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> money should not allow you to become a citizen of a country you've never lived in

This is the purview of a country's citizens. New Zealand's laws allow the Internal Affairs Department to legally approve citizenship under "exceptional circumstances"; around "one to two dozen [applicants] a year" are granted this exception [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/business/peter-thiel-new-...

Lot's of countries have some variation on it, including the USA (see comment below on obtaining a green card by investing), Hong Kong, and many others. The most blatant might be St Kitts & Nevis, USD 250,000 for one passport [1] with no residency requirement, but there are plenty of others [2].

[1] https://www.savoryandpartners.com/citizenship-investment-pro...

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27674135

Malta sells their citizenship for €2,000,000. Since Malta is in the EU, that gives the right to live and work anywhere in the EU.

That's essentially like South Carolina selling US citizenship to boost its budget.

> That's essentially like South Carolina selling US citizenship to boost its budget

I get what you're saying, but the reason it's not is important. South Carolina cannot issue citizenship independent of the federal government. Those rules were agreed to up front. The EU's weren't. So Malta will be Malta.

I think you're missing the point of some people's disgust: why does one of Trump's figure heads need citizenship in another country to begin with? If he is so in with the Trump administration, why this move?

Frankly, I lost all respect for Thiel joining forces with Trump. Granted, he's a capitalist and that's fine, but throwing your lot in with a bigoted administration escapes me. If the party you are part of represents openly a disdain for gays, immigrants, and women, what is even the point of belonging to that. Seems like you could find or form your own pro-capitalist party minus all the divisiveness.

I think like many that voted for Trump, Thiel will probably see that he was not so 'smart' when he threw his lot in with such a devicisive and destructive administration.

> If he is so in with the Trump administration, why this move?

At the very top of the article (you did read the article, right?) it says that Thiel got his NZ citizenship in 2011, well before throwing his lot in with Trump.

Would you lose respect for someone if they joined an organization to influence it in a way to prevent it from doing evil?

Not saying this is what Thiel is doing, but there's no way to know so far what his intentions are and people seem to be disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I'd say consulting the book Peter Thiel wrote in which he describes multiculturalism as existing "to destroy Western Culture" might be a reasonable way of gaining insight into his intentions.

> This just feels nasty. It feels like left-leaning media outlets (note: I'm left leaning) are scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to discredit anyone who has the gall to disagree with their narrative

I'll even go further and say because of their scrapping the bottom of the barrel they've pushed people away. With CNN's "don't read these documents, it's illegal for you but different for the press, come to use for interpretation" to talking about grabbing genitals for days on end with their panel of experts. After a while people see through it and they become just as much of a joke those who they criticize.

Just to explore this idea that it's unfair to let money play a factor in citizenship--

What do you think of the Green Card Through Investment program? https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-through-job/gree... It is a "money for green card" program. The idea is that it encourages investors to get access to the US if they're going to be putting money into our economy. It makes sense if they want to be closer to their investment and be able to monitor and guide it.

I think this is fundamentally unfair as well, but at least it tries to ensure that the applicant has an ongoing interest in the country.

It's not good but it's not quite "here's a million dollars, now make me a citizen."

Seems to be exactly like that

Yep, I read this:

> Entrepreneurs (and their spouses and unmarried children under 21) who make an investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States and who plan to create or preserve ten permanent full time jobs for qualified United States workers, are eligible to apply for a green card (permanent residence).

But didn't get down to this:

> You must invest $1,000,000, or at least $500,000 in a targeted employment area (high unemployment or rural area). In return, USCIS may grant conditional permanent residence to the individual.

Uhh, it pretty much is just 'here's a bunch of money'.

He's done absolutely nothing else to get it.

It's a bad idea in the US, too. people just buy buildings (which they then own), call them business investments, and they can come live in the us.

What would you have them buy instead? Why would a building (on which they pay property taxes) be any worse than any other investment?

The problem is we shouldn't let people in just because they are rich. A bunch of money flooding in from say china could cause problems in the us just like it did in vancouver. And I also disagree with the whole idea that you should be able to buy a visa or residency just with money. We don't need more invesetments in the us by rich, overly entitled people that have no interest in their communities - we have enough disinterested rich people already. We need people working for a better life, immigrants who are trying to do something with their life.

It feels like left-leaning media outlets (note: I'm left leaning) are scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to discredit anyone who has the gall to disagree with their narrative that Trump is a disaster (note: I think Trump is a disaster, so far).

Isn't this a bit of a double standard? I recall many months of Clinton email articles, hashing and rehashing it.

I agree it's nasty, but I don't think the left is worse than the right here. In fact, I think the right is far worse, because this story is unlikely to be rehashed for 9 months.

First, many of the media outlets that obsessively covered Clinton's emails were explicitly pro-Clinton. That story was, like it or not, actual news on some level. As exaggerated and politicized as it got, people were interested in it because Clinton was a presidential candidate, regardless of her views and party.

Second, I absolutely think right-leaning media that harps on non-issues solely because they paint the left in a negative light deserves the same criticism I made above. This just happens to be a case of the reverse.

I agree with you but this isn't harping as much as presenting facts. Of course the media will be interested in the life of a person who has been an important figure in the tech sector and yet has been against almost everyone else in that sector in his pro-Trump stance.

Now, if CNN has hosts talking about this fact over and over again for 6 months, that would be "harping."

>Similarly, money should not allow you to become a citizen of a country you've never lived in, on a whim.

Why not? NZ gets a bunch of money and never needs to do anything for it (especially if Thiel never lives there).

And if he ever flies there, they could change the rules while he is in the air and then deport him. Ah, no, a civilised state wouldn't do that, forget it.

For one, because the citizens of NZ are concerned about the precedent it sets, and because it's explicitly against our immigration policies, and because the documents show a troubling standard.

1. Thiel arranged application through notorious figure Mark Wheldon (connected to senior govt figures and instrumental in gutting govt accountability in NZ media over several years)

2. Thiel gives a million dollars to the Earthquake fund

3. Thiels letter reads [paraphrasing] "Our applicant is anxious that his application for citizenship not be affected by his donation"

4. Application was subsequently approved in large part on the basis of the donation

This is very much seems to be a "Please ignore this bag of money on your desk" transaction. If NZ policies allowed that, that would be one thing, but it explicitly disallows that.

Thiel's money-for-citizenship deal has been highly prominent in all major sources of national news in NZ for several days.

  4. Application was subsequently approved in large part on the basis of the donation

Source?

Support for point #3 was from the letter shown in this tweet: https://twitter.com/badtom/status/826664655892279296

Support for point #4 was from this letter: https://twitter.com/badtom/status/826667476096315393

I find this kind of journalism pretty offensive. What's the public interest here?

Should we expect a report on the brands of deodorant he prefers?

Detailing the citizenship gymnastics of an individual who is for policies restricting citizenship for a certain class of people is most certainly news. It points to the hypocrisy of a world where refugees are not allowed entry while billionaires roam the world like its their private property and the same billionaires work to enact those restrictive policies.

I'd love to find a path to agreeing with you, but you are indulging in hyperbole.

Sorry, can't resist sometimes...the world has become a rather strange place lately.

Anyways, in less hyperbolic terms: this is news because it paints Thiel as a hypocrite for supporting an unsuitable candidate while having a "backup" in case things go south in his own country.

After the violence at UC Berkeley- do you see a rational alternative explanation of why people would be thinking about a plan b?

The younger generation seems to have abandoned the cherished principle of free speech. When that happens- the only alternative to quitting is violence. What else should Thiel (or any of us who disagree with these antifa criminals) be considering? Should it be violence first?

> The younger generation seems to have abandoned the cherished principle of free speech. What else should Thiel (or any of us who disagree with these antifa criminals) be considering? Should it be violence first?

No it shouldn't be and its not. Please don't hold an entire generation or an entire section of people responsible for the actions of a few. It is the same mistake many people make when they associate Islam with terrorism.

And to answer your first question: you were pointing out the irrelevancy of this as news. I am pointing out why its relevant and you seem to have agreed on that as well. Let's not go on a tangent.

Occam's Razor is not a tangent. The simplest explanation for his behavior is not that his citizenship effort is a hedge against Trump. Consequently, this is a disturbing article.

And the only reason it's getting this level of scrutiny is because Thiel has taken "unpopular" stances.

It's not because of his "stances", or because they're "unpopular." It's because he's very close to the new administration, and was instrumental in allowing it to come into power (in fact, crucially so).

> was instrumental in allowing it to come into power (in fact, crucially so).

This is vague supposition. No one can quantify how much/how little Thiel had to do with Trump winning. If dollars spent on a campaign = being president, then Trump would not be president. If this election proved one good thing, it's that money can't buy you a general election in the United States.

> It's not because of his "stances", or because they're "unpopular." It's because he's very close to the new administration

It doesn't matter if this scrutiny is because "he's close to the new administration." I don't want to only read about corruption of people "close to X administration that I dislike." I'd like to read about corruption regardless of which narrative, party, worldview, etc the people involved in the corruption subscribe to.

To put it another way, the fact that Thiel likes Trump does not make this valid news.

No one can quantify how much/how little Thiel had to do with Trump winning.

Right, it isn't quantifiable; it require qualitative analysis. Like most significant events and forces in history.

In brief response to what you (and the other commenter) were saying: yes, even at $1.25m, Thiel's donation to the campaign wasn't a game changer (or even close to one). But his strategic significance (serving on the Executive Committee of Trump's transition team, and as one of his top financial advisors), in addition to his (perceived) intellectual "gravitas", far outstripped the significance of his cash donation.

Sure, you're free to offer your opinion on which factors tilted the election. But I would urge you to qualify that opinion with an introduction like "in my opinion..." I say this because, to me, it's not obvious at all that Thiel had a significant impact in the election and you stated it so matter-of-factly that I smiled to myself.

To me, claims like "X individual was crucial to Y historical event in some vague way that involves 'intellectual gravitas'" seem absurd. That doesn't square with my view on how humans make decisions. It's difficult for me to imagine a human whose decision to vote for Donald Trump hinged on Peter Thiel's endorsement of Donald Trump.

I'd also bet money that most Americans who know who Peter Thiel is, and have strong feelings about him, live in CA and voted for Clinton.

Wait, are you saying that if Thiel had simply done nothing during the campaign that Trump wouldn't have won? I don't see it. All he did was give $1.25M (less than 0.5% of Trump's total war chest) and make some public statements in support. How is that a "crucial" or "instrumental" part of Trump's election?

It is a part of the phenomenon of being "surprised by a Trump win". Listening to the news from just one bubble and interpreting everything through it, it does seem like it should have been some extraordinary Russian interference, extreme statistical fluke, a secret cabal of white supremacists, FBI coups or something like that. It is unimaginable that people simply voted for him.

I'm not taking sides but might be best to try to understand why sixty three million of your fellow citizens voted for your unimaginable or possibly only for 'a-complete-change- because-previous-administrations-had-done-nothing-to-sort- out-the-dreadful-state-America-is-in' and Hillary appeared to them to be the last person likely to alter that.

'Dreadful'? If you're baffled by this, check the stats on US child mortality, median wage, educational attainment for starters. And maybe this guy has something - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/trump-how-did-this-happ....

> " instrumental in allowing it to come into power (in fact, crucially so)"

This is clearly false. Peter Thiel didn't turn rural and suburban counties red in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Please see my response to the sibling comment of yours.

As to red states -- no, he didn't single-handedly flip all those rust belt counties of course (if you're looking for a finger to point for that fail, there's good evidence by this point that Hillary's own people did more than their share to basically hamstring their own efforts on that particular front). And of course you can't point to any single factor as solely responsible for a loss of this magnitude -- as I'm sure you understand perfectly well.

However, there's good reason to believe that Thiel's endorsement provided a very significant moral boost to Trump's flagging (and in the view of many, basically doomed) campaign at that point -- in addition to the his serving as one of his closest advisors (in particular, as one of his main financial advisors) during this -- yes -- crucial juncture in the campaign.

Author of this article was from Gawker so for him it's probably personal issue not left/right issue.

And the fact that you can get NZ citizenship by stating that you are rich and could be useful with track record that you were in some other country is intersting in itself.

The person of Peter Thiel is not intersting at all. Trump has way dumber advisers we can laugh at.