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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 pe

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.
- braythwayt 10y ago
  I think the second half of your comment is aligned with the second half of mine, so I will just reply to the first half of your comment. > OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on > the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong. There is exclusion, and there is exclusion. The essay does not discuss stripping Mr. Thiel of his citizenship. It discusses doing business with Mr. Thiel, and the claim is that not doing business with Mr. Thiel on account of his support for Mr. Trump is a form of exclusion, and by your summary, that is wrong. There is no more extreme position than claiming that all forms of "political ideology" are equally valid, and that all forms of "exclusion" are wrong. Some people's political ideology calls for the murder of innocent civilians. I gladly refuse to do business with them, and I reject the notion that it is wrong to exclude them. Likewise, as I pointed out, not all forms of exclusion are equivalent. If we say that all forms of exclusion are wrong, you rob me of my free will. You force me to buy advertising from Reddit or Stormfront. You demand that I work for Mr. Thiel. Or to sell my products to the RNC... Whether I want to or not. This is the exact same argument as the one for religious freedom. Must a baker bake a cake for a lesbian couple? If so, we deprive the baker of their freedom of choice. If not, we deprive the couple of equal treatment. We cannot grant one right without depriving somebody else of another. So in the end, we have to apply some judgment, we have to pick some line and say that things on far on this side are wrong, things far on that side are right, and things close to the line are vexing questions that must be debated. I personally can accept arguments that in this particular case, it is ok to do business with Mr. Thiel, or arguments that in this particular case that it is not. But the unambiguous argument that all forms of political ideology must be protected is not one I support, and nor is the one that all forms of exclusion are unambiguously wrong.

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.

braythwayt 10y ago
I think the second half of your comment is aligned with the second half of mine, so I will just reply to the first half of your comment. > OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on > the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong. There is exclusion, and there is exclusion. The essay does not discuss stripping Mr. Thiel of his citizenship. It discusses doing business with Mr. Thiel, and the claim is that not doing business with Mr. Thiel on account of his support for Mr. Trump is a form of exclusion, and by your summary, that is wrong. There is no more extreme position than claiming that all forms of "political ideology" are equally valid, and that all forms of "exclusion" are wrong. Some people's political ideology calls for the murder of innocent civilians. I gladly refuse to do business with them, and I reject the notion that it is wrong to exclude them. Likewise, as I pointed out, not all forms of exclusion are equivalent. If we say that all forms of exclusion are wrong, you rob me of my free will. You force me to buy advertising from Reddit or Stormfront. You demand that I work for Mr. Thiel. Or to sell my products to the RNC... Whether I want to or not. This is the exact same argument as the one for religious freedom. Must a baker bake a cake for a lesbian couple? If so, we deprive the baker of their freedom of choice. If not, we deprive the couple of equal treatment. We cannot grant one right without depriving somebody else of another. So in the end, we have to apply some judgment, we have to pick some line and say that things on far on this side are wrong, things far on that side are right, and things close to the line are vexing questions that must be debated. I personally can accept arguments that in this particular case, it is ok to do business with Mr. Thiel, or arguments that in this particular case that it is not. But the unambiguous argument that all forms of political ideology must be protected is not one I support, and nor is the one that all forms of exclusion are unambiguously wrong.