Hacker News Reader

Comment by shitter | Hacker News Reader

For reference: JD Vance said that another DOGE staffer, who resigned after it was reported that he'd publicly come out in favor of racism, eugenics, and normalizing hate against Indian people on Twitter, should be rehired because it was just "stupid social media activity".

View on HN

> For reference: JD Vance said that another DOGE staffer, who resigned after it was reported that he'd publicly come out in favor of racism, eugenics, and normalizing hate against Indian people on Twitter, should be rehired because it was just "stupid social media activity".

To add to this, JD Vance's wife is Indian.

No, you're lying by extracting context. Here's what he said.

Here’s my view:

I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.

We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.

So I say bring him back.

If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.

https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633 --

The part about the journalists is the operative part obviously.

> but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.

He’s 25 or 26, given his birth year. The comments were posted months ago.

This isn’t a “kid”! Calling him a kid is a propaganda tactic that got rolled out to try to confuse people about the true story.

He’s an adult. He made the comments as an adult.

> We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.

It’s extraordinarily irrational to think that we should ignore important information simply to spite journalists.

There is nothing logical in that argument. It’s pure emotion and spite driven.

"I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life" is incredibly dishonest and Vance should be held to account for this incredibly dishonest statement.

The phrasing is intended to create the impression that the posts were made years ago, by some angry teenager, and it's not relevant to the person they are today. It's a way of downplaying the acts, creating distance between the person today and the acts at some unspecified point in the past.

But we know these timeline details. Elez is not a "kid" now, he's 25. These posts were not made when he was 13, they were made last year when he was, I suppose, 24 going on 25.

There are two conflicting perspectives being promoted by Musk, Vance, etc which IMO are in direct logical conflict:

1) This person's actions last year (going up to December 2024! Just 2 months ago!) are the actions of an irresponsible child and we shouldn't hold them accountable for those actions because they're not responsible enough to be held accountable for them.

2) This person is responsible enough right now to be operating at the highest levels of government.

He can't be both. So which is he, really?

We shouldn't treat people as if their words have no consequences either.

It's not a lie. "I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life" does two things: characterizes endorsements of racism and eugenics policies as "stupid social media activity", and asserts that exposure of such activity should not lead to someone losing their job. The part about not rewarding journalists who "destroy" people does not exist in a vacuum away from his downplaying of Elez's abhorrent racial views. If journalists had revealed Elez, for example, was a secret left-wing antifa supporter on Bluesky, I think we can reasonably doubt Vance's reaction would have been the same.

Edit: Now that you've brought Vance's tweet into focus, it's also interesting that he does not think Elez is currently a "bad dude" when he's expressly stated a desire to normalize hatred against an entire ethnicity

Also (mis)characterizes a grown ass man as a kid

I'd like to see a a press conference:

"Question for JD Vance - can you look at your Indian wife and children and then say a guy posting 'Normalize Indian hate' is not a 'bad dude'"?

Follow-up: "How is Elez both a child who shouldn't be held responsible for his actions from as recently as 2 months ago, but also the right person to be trusted with extensive access to government systems?"

Also fun how Trump has no problem saying that pro-palestine protestors should be deported (a vastly more harmful outcome than losing a job).

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

The doge boys are in-group, so they are protected, and the law will not be brought to bear against them. Simple as that.

Who are you quoting?

Frank Wilhoit, but not necessarily the Frank Wilhoit you might think when told it's Frank Wilhoit.

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...

Trump didn’t say that though.

He said pro-Palestinian protesters that are here on visa and who were arrested, committing crimes should be sent back.

Big difference from what you wrote. Perhaps you only read the headline.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump said.

Funny, I don't see those extra qualifiers in there.

Nice selective quote paraphrasing, but this was in the context they were already arrested.

No journalist is going to ask him this because they’re afraid of retribution and a loss of access. If they do he’s going to deflect - nobody will press him on a genuinely galling statement of values.

That would require someone to do journalism.

wat?

We shouldn't reward journalists for finding and exposing morally repugnant people getting near the levers of state power?

That is 100% exactly on-the-money the absolute ideal usecase for journalism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com