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Comment by betolink | Hacker News Reader

People here giving Thiel a free pass on his views and support for bigotry is just disgusting.

Here's Peter's speech at the National Press Club:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-LJqPQEJ4

Could you point out anywhere that Peter supports bigotry? Or even, a single crazy statement in Peter's speech? (I wouldn't defend Trump. I'm defending Peter, who I respect a lot).

The speech runs from 2:40 to 15:50, and can be watched in 7 minutes if you change speed to 2x.

(Thomas, I respect you a lot too. I've never seen or known Peter to do anything like you describe. I posted this video because it helped me understand his position on the election).

"They(Mexicans) are rapists and murderers" Take a look[1] you may have been stranded on an Island the last 2 years and perhaps you did not hear what Trump have said.

Now, not all Trump supporters are racists (maybe Thiel isn't? who knows!), but all of them are telling us implicitly that racism and bigotry are not deal breakers.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37zvOZ17eSE

Note that this Trump (mis)quote is in response to asking where Thiel says anything that supports bigotry.

Corrected now, unless I didn't hear right when he refers to Mexico sending people over and then "they are rapists" perhaps his subject changed and he was referring to Aliens?

He is, at least technically, making a more sophisticated argument. I'll rephrase it to make that reading clear:

"Like all countries, Mexico has both great people and rapists/murderers. Unfortunately, the latter group is overrepresented among those illegally in this country."

That's (technically) the point he's making, and it's (technically) not racist.

Can you refute the statistical assertion Trump is making in that statement?

Trump said that illegal immigrants are "rapists and murderers and some good people", "not their best people". You can disagree strongly with Trump's claims about what motivates illegal immigration, but Trump's stated view is not racist: he discriminated between two groups within a single race, and did not distinguish between races.

Can you tell me which specific Mexicans he was talking about?

Specifically the rapists.

> "They(Mexicans) are rapists and murderers"

Actually "they’re not sending their best" explicitly doesn't mean "Mexicans" (i.e all/any Mexicans). As such, that should be:

> "They(some Mexicans) are rapists and murderers"

http://www.breitbart.com/live/vice-presidential-debate-fact-...

He supports a Presidency which built its campaign, to a large extent, on abject racism and outright sexism. A ticket whose VP supports electro-shocking gay teens to turn them straight.

How, exactly, do you give such people $1.25 million and join their team without at least implicitly endorsing such views?

Love it. -4 and not a single reply. Pathetic.

How is this a coherent argument? "Here is an individual moment from someone's life. Use it to prove they're bigoted."

How about we cite other moments in his life? Like the (multiple!) Stanford peers he had who recounted his support for apartheid, or the book he wrote about the evils of diversity, or the blog post he wrote for Cato in 2009 lamenting that women had obtained the right to vote? How about getting up on stage and calling a person who repeatedly said that Muslims citizens of the United States should be forced to register themselves --- at their mosques or at lots of other places, we'll figure it out! --- the most honest candidate in the race?

There's a point at which the challenges you choose to raise cross a line into gaslighting --- who are you going to believe, Thiel or your own lying eyes? --- and while you haven't crossed it, writing in a tone that suggests it's unreasonable to question Thiel's inclusiveness definitely brings you right up to it.

> or the blog post he wrote for Cato in 2009 lamenting that women had obtained the right to vote?

He said no such thing in that article[1]. I have no idea about the rest, or about Thiel in general, but I did read the article. Your statement is as bad and inaccurate as any one-liner soundbite on right wing media.

The section in question (emphasis mine):

  As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a 
  *libertarian politics* appear grim indeed. Exhibit A
  is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and
  leverage, facilitated by a government that insured 
  against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that
  the response to this crisis involves way more debt and 
  leverage, and way more government. Those who have
  argued for free markets have been screaming into a
  hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any 
  remaining hopes of *politically minded* libertarians. 
  For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our 
  education culminates with the knowledge that the 
  broader education of the body politic has become a 
  fool’s errand.

  Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been 
  going the wrong way for a long time. To return to 
  finance, the last economic depression in the United 
  States that did not result in massive government 
  intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp 
  but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian 
  “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. 
  The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so 
  strong that historians have forgotten the depression
  that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in
  American history during which one could be genuinely
  optimistic about politics. 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.

He's talking about the poor receptivity he (and apparently other libertarians?) believe those groups have to libertarian ideals, specifically of getting them to vote for libertarian policies; he's not lamenting their existence per se.

Indeed, there's a follow-up on this exact topic posted at the bottom of the article:

  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.

And finally:

  I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why 
  I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys 
  relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world 
  is us versus them; good people versus the other.

He may be naive or disillusioned or depressed or whatever, but your misleading soundbite perfectly illustrated his point.

[1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

Despite its length, your comment is not in fact responsive to mine.

At least it provided some sources, than just bare assertions.

Who do you think you're kidding? [citation needed] isn't the closer you think it is.

Neither is "Who do you think you're kidding". Who do you think I'm trying to kid?

It's called dog-whistle politics. It's subtle, so you have to listen hard, but here it is: "To the people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders, ..." and he goes on to describe "wealthy" and "successful" types of people. Basically he's talking "to" and "about" people like himself, namely, white men. The man is a bigot, and like all modern bigots, he hides (and shows) his bigotry in coded language like this.

edit: just to clarify, "people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders", I am interpreting in the context of voting rights in the United States, which of course were originally denied to everyone but white men. So those are the ones who are "used to it."

Seems clear to me that "people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders" means people who give 1M to campaigns, buy TV ads, etc.

Ironically, bigotry is defined as "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself". I'm not defending Trump but it's fairly obvious to any non-partisan that the left wing is just as guilty of this.

Except that to me racism is not a political view neither climate change.

racism and views on climate change are opinions, what else could they be? climate change is a complex and speculative topic that no one understands completely. no one has a climatechangeometer.

So by your line of reasoning, we should feel bad because we don't tolerate neo-Nazis?

Difference between "necessary" and "sufficient".

"hold(s) different opinions from oneself" isn't the only characteristic of Nazis, they have other attributes which do justify not tolerating them.

But yes, if it wasn't those attributes, you could still "tolerate" them, in the sense of allowing their opinions to be heard. You don't have to agree. You can even explicitly argue with them.

Call me when your American Left Wing creates a system where Christians, Republicans and Libertarians are forbidden to dine in restaurants because of their identity, or are prevented from using restrooms, or are afraid to call the police should they be victims of crime, because they expect that the police will either make things worse or at best not take their experience seriously.

"just as guilty" is a false equivalence. The Left has much to answer for certainly; but the claim that there is somehow comparable bigotry in both sides of the political spectrum is not remotely credible.

For decades the strongest core of such policies you're describing was the southern Democrat.

Yes, but that was before the realignment when the racist white southern conservative faction of the Democratic Party, that had been it's core prior to the New Deal Coalition, abandoned the party over Johnson's support of civil rights and became the base of the Republican Party.

Has nothing to do with the Left Wing.

I'm aware of that - but if we have to look over 50 years in the past to try to back up the claim that "the left and right are equally bigotted", then we should really just admit that claim doesn't have a factual basis at the time it was made.

Bigotry is a state of mind, not a manifestation. I'm not arguing against the existence and dominance of a WASP authoritarian power structure. My point is that accusing someone of being a "bigot" without providing a valid argument for what constitutes that label is no more compelling than any other ad-hominem. All it does is reduce social justice to an empty virtue signaling buzzword that fails to evoke the struggle and pain behind those victims of discrimination that you fight to protect. You will never get your message across to Trump supporters if you continue to lump them all into a basket of deplorables that is beneath contempt and not even worth a thoughtful interaction. Modern liberals, particularly the "social justice warriors", aren't helping progressive causes with their dogmatic approach to political discourse. They could all benefit from reading Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power [1].

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam met with the KKK in 1961 despite mutual hostility that would never be ameliorated [2]. In 2016, your entire career can be ruined simply for holding the "wrong" opinion. Boy how things have changed.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/48-Laws-Power-Robert-Greene/dp/014028...

[2] http://www.vice.com/read/when-malcolm-x-met-the-nazis-000062...

That is the classic definition, but the liberal definition of "bigotry" is more like "intolerance/hostility/oppression to those who have different skin/gender/lifestyles/culture/etc (all the protected class stuff)"

"The fascists of the future will be the anti-fascists"

Look, it's not rocket science:

    Tolerant of   |   Tolerance | Yes
    Intolerant of |   Tolerance | No
    Tolerant of   | Intolerance | No
    Intolerant of | Intolerance | Yes

It's a little nicer as a 2x2 table, but whatever.

"hold different opinions from oneself" is subjectively tolerance/intolerance. This table exploits word games, because the first column is "in/tolerant to hearing the opions of", and the second is "holds opinions I believe to be exclusive to a special sub-community of society".

You cannot correctly come to a decision about the latter, without listening, which requires the former.

You are reading into this big league.

Are you familiar with "point-free style"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_programming) The above crude table should be read as given: point-free. I don't care about the subject of [in]tolerance even slightly (opinions, smells, beliefs, quasi-scientific theories, what-have-you).

If you are tolerant I will tolerate you, if you are intolerant go screw.

"It's so simple!"

> If you are tolerant I will tolerate you, if you are intolerant go screw.

Of course the subject is relevant. "if you are intolerant go screw" - does that mean you are intolerant?

HN being full of sociopaths is well known. Being apologists for Thiel's odiousness is a new low.

The man clearly states what he means, trying to 'clarify what he exactly means' is convuluted apologism and revisonism. This is like saying slave trade is wrong but you support it. Ok.

If you agree with his views defend them on the platform of reason.

Let's not get carried away here. Trump has not won because he is racist, nobody now thinks racism is ok. He has won because of the disenchantment with the establishment and his opposite number being widely perceived as a crook.

If you think minorities and women are somehow different from you it will appear as bigotry unless you can offer some evidence or reason beyond generalising entire sections of humanity for some self serving and dubious cause.

> HN being full of sociopaths is well known

citation needed.

Left-wing mccarthyism is as bad as right-wing mccarthyism. People should be able to support one of the two candidates without having to stand up to so much shaming in SV circles. Given the binary choice there may be multiple reasons to pick Trump over Clinton even if you disagree with him on a lot of issues.

Words mean things. McCarthyism was a movement that questioned the citizenship of people who supported socialism, and which demanded of the citizenry that they root out, report, and maintain blacklists of people who weren't stalwart supporters of that effort. McCarthyism had the force of a government behind it.

What you're seeing here isn't an organized movement to find and punish Thiel-supporters. It's people lamenting that other people continue to do business with one specific person, who is being singled out for his own speech and actions. It's an embryonic boycott movement. Boycotts --- something far more specific, pointed, and impactful than what we're seeing in threads like this --- are not "McCarthyism".

We should value tolerance towards minority (in our circles) opinions. Unless you believe half of the country are bigots, you would conclude many people who voted for Trump did so reluctantly and despite all the stupid things he said, and not thanks to them. They prioritized his economic policies or felt Clinton is too indebted to the current establishment to be able to change anything. I know some people who did that and I respect their opinion. Regarding difference between McCarthyism having government support behind and our media/social media rage not, I am worried that popular opinions become policies in a democracy. If on both ends of the political spectrum people stop respecting each other completely, it won't end well.

This comment isn't responsive to mine. The comment I replied to actually used the word "McCarthyism", inappropriately.

I don't think the definition of "McCarthyism" is as narrow as you define it. I used that word because I though the analogy was appropriate and illustrated well what I was trying to express. Accepted definitions do not tie it to the use of government force, see e.g. "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism." from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mccarthyism?s=t

Words mean things. In the same way that people aren't being "lynched" when dozens of other people berate them online, calls to divest from bigots and their enablers don't constitute "McCarthyism".

Words mean different things depending on the context. And analogy and hyperbole are valid tools for expressing ideas. Now "lynching" would definitely be a bad analogy and way too much hyperbole, but "mccarthyism" was appropriate to illustrate what I was trying to say. At the time people lost ability to be employed because of their political views. You seem to be calling for boycotting anyone who voted or supported Trump in this election because they are bigots. And that is a logical jump I cannot agree with as I tried to explain above. Clearly some people voted for him because maintaining status quo was less acceptable than getting over the things he said. I do think that we would have to get off the high horse of moral superiority and try to understand what happened if we want to avoid surprises like this in the future.

"Given the binary choice there may be multiple reasons to pick Trump over Clinton even if you disagree with him on a lot of issues."

If you're willing to see past the proud racism and misogyny, then sure. If you're willing to see past the blatant disregard for objective facts, then sure. I, for one, would vote for pretty much anyone else before supporting that.

It is. HN loves rich men with opinions.

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