Comment by jlawson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlawson | Hacker News Reader

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> As soon as one of them (age 25!) was discovered to have written some blatantly racist remarks, the narrative flipped to pleas to forgive them because they’re just kids.

Yeah, you just made that up. The "narrative" about the 25-year-old's remarks was not based on his age. This is the narrative, from JD Vance the vice president himself:

"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." [0]

[0] https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633

Obviously the operative line is the central one about not rewarding journalists who try to destroy people, "Ever". That means regardless of who the target is or their age.

>intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is so blatant that you can’t possibly ignore it

Hypocritical intellectual dishonesty indeed.

"forgive them because they're kids" sounds like a pretty accurate paraphrase of "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life"...

It's interesting that JD Vance should invoke that defence considering this particular "kid" with a fondness for racist edglordism was tasked with the responsibility of firing tens of thousands of other people...

And it "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life" was the entire thing JD said that would matter, but it's not everything he said.

You're literally just deleting the important part of the message to pretend a supporting comment is "the narrative".

It's hypocritical intellectual dishonesty to pretend JD's point was something other than what it obviously was.

If this is your argument, don't be surprised when people look up the facts, note that you're dishonest this way, and tune you out.

The stance that we should never reward a journalist for “trying to ruin someone’s life” seems effectively to mean that we should never hold people accountable for their own words or actions, if those are reported by a journalist?

What if we didn’t worry about whether we’re “rewarding” the journalist, and just evaluated people’s actions and deeds when we decide how much public trust we want to extend to them?

Nothing I said was inaccurate, and the fact that Vance also whinges about journalists accurately reporting the publicly expressed views of a person in a position of responsibility does not change the fact he referred to the twentysomething who resigned from that position as a "kid" somehow more deserving of a government job than the thousands of blameless individuals he was originally tasked with firing.

I appreciate that people who concur with Vance's objection to journalists reporting the truth are going to tune me and most things out, but that says more about your own lack of intellectual honesty than anyone else's...

In all seriousness, what was his point?

Because he says:

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

Saying things like "Normalize Indian hate" and "I was racist before it was cool" are statements that pretty well support a "bad dude" classification, especially in the context of a role where he'll be responsible for firing people and removing "DEI hires." Even if you agree (with Musk, Elez, etc.) that DEI is a problem, hiring a self-avowed racist to deal with it seems pretty idiotic.

Calling him "a kid" is also pretty disingenuous. He was 24 or 25 when he made those posts, hardly a kid. And they weren't ancient history, they were last year. I'm also for forgiveness if time has passed and people show that they deserve it, but it isn't ruining his life to hold him accountable to things he said last year, as an adult.

> Obviously the operative line is the central one about not rewarding journalists who try to destroy people, "Ever". That means regardless of who the target is or their age.

Does that apply to politicians or billionaires as well? Considering Musk's history of doing that?

On a more general note, if it's racist remarks everyone is coming out with "lets forgive them", "they were young", "lets not destroy people because of some innocent remarks", but god forbid they say something that is being perceived as "leftist" ... burn them!

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