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Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it simply has something to do with what Soros has funded[0], and partly with what he's alleged to have funded (such as riots), that people don't approve of? Not the act of funding. Additionally Soros has been at this for decades. I think that you would find people caring about Buffet funded projects if he had the same streak. Honestly I'm just impressed by the master play at deflecting so much criticism, critics are either anti-semites or part of a nutty conspiracy group like the fake moon landing folks.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_supported_by_...

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I can't believe I'd see someone the whole pull the whole 'paid protestor' nonsense here on HN but here we are.

The reason why people dismiss a lot of criticism against Soros is because a lot of the criticism is not based in reality, period. I am more than happy to criticize rich billionaires but the meme around Soros is clearly based around the anti-Semitic idea of a Jewish cabal running everything behind the scene rather than any sort of issue with wealth.

Downvote such commentators. It is a common tactic of racists to write anti-semitic comments and pretend that they are only asking innocent questions.

Really the thing is that said criticisms need actual substance to be legitimate. Every kook blames him for stuff that happens anyway. People protest or riot when angry about something. A pattern of innuendos doesn't mean anything other than some people hate him. Hillary Clinton isn't a leader of a cabal of assassins.

Vladmir Putin also has plenty of innuendos about killing people. However he actually does have them and has taken pains to make it clear it was him doing stuff like using rare nerve agents instead of any far cheaper method of assassination - just common cyanide in a large enough dose kills just as well as polonium, better in fact but it causes too quick and clean a death for terror purposes.

I don't disagree that some criticisms need substance! Lacking substance is part of why it's sometimes rather easy to make the play that critics are conspiracy kooks. Do you have any advice for how to better express what I wanted to express, which is that it's what people believe he has funded (some of it founded, some of it not) and not that he has Jewish ancestry that gets him so much flack? I thought the "alleged" qualifier might be sufficient, but clearly not since I still have someone indirectly calling me a racist.

Not even if you stick it in quotes.

Why are people accusing him of unfounded stuff, as you say they are doing. What is their reason to make up or spread unfounded accusations that rile these other folks up that you mention, why are they doing that, do you think?

Perhaps you're right that the people who allege the unfounded stuff are doing so for anti-semetic reasons, it doesn't follow that the people who believe such allegations and repeat them do so because of anti-semetic reasons. I admit some of them will. I just find there's a simpler explanation in that the particular stuff, founded or unfounded, is undesirable in itself to many people, independent of whether it's a Jewish person doing it or not. Put another way, the criticisms I see associated with Soros are always in relationship to some alleged act. I imagine there are criticisms of Soros that are nothing but some reminder that he has Jewish heritage (like that parentheses wrapping thing around Jewish names a couple years ago) and those you could call clear anti-semite criticisms. You'd see such people do the same to any Jewish person who does nothing but give their surplus wealth to GiveWell. But you won't see the same relatively intense response on that hypothetical Jewish person, because there's not a critical mass of non anti-semites who disapprove of giving to GiveWell, but there is a critical mass of non anti-semites who disapprove of the mission statements of groups Soros' money has helped finance (or is alleged to help finance).

Well the closest prior thing to substance in the deluge I heard from prior to 2012 were insinuations about his currency trading being harmful in some way. Details in something like that or another questionable practice would be worthy of discussion even if one can reasonably disagree if it is right, wrong, or remotely proportionate. If everyone makes bets against countries they think will decline there is nothing to condemn for betting against the pound post Brexit if they think it is how the market will go.

For an example of the last going on about say Obama's college essays don't really mean anything in comparison to what he has actually done - it looks to be downright racism in holding him to a different standard bring and not care about say Rick Perry getting D in a course called "Meats".

You could reasonably call him out on say his foreign policy continuing bad practices or what he signed. Calling him an athiest Muslim who prays in a mosque communist born in Kenya would just be bigotted literal nonsense.

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