (and that kind of sucks, celebrities are people too), but I'm more thinking about active physical-world types of discrimination, the kind that end up with you being beaten, possibly killed, or just denied otherwise deserved opportunities.
Being rich/famous doesn't guarantee you won't suffer from that sort of discrimination, but anecdotally it does appear to lessen the chances by a great deal.
A person worth north of 2 billion does not risk being discriminated against.
As far as I'm concerned, the Clintons (Bill signed the "Defense of Marriage Act" in the first place) are the anti-gay ones (and add Obama to that too)
Not all of us are gullible to the blatant pandering and fear mongering democrats engage in.
While during the Bush years there was some stupid asinine anti-gay rhetoric from Bush, nothing was even attempted.
But it was the Clintons who banned gay marriage. That's all when I stopped being a democrat.
That's an -odd- comparison. One is about gay marriage, and one is about people being gay.
Trump is perfectly capable of having no issue with someone being gay AND being against their right to marriage.
And realistically? What's worse for you as a gay person - Donald's -personal- beliefs, or those he advocates as a policy?
http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/aug/14/se...
Besides, Trump has said a lot of things that contradict other things he's said, and gay marriage is one of those:
"I am not in favor of gay marriage."
For someone affected by such things, you really should be more informed.
[1]: http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay...
So you have a slightly moving, changing Democrat party; and complete bigotry then and still now in the Republican party. Yet you stopped being a Democrat based on this vote? That's fine, but it's completely absurd.
Democrats are the conservative party, and have always had to be dragged kicking and screaming to get anything progressive done in all of history. It does not make sense you'd use DOMA as the point in time to switch to the crazy party. You know, the bat shit insane where it's OK to "get away" with gawking at girls getting dressed in the changing room, but it's perverse for a female identifying transgender to take a piss in the women's bathroom - something that's been happening for a very long time without anyone giving two shits until Republicans got a fucking clue it was happening.
Surely you haven't already forgotten the rise in anti-trans discriminatory legislation in recent years? Do you think Trump and his supporters are the type to not support those? Which party is it that's been at the forefront of anti-discriminatory legislation and equal protection in general?
It sucks that the first past the post voting system of ours all but guarantees that we must choose between the lesser of two evils to avoid throwing our vote away, but what else are you going to do? A vote for a third party is a vote that increases the probability of a Trump presidency.
On top of this, Mike Pence has promised to roll back the Obama administration's use of the EEOC and Title IX to protect trans rights against discrimination.
I'm voting Democratic for my very survival.
Does anyone else remember that time?
On the one hand I agree with you, on the other hand it's so easy to say this or make it seem true that making it a basis for firing/disconnecting from people is going to inevitably just mean you end up purging people you have even moderate ideological disagreements with.
When it comes down to it, you either (1) just let people vote for the candidate they prefer, or you (2) fight dirty by: censoring them, massaging negative narratives about their behaviour, lobbying their financial backers to stop supporting them, and eventually see if you can deny voters their right to vote for them (or try to force the candidate to step out from the race).
I honestly think that if we are to talk about disliking authoritarianism, we should aim for the former and not the latter. The fact is, if you have nearly 50% of people in your country voting for someone you hate, you're not going to just be able to shut it down by ignoring them: you're going to need to reach some happy medium (or at least something that tries to be this).
If you lose, and they turn out just to be a TV personality that is ineffectual politically it will hurt your credibility.
And, if you win, maybe the republican party falls apart, and four years later you are up against a real hard-right party, like is seen in some European countries.
I am personally far more worried about what will rise from the Alt-Right's ashes when he loses, than what will come to pass in the strange future in which he wins.
No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them.
A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically.
That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves.
I vehemently disagree with his choice of who to support during this election, but I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.
Another matter of interest is the nature of the power imbalance of lack of same. The original witch hunts, McCarthyism, and other struggles involved a very powerful entity depriving individual citizens of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a career.
There is a massive difference between "So-and-so engineer cannot work in this industry because a VC finds their political views repugnant," and, "I choose not to do business with a billionaire who is actively conspiring to bring democracy down."
One is punching down, the other is punching up, or perhaps sideways.
No, OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong. The statements "Thiel should be fired because of his political views" and "Thiels's political views should have no place in a civil society" are entirely different things. Political discourse has a special sanctity in American culture and I, personally, think that is one of our greatest strengths. Firing an employee due to their political views is fundamentally at odds with this idea and there are laws in place to protect employees from political retaliation. Although a company might be threatened by an employee running for political office, campaigning for a candidate or participating in fundraising or a political advocacy group, an employer should not be empowered to fire that employee. To do so would invite fundamentally undemocratic forces into our political system. e.g. a company feels threatened by candidate A, employees must support candidate B else they are fired.
> OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on
> the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong.
There is no more extreme position than claiming that all forms of "political ideology" are equally valid, and that all forms of "exclusion" are wrong.
Some people's political ideology calls for the murder of innocent civilians. I gladly refuse to do business with them, and I reject the notion that it is wrong to exclude them.
Likewise, as I pointed out, not all forms of exclusion are equivalent. If we say that all forms of exclusion are wrong, you rob me of my free will. You force me to buy advertising from Reddit or Stormfront. You demand that I work for Mr. Thiel. Or to sell my products to the RNC... Whether I want to or not.
This is the exact same argument as the one for religious freedom. Must a baker bake a cake for a lesbian couple? If so, we deprive the baker of their freedom of choice. If not, we deprive the couple of equal treatment.
We cannot grant one right without depriving somebody else of another. So in the end, we have to apply some judgment, we have to pick some line and say that things on far on this side are wrong, things far on that side are right, and things close to the line are vexing questions that must be debated.
I personally can accept arguments that in this particular case, it is ok to do business with Mr. Thiel, or arguments that in this particular case that it is not.
But the unambiguous argument that all forms of political ideology must be protected is not one I support, and nor is the one that all forms of exclusion are unambiguously wrong.
Get off your high horse, Thiel is not going to be destroyed if YC distances itself from him, bloke's got "fuck you money" a hundred times over, nothing could "destroy" him short of institutional assault, and even then possibly not.
And you're advocating for tolerating intolerance whose end-result is the destruction of tolerance.
> I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.
So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance? Against a billionaire shovelling money to white supremacist and fascist ideologies to boot?
This isn't just about Thiel. It's about everyone else too. If you create those sorts of standards, they'll apply to everyone.
How would you like it if your boss read your comment and then decided to fire you as a result? That's the kind of society you're creating.
> So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance?
Yes. Living in a liberal and free society means tolerating views you find repugnant.
Not if they call me a "faggot" on the street.
Even then.
Be an activist, go out and vote, fight for yourself, but don't attack others because they said something you didn't like.
(Yes...Im being facetious... discussions centered around "freedom" are meaningless because of how subjective the term is.)
How about you try getting chased out of a subway station after midnight getting called a "faggot" and we'll talk.
And people say that the SF tech class is out of touch.
FWIW, I think there's a difference between repugnant opinions and insults, so "faggot" is not a good example, but you're twisting OP's words dishonestly.
Though as we've seen recently, there are a lot of people who say, e.g., in the flower shop / bakery trope, "I don't have a problem with gay people, but my religion prohibits me from serving them."
In such a case, do you really need an epithet to read hate? Do you really need to hear the N word to know that people are racist? It's, at best, a very privileged (and at worst, an entirely naive) POV to suggest that you do.
You were so victimized I'm sorry.
To call someone "faggot" is indeed to threaten violence. The word originally meant "burning stick"; that's why a lit cigarette is sometimes called a "fag". By calling someone "faggot", one is saying they should be burned alive.
I'm not condoning the use of hateful language or threats. I just find your example problematic.
It is specifically and precisely about Thiel. As others have noted, YC has distanced itself from relationships for political reasons in the past.
> How would you like it if your boss read your comment and then decided to fire you as a result? That's the kind of society you're creating.
Yeah except no, see there are two issues with your assertions:
1. Thiel is not employed by YC and not in a position of weakness or dependency.
2. I live in a country where you can't just tell employees to get fucked without providing a very good reason. My boss being on record firing me for my comments would net me a few years worth of income.
> Yes. Living in a liberal and free society means tolerating views you find repugnant.
But not that other people can find them intolerable? Only repugnant views are worth expressing and defending? That's an… interesting point of view, and one with which I emphatically disagree.
No. The same rules should apply to anyone, regardless on income. Thiel has the same right to express his icky views as you do, without fear of losing his job or partnership.
No, it isn't. As your mentality takes root, there is nothing stopping others from doing it to absolutely everyone.
> I live in a country where you can't just tell employees to get fucked
You live in a country where more and more people aren't employees at all.
> Only repugnant views are worth expressing and defending?
Whatever views you want to express, feel free to express them. However, only repugnant views need to be tolerated by definition.
If I say the sky is blue, nobody is going to persecute me for that. However, if I say something that isn't popular or is repugnant, it is at that point that I would need to be tolerated. That's the definition of tolerance. Withstanding something you don't like.
I wish there were such a thing as HN gold, that sums things up perfectly.
I'm not going to fire someone for advocating firing people they don't like. Even though the irony would be damn sweet.
And this is some seriously oppressing bullshit that has (wittingly or not) prolonged white/male supremacy. People creating a space that makes it very clear that non-white, non-males aren't welcome, then well-meaning "moderates" going along with it because, well, I'm not going to judge him for his politics. It's how the US even came to be, founded on a compromise that was fundamentally designed to promise that slavery would never be repealed.
Here's the deal. Having a don't-ask, don't tell policy regarding your votes in a voting booth is fine. But the minute you write a big fucking check to a big fucking fascist (or anyone else), you forfeit any right to not suffer consequences for your actions. Sure, the government can't (and shouldn't) impose penalties. But I'm damn sure going to judge you, and judge those who continue to associate with you (because they are saying that maintaining your friendship is worth alienating others).
Some people find that deplorable.
There is a similar dynamic in play with Trump's support from evangelicals. His personal choices are nearly 100% at odds with their social conservatism, but many evangelicals seem ok with this as long as he nominates a judge that will repeal Roe vs. Wade.
Such evangelicals probably aren't really in favour of Trump, but are willing to throw many people under the bus to get what they want as well.
So... I agree that Thiel may not explicitly support everything Trump advocates (who really could), but all the same, it is valid to criticize him for the things he is willing to tolerate to get what he wants.
He's both Libertarian and gay, both are extremely socially liberal. Why do you say he is socially conservative? I'm not seeing that.
A lot of Libertarian tend to vote Republican because they feel stronger about economic issues, high taxes, 2nd amendment, freedom of religion, etc, than they do about social issues but that is just because there are only 2 choices (my bedroom vs my wallet).
A vote for either party is throwing everyone from the other party under the bus, isn't it?
http://48laws-of-power.blogspot.com/2011/05/law-31-control-o...
But that's the problem. Who exactly are affected by these "Social issues"? (Hint: It's not rich white guys).
Are you referring to Trump's bigotry? Sure, I'll admit, he is definitely a character in that regard. But again there's realistically only 2 choices. Thiel is going to take whichever one is closest. It's not ideal but that's the choice Libertarians are often forced to make.
Get a bunch of straight folks in a room and discuss AIDS research funding.
Get a bunch of white folks in a room and discuss police treatment of African-Americans.
Get a bunch of 5th-generation Americans in a room and discuss funding for ESL programs in schools.
And, the argument here is that support of Trump goes a bridge beyond simply expressing disagreeable political views - he is literally encouraging election day violence and trying to delegitimize our Democracy. There has to come a point where toxic and hateful views are no longer tolerated as "political". It is admittedly a slippery slope, but one we're being dragged down whether we like it or not.
* Job: agreed
* board seat: disagreed, board members are elected to represent the shareholders, companies voice their political opinions through political contributions. If those opinions aren't reflective of the shareholders, then that's a valid reason for their removal.
* public event: agreed.
* private event: disagreed. Distasteful to do something like this, but private events are private events.
Even if you're an active supporter of David Duke? Must we tolerate the (frequently violent) intolerance of others?
And yet, in the previous HN thread on the topic, I see dozens of voices loudly defending the right for Thiel to prop up Trump's demagoguery without consequence. To them, supporting Trump or Clinton is equally bad, even though the things Trump routinely says are downright terrifying[1] and dangerous to the fabric of our country. For the first time in my life, I'm actually expecting to see violence on election day.
This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_f...