11 ms·

Based on the awful things Trump has said and (apparently) done, it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual pol

Based on the awful things Trump has said and (apparently) done, it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. Pao is right: "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Quite literally at times! (I might give a pass to the people following the party line or acting on incomplete information, but Thiel knows exactly what he's supporting.) And yet, in the previous HN thread on the topic, I see dozens of voices loudly defending the right for Thiel to prop up Trump's demagoguery without consequence. To them, supporting Trump or Clinton is equally bad, even though the things Trump routinely says are downright terrifying[1] and dangerous to the fabric of our country. For the first time in my life, I'm actually expecting to see violence on election day. This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_final_response_to_the_tell_me_why_trump_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_f...

ivraatiems 10y ago
It's easy to end up at authoritarianism when you combine access to everyone's information, and an inherent belief in your own superiority and ability to "make the world a better place." The real surprise is that we haven't seen more of it.
maratd 10y ago
> To them, supporting Trump and Clinton are equally bad No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves. I vehemently disagree with his choice of who to support during this election, but I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.
- archagon 10y ago
  In a normal political climate I would agree, but I have to ask: is there a line? Is there any line? I think most people could imagine a political affiliation that they would want absolutely no association with. If Trump was a bit more murdery like Duterte, would it be OK to disavow his supporters then?
- braythwayt 10y ago
  In short, you say "people who support that sort of witch hunt" are intolerant, and that there is no place for them here. So... you are in favour of excluding people whose views you find repugnant, it's just a matter of which kinds of intolerance and whose repugnance is involved. Another matter of interest is the nature of the power imbalance of lack of same. The original witch hunts, McCarthyism, and other struggles involved a very powerful entity depriving individual citizens of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a career. There is a massive difference between "So-and-so engineer cannot work in this industry because a VC finds their political views repugnant," and, "I choose not to do business with a billionaire who is actively conspiring to bring democracy down." One is punching down, the other is punching up, or perhaps sideways.
  - exolymph 10y ago
    Yeah, "destroying a person for their political views" does not apply in this case at all. Peter Thiel is a BILLIONAIRE.
    - InclinedPlane 10y ago
      For values of "destroying" equal to "refusing to do business with".
    - vsl 10y ago
      So it's open season for bullying, witch hunts and any other behavior we'd normally label as bad? If WE do it to a RICH person, it's all right?
  - bitewhite 10y ago
    "So... you are in favour of excluding people whose views you find repugnant, it's just a matter of which kinds of intolerance and whose repugnance is involved". No, OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong. The statements "Thiel should be fired because of his political views" and "Thiels's political views should have no place in a civil society" are entirely different things. Political discourse has a special sanctity in American culture and I, personally, think that is one of our greatest strengths. Firing an employee due to their political views is fundamentally at odds with this idea and there are laws in place to protect employees from political retaliation. Although a company might be threatened by an employee running for political office, campaigning for a candidate or participating in fundraising or a political advocacy group, an employer should not be empowered to fire that employee. To do so would invite fundamentally undemocratic forces into our political system. e.g. a company feels threatened by candidate A, employees must support candidate B else they are fired.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  What would you do if David Duke was on the board of directors for your company?
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  I don't think YC would be "destroying" Thiel by cutting ties with him as a partner. And, the argument here is that support of Trump goes a bridge beyond simply expressing disagreeable political views - he is literally encouraging election day violence and trying to delegitimize our Democracy. There has to come a point where toxic and hateful views are no longer tolerated as "political". It is admittedly a slippery slope, but one we're being dragged down whether we like it or not.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. Get off your high horse, Thiel is not going to be destroyed if YC distances itself from him, bloke's got "fuck you money" a hundred times over, nothing could "destroy" him short of institutional assault, and even then possibly not. And you're advocating for tolerating intolerance whose end-result is the destruction of tolerance. > I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society. So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance? Against a billionaire shovelling money to white supremacist and fascist ideologies to boot?
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    > "So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance?" I wish there were such a thing as HN gold, that sums things up perfectly.
    - FeepingCreature 10y ago
      I can tolerate it, I just don't like it. I'm not going to fire someone for advocating firing people they don't like. Even though the irony would be damn sweet.
  - maratd 10y ago
    > Get off your high horse, Thiel is not going to be destroyed if YC distances itself from him This isn't just about Thiel. It's about everyone else too. If you create those sorts of standards, they'll apply to everyone. How would you like it if your boss read your comment and then decided to fire you as a result? That's the kind of society you're creating. > So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance? Yes. Living in a liberal and free society means tolerating views you find repugnant.
    - aiig 10y ago
      > Living in a liberal and free society means tolerating views you find repugnant. Not if they call me a "faggot" on the street.
- jowiar 10y ago
  > No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. And this is some seriously oppressing bullshit that has (wittingly or not) prolonged white/male supremacy. People creating a space that makes it very clear that non-white, non-males aren't welcome, then well-meaning "moderates" going along with it because, well, I'm not going to judge him for his politics. It's how the US even came to be, founded on a compromise that was fundamentally designed to promise that slavery would never be repealed. Here's the deal. Having a don't-ask, don't tell policy regarding your votes in a voting booth is fine. But the minute you write a big fucking check to a big fucking fascist (or anyone else), you forfeit any right to not suffer consequences for your actions. Sure, the government can't (and shouldn't) impose penalties. But I'm damn sure going to judge you, and judge those who continue to associate with you (because they are saying that maintaining your friendship is worth alienating others).
  - bcheung 10y ago
    To take his support of the Republican party to mean that he is against non-white, non-males is dishonest and straw man. If you have some evidence then present it. Thiel is both Libertarian and gay. Clearly he doesn't support everything in Trump and the Republican party.
    - jowiar 10y ago
      That wasn't the argument I was making. What I was saying is that a policy of "We will allow people to express their political views free of judgement and consequence" only really works when "political views" is taken to mean "things we're saying about people who aren't in the room".
      - bcheung 10y ago
        I'm not sure I follow. Any political view usually affects all people in any room. Are you referring to Trump's bigotry? Sure, I'll admit, he is definitely a character in that regard. But again there's realistically only 2 choices. Thiel is going to take whichever one is closest. It's not ideal but that's the choice Libertarians are often forced to make.
- aiig 10y ago
  > A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. Even if you're an active supporter of David Duke? Must we tolerate the (frequently violent) intolerance of others?
- alexbeloi 10y ago
  >A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. * Job: agreed * board seat: disagreed, board members are elected to represent the shareholders, companies voice their political opinions through political contributions. If those opinions aren't reflective of the shareholders, then that's a valid reason for their removal. * public event: agreed. * private event: disagreed. Distasteful to do something like this, but private events are private events.
supergeek133 10y ago
Not to mention "single issue voting" has become a huge trend in this country. Do you know any friends who are LGBT who will vote democrat just because of gay rights, but on any other day of the week are fiscally conservative? I'm sure there are more than one of those people voting for Trump because of some issue they disagree with Hillary on, or some single issue they disagree with Trump on.
- untog 10y ago
  What you're describing seems only natural to me. Very few people sit entirely within the spectrum of one of the two parties - they have to evaluate both and see which has the most pluses. If you're gay, the Republican party is threatening your ability to get married and live without discrimination, so I can believe that might seem more important than relatively minor shifts in economic policy.
  - hprotagonist 10y ago
    Except, I guess, if you're Peter Thiel, who stands both to be discriminated against but also to get massive tax breaks in a Trump presidency.
    - georgemcbay 10y ago
      "who stands both to be discriminated against but also to get massive tax breaks in a Trump presidency" Well, being as wealthy as Thiel is basically frees you from the day to day realities of being discriminated against. I'm not saying minorities who are rich aren't also victims of prejudice and such, but when you are rich and relatively famous (and any kind of minority) you are very unlikely to be openly discriminated against the same way a "commoner" minority will be. ... which makes his support for Trump seem even more selfish to me.
      - supergeek133 10y ago
        By discriminated against do you mean someone saying hateful things to you, or someone actively going out of their way to deny you something? I mean, I see more hateful things being said to celebrities than just about anyone else.
lhnz 10y ago
There is literally a photo of Putin in the top-right header of that page. Insanely conspiratorial and reminiscent of the cold war.
- archagon 10y ago
  Having seen (and laughed at) these kinds of conspiratorial-looking posts in previous elections on the Republican side, I would normally completely agree with you — except most of these links are to things that Trump or his allies have actually, literally said. Page decoration or not, it's impossible to deny that.
  - lhnz 10y ago
    Of course. But on the other hand Clinton also doesn't have a squeaky past. When it comes down to it, you either (1) just let people vote for the candidate they prefer, or you (2) fight dirty by: censoring them, massaging negative narratives about their behaviour, lobbying their financial backers to stop supporting them, and eventually see if you can deny voters their right to vote for them (or try to force the candidate to step out from the race). I honestly think that if we are to talk about disliking authoritarianism, we should aim for the former and not the latter. The fact is, if you have nearly 50% of people in your country voting for someone you hate, you're not going to just be able to shut it down by ignoring them: you're going to need to reach some happy medium (or at least something that tries to be this).
    - archagon 10y ago
      I strongly believe that there is no dirtiness in saying "your candidate is repugnant and we want nothing to do with his high-profile supporters". Sorry about lobbing in a Godwin, but I feel it's appropriate here. I've been watching a lot of WWII documentaries lately and it struck me just how excited and happy Germans were to see Hitler come to power. Before going to war, he was considered by many around the world to be a strong, positive leader for a resurgent Germany — to the point where people were asking if maybe authoritarianism wasn't such a bad thing after all. Seeing that made me wonder: how exactly would we prevent such a thing from happening in the future? Within the confines of democracy, the best way, as far as I can tell, is to repeat loudly and confidently as soon as we see it: your candidate is terrible, this is the path to fascism, this mockery of politics is beyond the pale and cannot be supported by reasonable people. And this especially applies to supporters with influence and power.
sigmar 10y ago
> "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Also to this point: Trump has been attempting to delegitimize the election. This is very dangerous. If he has evidence of "rigged polling places", he should share that evidence. But inciting myths is dangerous for our democracy.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  > "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence? Again, as somebody who isn't all that familiar with the state of the states isn't the choice between a moron and someone who is systematically immoral? Either way, its a sad state of affairs.
  - untog 10y ago
    > As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence? Not really, no. Hillary has made some questionable choices, but I don't think that makes her any more or less "systematically immoral" than Trump - she just has a longer record, because she actually has political experience. For example, both Trump and Clinton were in favor of the Iraq war. Trump got to backpedal and pretend otherwise later, because he never had to take a binding vote to express his opinion one way or the other. That doesn't make him a better person.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Clinton is clearly on record as having been in favor of giving the President conditional authority to go to war; only Trump is on record actually supporting the decision to go to war.
    - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
      That's an odd side line to take it on. Surely it is much better to consider her history as a whole? As far as I'm aware isn't she quite the supporter of what I am assuming we would both consider fundamentally immoral regimes across the world?
dhm 10y ago
Should political contributions made in private be grounds for demoting or firing someone?
hprotagonist 10y ago
>This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." (C.S. Lewis)
- masklinn 10y ago
  Good news, with authoritarian technologists you can have both.
unimpressive 10y ago
>it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. On the one hand I agree with you, on the other hand it's so easy to say this or make it seem true that making it a basis for firing/disconnecting from people is going to inevitably just mean you end up purging people you have even moderate ideological disagreements with.
ohthehugemanate 10y ago
This is the first election where you were concerned about violence on e day? I guess you don't remember the odds on Obama surviving his first month in office. Not only were assassination attempts expected, they were probable enough to have betting odds at Paddy Power. You probably don't remember Bush Jr's 2004 victory, either, where literally millions of people took to the streets. Also notable that it looks like the election really may have been rigged. From outside the country it's fascinating to watch. Half of the democratic party was accusing Hillary of vote rigging in the spring, and HN loved a couple of statistical analyses to that effect. But now that trump says it, HN says it is dangerously undermining your democracy. Another favorite is the recent explosion over the (brilliantly played) sexual abuse video and accusations against trump. It was a fantastic power punch, coming from the same people who forgive or ignore some 21 different accusations against bill Clinton of extramarital affairs and even 3 of violent rape. That he made frequent lewd comments is well established in court. Hillary herself is accused in something like 13 of those cases of slandering, threatening, or bribing the victims to keep quiet. None of this (on either side) is proven of course, but there are videos and accuser testimonies enough for everyone. Of course, this cuts both ways: trump supporters hate hillary for the same reasons hillary supporters hate trump, and the Americans seem completely blind to their own doublethink. Everyone thinks the other side is literally the American Hitler. Pao is totally within her rights to choose which brand of sexual abuser she wants to support. And I guess I'm within my rights to put a bag of popcorn in the micro for the last few weeks of the traditional, irrational 2 month hate leading up to November 8.
- hiringmanager 10y ago
  I care a great deal about the quality of elections in the USA and have been watching this issue since the 1990s. In 2001 there were real problems exposed, not just hanging chads but real problems with the way software counted votes. Result massaging is a real thing. In 2004 I worked for a third party candidate, who had a direct line to live numbers as they came in. He also called to thank me that evening. One of the things he related to me was that they were watching vote counts as they got announced and he was doing very well, but once he hit a certain threshold the software seemed to switch and he would start losing votes. This isn't a case of his percentage going down as more votes were counted, but his absolute vote count going down as more votes were counted-- something that should be an impossibility. And not just in one precinct but in dozens of them, particularly in areas of a particular software maker's machines. I don't consider the elections valid because the machines that count the votes have closed source software and come from two politically connected companies. The sad thing is that MIT described a solution that would allow online voting in such a way that anyone could independently audit the election without knowing who voted for whom (you could verify that your vote was in fact counted and that the total count is correct, but not know who your neighbor voted for)... they announced this in the 1990s I believe, but of course it wasn't adopted.
leshow 10y ago
free speech is not just saying people are allowed to talk about view points you agree with, it's saying that all speech should be allowed, even speech that is icky.
davesque 10y ago
Couldn't agree with you more. I'm dismayed not only at the broader political climate, but at the naivety of my peers in failing to see its roots.

ivraatiems 10y ago

It's easy to end up at authoritarianism when you combine access to everyone's information, and an inherent belief in your own superiority and ability to "make the world a better place." The real surprise is that we haven't seen more of it.

maratd 10y ago

> To them, supporting Trump and Clinton are equally bad No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves. I vehemently disagree with his choice of who to support during this election, but I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.

archagon 10y ago
In a normal political climate I would agree, but I have to ask: is there a line? Is there any line? I think most people could imagine a political affiliation that they would want absolutely no association with. If Trump was a bit more murdery like Duterte, would it be OK to disavow his supporters then?
braythwayt 10y ago
In short, you say "people who support that sort of witch hunt" are intolerant, and that there is no place for them here. So... you are in favour of excluding people whose views you find repugnant, it's just a matter of which kinds of intolerance and whose repugnance is involved. Another matter of interest is the nature of the power imbalance of lack of same. The original witch hunts, McCarthyism, and other struggles involved a very powerful entity depriving individual citizens of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a career. There is a massive difference between "So-and-so engineer cannot work in this industry because a VC finds their political views repugnant," and, "I choose not to do business with a billionaire who is actively conspiring to bring democracy down." One is punching down, the other is punching up, or perhaps sideways.
- exolymph 10y ago
  Yeah, "destroying a person for their political views" does not apply in this case at all. Peter Thiel is a BILLIONAIRE.
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    For values of "destroying" equal to "refusing to do business with".
  - vsl 10y ago
    So it's open season for bullying, witch hunts and any other behavior we'd normally label as bad? If WE do it to a RICH person, it's all right?
- bitewhite 10y ago
  "So... you are in favour of excluding people whose views you find repugnant, it's just a matter of which kinds of intolerance and whose repugnance is involved". No, OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong. The statements "Thiel should be fired because of his political views" and "Thiels's political views should have no place in a civil society" are entirely different things. Political discourse has a special sanctity in American culture and I, personally, think that is one of our greatest strengths. Firing an employee due to their political views is fundamentally at odds with this idea and there are laws in place to protect employees from political retaliation. Although a company might be threatened by an employee running for political office, campaigning for a candidate or participating in fundraising or a political advocacy group, an employer should not be empowered to fire that employee. To do so would invite fundamentally undemocratic forces into our political system. e.g. a company feels threatened by candidate A, employees must support candidate B else they are fired.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
What would you do if David Duke was on the board of directors for your company?
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
I don't think YC would be "destroying" Thiel by cutting ties with him as a partner. And, the argument here is that support of Trump goes a bridge beyond simply expressing disagreeable political views - he is literally encouraging election day violence and trying to delegitimize our Democracy. There has to come a point where toxic and hateful views are no longer tolerated as "political". It is admittedly a slippery slope, but one we're being dragged down whether we like it or not.
masklinn 10y ago
> No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. Get off your high horse, Thiel is not going to be destroyed if YC distances itself from him, bloke's got "fuck you money" a hundred times over, nothing could "destroy" him short of institutional assault, and even then possibly not. And you're advocating for tolerating intolerance whose end-result is the destruction of tolerance. > I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society. So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance? Against a billionaire shovelling money to white supremacist and fascist ideologies to boot?
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  > "So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance?" I wish there were such a thing as HN gold, that sums things up perfectly.
  - FeepingCreature 10y ago
    I can tolerate it, I just don't like it. I'm not going to fire someone for advocating firing people they don't like. Even though the irony would be damn sweet.
- maratd 10y ago
  > Get off your high horse, Thiel is not going to be destroyed if YC distances itself from him This isn't just about Thiel. It's about everyone else too. If you create those sorts of standards, they'll apply to everyone. How would you like it if your boss read your comment and then decided to fire you as a result? That's the kind of society you're creating. > So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance? Yes. Living in a liberal and free society means tolerating views you find repugnant.
  - aiig 10y ago
    > Living in a liberal and free society means tolerating views you find repugnant. Not if they call me a "faggot" on the street.
jowiar 10y ago
> No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. And this is some seriously oppressing bullshit that has (wittingly or not) prolonged white/male supremacy. People creating a space that makes it very clear that non-white, non-males aren't welcome, then well-meaning "moderates" going along with it because, well, I'm not going to judge him for his politics. It's how the US even came to be, founded on a compromise that was fundamentally designed to promise that slavery would never be repealed. Here's the deal. Having a don't-ask, don't tell policy regarding your votes in a voting booth is fine. But the minute you write a big fucking check to a big fucking fascist (or anyone else), you forfeit any right to not suffer consequences for your actions. Sure, the government can't (and shouldn't) impose penalties. But I'm damn sure going to judge you, and judge those who continue to associate with you (because they are saying that maintaining your friendship is worth alienating others).
- bcheung 10y ago
  To take his support of the Republican party to mean that he is against non-white, non-males is dishonest and straw man. If you have some evidence then present it. Thiel is both Libertarian and gay. Clearly he doesn't support everything in Trump and the Republican party.
  - jowiar 10y ago
    That wasn't the argument I was making. What I was saying is that a policy of "We will allow people to express their political views free of judgement and consequence" only really works when "political views" is taken to mean "things we're saying about people who aren't in the room".
    - bcheung 10y ago
      I'm not sure I follow. Any political view usually affects all people in any room. Are you referring to Trump's bigotry? Sure, I'll admit, he is definitely a character in that regard. But again there's realistically only 2 choices. Thiel is going to take whichever one is closest. It's not ideal but that's the choice Libertarians are often forced to make.
aiig 10y ago
> A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. Even if you're an active supporter of David Duke? Must we tolerate the (frequently violent) intolerance of others?
alexbeloi 10y ago
>A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. * Job: agreed * board seat: disagreed, board members are elected to represent the shareholders, companies voice their political opinions through political contributions. If those opinions aren't reflective of the shareholders, then that's a valid reason for their removal. * public event: agreed. * private event: disagreed. Distasteful to do something like this, but private events are private events.

supergeek133 10y ago

Not to mention "single issue voting" has become a huge trend in this country. Do you know any friends who are LGBT who will vote democrat just because of gay rights, but on any other day of the week are fiscally conservative? I'm sure there are more than one of those people voting for Trump because of some issue they disagree with Hillary on, or some single issue they disagree with Trump on.

untog 10y ago
What you're describing seems only natural to me. Very few people sit entirely within the spectrum of one of the two parties - they have to evaluate both and see which has the most pluses. If you're gay, the Republican party is threatening your ability to get married and live without discrimination, so I can believe that might seem more important than relatively minor shifts in economic policy.
- hprotagonist 10y ago
  Except, I guess, if you're Peter Thiel, who stands both to be discriminated against but also to get massive tax breaks in a Trump presidency.
  - georgemcbay 10y ago
    "who stands both to be discriminated against but also to get massive tax breaks in a Trump presidency" Well, being as wealthy as Thiel is basically frees you from the day to day realities of being discriminated against. I'm not saying minorities who are rich aren't also victims of prejudice and such, but when you are rich and relatively famous (and any kind of minority) you are very unlikely to be openly discriminated against the same way a "commoner" minority will be. ... which makes his support for Trump seem even more selfish to me.
    - supergeek133 10y ago
      By discriminated against do you mean someone saying hateful things to you, or someone actively going out of their way to deny you something? I mean, I see more hateful things being said to celebrities than just about anyone else.

lhnz 10y ago

There is literally a photo of Putin in the top-right header of that page. Insanely conspiratorial and reminiscent of the cold war.

archagon 10y ago
Having seen (and laughed at) these kinds of conspiratorial-looking posts in previous elections on the Republican side, I would normally completely agree with you — except most of these links are to things that Trump or his allies have actually, literally said. Page decoration or not, it's impossible to deny that.
- lhnz 10y ago
  Of course. But on the other hand Clinton also doesn't have a squeaky past. When it comes down to it, you either (1) just let people vote for the candidate they prefer, or you (2) fight dirty by: censoring them, massaging negative narratives about their behaviour, lobbying their financial backers to stop supporting them, and eventually see if you can deny voters their right to vote for them (or try to force the candidate to step out from the race). I honestly think that if we are to talk about disliking authoritarianism, we should aim for the former and not the latter. The fact is, if you have nearly 50% of people in your country voting for someone you hate, you're not going to just be able to shut it down by ignoring them: you're going to need to reach some happy medium (or at least something that tries to be this).
  - archagon 10y ago
    I strongly believe that there is no dirtiness in saying "your candidate is repugnant and we want nothing to do with his high-profile supporters". Sorry about lobbing in a Godwin, but I feel it's appropriate here. I've been watching a lot of WWII documentaries lately and it struck me just how excited and happy Germans were to see Hitler come to power. Before going to war, he was considered by many around the world to be a strong, positive leader for a resurgent Germany — to the point where people were asking if maybe authoritarianism wasn't such a bad thing after all. Seeing that made me wonder: how exactly would we prevent such a thing from happening in the future? Within the confines of democracy, the best way, as far as I can tell, is to repeat loudly and confidently as soon as we see it: your candidate is terrible, this is the path to fascism, this mockery of politics is beyond the pale and cannot be supported by reasonable people. And this especially applies to supporters with influence and power.

sigmar 10y ago

> "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Also to this point: Trump has been attempting to delegitimize the election. This is very dangerous. If he has evidence of "rigged polling places", he should share that evidence. But inciting myths is dangerous for our democracy.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago
> "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence? Again, as somebody who isn't all that familiar with the state of the states isn't the choice between a moron and someone who is systematically immoral? Either way, its a sad state of affairs.
- untog 10y ago
  > As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence? Not really, no. Hillary has made some questionable choices, but I don't think that makes her any more or less "systematically immoral" than Trump - she just has a longer record, because she actually has political experience. For example, both Trump and Clinton were in favor of the Iraq war. Trump got to backpedal and pretend otherwise later, because he never had to take a binding vote to express his opinion one way or the other. That doesn't make him a better person.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Clinton is clearly on record as having been in favor of giving the President conditional authority to go to war; only Trump is on record actually supporting the decision to go to war.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    That's an odd side line to take it on. Surely it is much better to consider her history as a whole? As far as I'm aware isn't she quite the supporter of what I am assuming we would both consider fundamentally immoral regimes across the world?

dhm 10y ago

Should political contributions made in private be grounds for demoting or firing someone?

hprotagonist 10y ago

>This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." (C.S. Lewis)

masklinn 10y ago
Good news, with authoritarian technologists you can have both.

unimpressive 10y ago

>it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. On the one hand I agree with you, on the other hand it's so easy to say this or make it seem true that making it a basis for firing/disconnecting from people is going to inevitably just mean you end up purging people you have even moderate ideological disagreements with.

ohthehugemanate 10y ago

This is the first election where you were concerned about violence on e day? I guess you don't remember the odds on Obama surviving his first month in office. Not only were assassination attempts expected, they were probable enough to have betting odds at Paddy Power. You probably don't remember Bush Jr's 2004 victory, either, where literally millions of people took to the streets. Also notable that it looks like the election really may have been rigged. From outside the country it's fascinating to watch. Half of the democratic party was accusing Hillary of vote rigging in the spring, and HN loved a couple of statistical analyses to that effect. But now that trump says it, HN says it is dangerously undermining your democracy. Another favorite is the recent explosion over the (brilliantly played) sexual abuse video and accusations against trump. It was a fantastic power punch, coming from the same people who forgive or ignore some 21 different accusations against bill Clinton of extramarital affairs and even 3 of violent rape. That he made frequent lewd comments is well established in court. Hillary herself is accused in something like 13 of those cases of slandering, threatening, or bribing the victims to keep quiet. None of this (on either side) is proven of course, but there are videos and accuser testimonies enough for everyone. Of course, this cuts both ways: trump supporters hate hillary for the same reasons hillary supporters hate trump, and the Americans seem completely blind to their own doublethink. Everyone thinks the other side is literally the American Hitler. Pao is totally within her rights to choose which brand of sexual abuser she wants to support. And I guess I'm within my rights to put a bag of popcorn in the micro for the last few weeks of the traditional, irrational 2 month hate leading up to November 8.

hiringmanager 10y ago
I care a great deal about the quality of elections in the USA and have been watching this issue since the 1990s. In 2001 there were real problems exposed, not just hanging chads but real problems with the way software counted votes. Result massaging is a real thing. In 2004 I worked for a third party candidate, who had a direct line to live numbers as they came in. He also called to thank me that evening. One of the things he related to me was that they were watching vote counts as they got announced and he was doing very well, but once he hit a certain threshold the software seemed to switch and he would start losing votes. This isn't a case of his percentage going down as more votes were counted, but his absolute vote count going down as more votes were counted-- something that should be an impossibility. And not just in one precinct but in dozens of them, particularly in areas of a particular software maker's machines. I don't consider the elections valid because the machines that count the votes have closed source software and come from two politically connected companies. The sad thing is that MIT described a solution that would allow online voting in such a way that anyone could independently audit the election without knowing who voted for whom (you could verify that your vote was in fact counted and that the total count is correct, but not know who your neighbor voted for)... they announced this in the 1990s I believe, but of course it wasn't adopted.

leshow 10y ago

free speech is not just saying people are allowed to talk about view points you agree with, it's saying that all speech should be allowed, even speech that is icky.

davesque 10y ago

Couldn't agree with you more. I'm dismayed not only at the broader political climate, but at the naivety of my peers in failing to see its roots.