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I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. It is entirel

by fareesh 10y ago

I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. It is entirely possibly that some people support Trump because of his crass and divisive rhetoric, and it's also entirely possible that some people support Trump because of his stance on trade. Is it really anyone's place to demand that another voter change the list of priorities that determine their choice of candidate? Does that not fundamentally alter the intended functioning of the way voting in a democracy ought to work? I am all for constructive debate on why the policies and character of one candidate makes them more suitable for holding a particular government post, but to suggest that one ought to resort to intimidation, ostracism, marginalizing and other such methods because of an individual's personal choice to prioritize a candidate's agreeable stance on one issue, over a disagreeable stance of another, seems very dangerous to me. During his campaign, President Obama famously claimed that he felt marriage was a union that ought to be between a man and a woman. Most would consider this to be a highly regressive view, yet voted for him because he was their preferred choice on a whole lot of issues. Campaign officials like David Axelrod later revealed that he took this position publicly for political expediency. Regardless of whether this is true, if one were to suggest marginalizing Obama voters in the way that is being suggested here, I am confident that there would be very little semblance of a community left.

mping 10y ago
Some particular beliefs are critical. If a candidate is perfect and a genius, but for example is against (for example) women voting, this is critical for endorsement, even though he may be perfect in every other sense. Likewise, if your friend is from a different party than you, you may still be friends, but if he is a member of the KKK I guess that draws the line. Tolerance is not supposed to be infinite. What people are finding out is that the line is different for everyone. And of course, its the election for President. Everything gets blown out of proportion.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Why? Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. There is a good reason why we have separation of power and why we have a complex political system in which even the president needs political capital to do things. That said i think it's highly unlikely that there will be such hypothetical candidate that i can agree with on 99% 90% or even 50% of the issues and they'll be say a member of the KKK.
  - smt88 10y ago
    > Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. We don't know what powers the Executive Branch has now or will have. It evolves. FDR drastically expanded the power of the President, and he almost took over the Judicial Branch by appointing a bunch of new Supreme Court justices. The next POTUS will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice and possibly more, which would give him/her enormous power over many decades of US law.
    - skywhopper 10y ago
      FDR asked Congress to expand the Supreme Court and institute an age limit for justices, but Congress said no. So that was a failure of expansion of Presidential power. But while FDR is a good example in a lot of other ways, most Presidents have managed to expand their power, but Congress can check them if they choose to do so. See the current situation with the Supreme Court, where the Senate is actually reducing the power of the President. I think you also overestimate the control Presidents have over the justices they nominate, which is to say, none. Anthony Kennedy was supposed to be "Bork through the back door" when Reagan nominated him, but he's been one of the more liberal justices of the past 30 years. Or see how Roberts has, in a couple of key cases, broken with his fellow conservative GOP appointees.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Like the other poster mentioned FDR might be a good example for checks and balances rather than some unfettered expansion of power. While we might not know what power the executive branch will have in 50 or 100 years we know what power it has now, and we know what power it can have in 4 years unless you really think "Emperor Trump" is a possibility. Also while POTUS does appoint chief justices they still need to be confirmed by congress. And regardless of what is going on neither branch of government can go against the constitution, at least not to any major extent before being reigned down. P.S. It's more than likely that the US had presidents recently that had pretty negative opinions about a certain population including women, I would refer you to the Nixon tapes to see just how "disgusting" a president can be in a private environment. And while I'm fully aware that Nixon is one of the least loved presidents I don't think he was an outlier, just some one who got caught. P.S. I don't support Trump, I'm not an American, I don't understand how Trump even got into the race in the first place yet alone became a nominee, but I do not support any type of political oppression and thought policing.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Some beliefs are critical, but the important part here is that the line is different for everyone. I think a lot of people would support a 'perfect' presidential candidate who opposed women's suffrage, simply because they would never get that change through Congress. That's not an idle example, I've heard people say "sure, but Trump's crazy stuff won't pass and I like some of the things he could actually get through Congress." Even the KKK example isn't totally convincing to me. Daryl Davis is the usual example - a black blues singer who got to know Klansmen and tried to talk them out of their positions. He had a hood collection from all his successes, and there's an argument that he effectively broke the Maryland clan. Obviously that doesn't obligate anyone to stay friends with someone in the KKK. You don't need to tolerate things you find abhorrent. But I'm genuinely frightened by the recent push to limit how far it's acceptable to extend tolerance. If someone is consistently pushing back on the ideas you have a problem with (as Davis did), I think it's harmful to demand that they stop associating with the people who hold those ideas.
smt88 10y ago
> I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. Endorsement is one thing. Donating a massive amount of money is something entirely different. Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support. And either way, that's not the point. The point is that, while most candidates have deep flaws, Trump has flaws that cannot be overlooked or explained away by political differences. These include: racism (for which he has lost lawsuits), advocating sexual assault, and suggesting that Hillary Clinton be assassinated.
- czzarr 10y ago
  $1.25M is less for Thiel than $100 is for most people. The absolute amount is meaningless, you have to normalize by wealth here.
  - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
    It's still a lot of money for the campaign, isn't it?
  - smt88 10y ago
    The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world. It buys a certain amount of airtime, organizers' time, etc. Thiel said, "I'm not going to do X numbers of hours of work for you, but I'm going to donate them to your campaign." That number of hours is staggeringly high, by the way: equivalent to 30+ years of full-time work by unskilled laborers.
    - dlss 10y ago
      > The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world. Right, I think GP was replying to your earlier statement that: > Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support. Rather than trying to minimize the 1.25M
  - virmundi 10y ago
pron 10y ago
You mean why are we giving a hard time to all those people who join the KKK just because they look good in white? But seriously, I don't think the demand to "sever ties" with Thiel is the right (it does have the slight scent of a purge), or the smart one to make (it plays too much into the hands of those who are glad to jump on the "silencing opposing views" bandwagon). In fact, it pretty much ensures that the debate be diverted to that, especially when many in the crowd are, for one reason or another, fixated on their ideas of free speech. It isn't a hypothesis, either, but precisely what happened time and again in the relevant "community". But YC is influential in SV, where various racist and misogynistic ideas, for one reason or another, take hold on some from time to time, and yet YC has often stayed silent (or faint) on such issues, even when they claim to disagree with them, while being quite vocal about political issues like SOPA and visas that affect the powerful SV players.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  > it plays too much into the hands of those who are glad to jump on the "silencing opposing views" bandwagon Why frame it like this? It is "silencing opposing views", whether a bandwagon exists or not, so is bad in itself. You seem to imply the only problem is that people care about the issue - that's a good thing! > in SV, where various racist and misogynistic ideas SV is a liberal and leftist hotspot, so those ideas also take hold. Are you pondering why any none-liberal ideas sometimes take hold there? Maybe there a degree of subjectivity in it? > yet YC has often stayed silent (or faint) on such issues Possibly for good reason. There is a lot of animosity towards the tech crowd there, and beating them up about diversity in tech is a common pastime. Remember the PG misquoting? He should have just refused to talk about the subject.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - pron 10y ago
    > It is "silencing opposing views" Well, I'm not 100% sure that telling your billionaire buddy that since he's become a politician in a movement that you view as dangerous to your country and its people perhaps you shouldn't do business together for a while, qualifies as silencing his views. Still, I don't think it was right to demand this of YC. > Are you pondering why any non-liberal ideas sometimes take hold there? I'm not wondering why supremacist views sometimes takes hold anywhere, I'm just saying that perhaps people of influence who oppose those views may want to speak up a bit more vocally. Maybe it's even their duty. > Possibly for good reason. There is a lot of animosity towards the tech crowd there So Marie Antoinette's mistake wasn't not working in the interest of her people but in reminding them that they're hungry?
jarcane 10y ago
I think TechCrunch's breakdown[1] rather does a good job of summing up all the times Thiel has made it plain that he and Trump have a lot more in common that the SV technolibertarian set here seems willing to admit. Thiel is providing material aid and support for a man whose policies are as close to fascism as makes no difference, and he himself has been openly critical of immigration, women's suffrage, freedom of the press, and even the very concept of democracy itself, not even to mention his past association with cryptofascists like Moldbug. YC's idiotic line in the sand about "well, as long as it technically wasn't Thiel who said it" isn't even true. Thiel has sad plenty of ugly shit himself, even besides providing active material support to others who have. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/17/trump-silicon-valley-surrogate-thiel/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/17/trump-silicon-valley-surro...
skywhopper 10y ago
Peter Thiel is doing just fine. If Y Combinator walked away from him, he would not be hurt or marginalized or ostracized in the least. This is not about persecuting people who vote for Trump. But to support Trump with an enormous sum of money _after_ Trump has revealed himself to be willing to resort to borderline anti-Semitic slurs, to welcome the support of the white supremacy movement, to call for locking up his political opponent, to threaten the free press, to call for an end to Bill of Rights protections for accused criminals, to pre-emptively claim that the election is rigged, that voting fraud is rampant and to encourage his supporters to intimidate voters, to promise to ban an entire religion, and to brag about sexual assault in professional situations is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating. Whatever other positions Trump might have that Thiel supports, these things are part of the package. Trump is not just a normal candidate. He's a true threat to our democracy.
- grey-area 10y ago
  He's a true threat to our democracy. The responses he provokes are also a threat to democracy. It's important not to become that which you oppose by calling for opponents to be punished in some way (e.g. be locked up, or lose their job) because of their beliefs.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    He's doing his best to convince people that the results of the election will be fraudulent. He has hinted that his supporters might want to assassinate his opponent. That's what a threat to democracy looks like. Saying that a business might want to reconsider who they work with because of the political donations made by a partner is not remotely a threat to democracy.
- massysett 10y ago
  " is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating." Clinton supporters are never held to this standard. No one calls on Clinton supporters to publicly disavow her statement about the "basket of deplorables". Clinton also shipped classified information to her basement server and destroyed thousands of records when under subpoena. No one claims that Clinton supporters are supporting this behavior. Indeed, it seems just fine for Clinton voters to support her despite her activities which were, at best, "extremely reckless." Clinton supporters can say that, despite her flaws, they will vote for her. But for some reason, any Trump voter automatically supports every bad thing he ever did.

by fareesh 10y ago

mping 10y ago

Some particular beliefs are critical. If a candidate is perfect and a genius, but for example is against (for example) women voting, this is critical for endorsement, even though he may be perfect in every other sense. Likewise, if your friend is from a different party than you, you may still be friends, but if he is a member of the KKK I guess that draws the line. Tolerance is not supposed to be infinite. What people are finding out is that the line is different for everyone. And of course, its the election for President. Everything gets blown out of proportion.

dogma1138 10y ago
Why? Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. There is a good reason why we have separation of power and why we have a complex political system in which even the president needs political capital to do things. That said i think it's highly unlikely that there will be such hypothetical candidate that i can agree with on 99% 90% or even 50% of the issues and they'll be say a member of the KKK.
- smt88 10y ago
  > Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. We don't know what powers the Executive Branch has now or will have. It evolves. FDR drastically expanded the power of the President, and he almost took over the Judicial Branch by appointing a bunch of new Supreme Court justices. The next POTUS will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice and possibly more, which would give him/her enormous power over many decades of US law.
  - skywhopper 10y ago
    FDR asked Congress to expand the Supreme Court and institute an age limit for justices, but Congress said no. So that was a failure of expansion of Presidential power. But while FDR is a good example in a lot of other ways, most Presidents have managed to expand their power, but Congress can check them if they choose to do so. See the current situation with the Supreme Court, where the Senate is actually reducing the power of the President. I think you also overestimate the control Presidents have over the justices they nominate, which is to say, none. Anthony Kennedy was supposed to be "Bork through the back door" when Reagan nominated him, but he's been one of the more liberal justices of the past 30 years. Or see how Roberts has, in a couple of key cases, broken with his fellow conservative GOP appointees.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Like the other poster mentioned FDR might be a good example for checks and balances rather than some unfettered expansion of power. While we might not know what power the executive branch will have in 50 or 100 years we know what power it has now, and we know what power it can have in 4 years unless you really think "Emperor Trump" is a possibility. Also while POTUS does appoint chief justices they still need to be confirmed by congress. And regardless of what is going on neither branch of government can go against the constitution, at least not to any major extent before being reigned down. P.S. It's more than likely that the US had presidents recently that had pretty negative opinions about a certain population including women, I would refer you to the Nixon tapes to see just how "disgusting" a president can be in a private environment. And while I'm fully aware that Nixon is one of the least loved presidents I don't think he was an outlier, just some one who got caught. P.S. I don't support Trump, I'm not an American, I don't understand how Trump even got into the race in the first place yet alone became a nominee, but I do not support any type of political oppression and thought policing.
Bartweiss 10y ago
Some beliefs are critical, but the important part here is that the line is different for everyone. I think a lot of people would support a 'perfect' presidential candidate who opposed women's suffrage, simply because they would never get that change through Congress. That's not an idle example, I've heard people say "sure, but Trump's crazy stuff won't pass and I like some of the things he could actually get through Congress." Even the KKK example isn't totally convincing to me. Daryl Davis is the usual example - a black blues singer who got to know Klansmen and tried to talk them out of their positions. He had a hood collection from all his successes, and there's an argument that he effectively broke the Maryland clan. Obviously that doesn't obligate anyone to stay friends with someone in the KKK. You don't need to tolerate things you find abhorrent. But I'm genuinely frightened by the recent push to limit how far it's acceptable to extend tolerance. If someone is consistently pushing back on the ideas you have a problem with (as Davis did), I think it's harmful to demand that they stop associating with the people who hold those ideas.

smt88 10y ago

> I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. Endorsement is one thing. Donating a massive amount of money is something entirely different. Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support. And either way, that's not the point. The point is that, while most candidates have deep flaws, Trump has flaws that cannot be overlooked or explained away by political differences. These include: racism (for which he has lost lawsuits), advocating sexual assault, and suggesting that Hillary Clinton be assassinated.

czzarr 10y ago
$1.25M is less for Thiel than $100 is for most people. The absolute amount is meaningless, you have to normalize by wealth here.
- 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
  It's still a lot of money for the campaign, isn't it?
- smt88 10y ago
  The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world. It buys a certain amount of airtime, organizers' time, etc. Thiel said, "I'm not going to do X numbers of hours of work for you, but I'm going to donate them to your campaign." That number of hours is staggeringly high, by the way: equivalent to 30+ years of full-time work by unskilled laborers.
  - dlss 10y ago
    > The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world. Right, I think GP was replying to your earlier statement that: > Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support. Rather than trying to minimize the 1.25M
- virmundi 10y ago

pron 10y ago

You mean why are we giving a hard time to all those people who join the KKK just because they look good in white? But seriously, I don't think the demand to "sever ties" with Thiel is the right (it does have the slight scent of a purge), or the smart one to make (it plays too much into the hands of those who are glad to jump on the "silencing opposing views" bandwagon). In fact, it pretty much ensures that the debate be diverted to that, especially when many in the crowd are, for one reason or another, fixated on their ideas of free speech. It isn't a hypothesis, either, but precisely what happened time and again in the relevant "community". But YC is influential in SV, where various racist and misogynistic ideas, for one reason or another, take hold on some from time to time, and yet YC has often stayed silent (or faint) on such issues, even when they claim to disagree with them, while being quite vocal about political issues like SOPA and visas that affect the powerful SV players.

Chris2048 10y ago
> it plays too much into the hands of those who are glad to jump on the "silencing opposing views" bandwagon Why frame it like this? It is "silencing opposing views", whether a bandwagon exists or not, so is bad in itself. You seem to imply the only problem is that people care about the issue - that's a good thing! > in SV, where various racist and misogynistic ideas SV is a liberal and leftist hotspot, so those ideas also take hold. Are you pondering why any none-liberal ideas sometimes take hold there? Maybe there a degree of subjectivity in it? > yet YC has often stayed silent (or faint) on such issues Possibly for good reason. There is a lot of animosity towards the tech crowd there, and beating them up about diversity in tech is a common pastime. Remember the PG misquoting? He should have just refused to talk about the subject.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pron 10y ago
  > It is "silencing opposing views" Well, I'm not 100% sure that telling your billionaire buddy that since he's become a politician in a movement that you view as dangerous to your country and its people perhaps you shouldn't do business together for a while, qualifies as silencing his views. Still, I don't think it was right to demand this of YC. > Are you pondering why any non-liberal ideas sometimes take hold there? I'm not wondering why supremacist views sometimes takes hold anywhere, I'm just saying that perhaps people of influence who oppose those views may want to speak up a bit more vocally. Maybe it's even their duty. > Possibly for good reason. There is a lot of animosity towards the tech crowd there So Marie Antoinette's mistake wasn't not working in the interest of her people but in reminding them that they're hungry?

jarcane 10y ago

I think TechCrunch's breakdown[1] rather does a good job of summing up all the times Thiel has made it plain that he and Trump have a lot more in common that the SV technolibertarian set here seems willing to admit. Thiel is providing material aid and support for a man whose policies are as close to fascism as makes no difference, and he himself has been openly critical of immigration, women's suffrage, freedom of the press, and even the very concept of democracy itself, not even to mention his past association with cryptofascists like Moldbug. YC's idiotic line in the sand about "well, as long as it technically wasn't Thiel who said it" isn't even true. Thiel has sad plenty of ugly shit himself, even besides providing active material support to others who have. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/17/trump-silicon-valley-surrogate-thiel/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/17/trump-silicon-valley-surro...

skywhopper 10y ago

Peter Thiel is doing just fine. If Y Combinator walked away from him, he would not be hurt or marginalized or ostracized in the least. This is not about persecuting people who vote for Trump. But to support Trump with an enormous sum of money _after_ Trump has revealed himself to be willing to resort to borderline anti-Semitic slurs, to welcome the support of the white supremacy movement, to call for locking up his political opponent, to threaten the free press, to call for an end to Bill of Rights protections for accused criminals, to pre-emptively claim that the election is rigged, that voting fraud is rampant and to encourage his supporters to intimidate voters, to promise to ban an entire religion, and to brag about sexual assault in professional situations is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating. Whatever other positions Trump might have that Thiel supports, these things are part of the package. Trump is not just a normal candidate. He's a true threat to our democracy.

grey-area 10y ago
He's a true threat to our democracy. The responses he provokes are also a threat to democracy. It's important not to become that which you oppose by calling for opponents to be punished in some way (e.g. be locked up, or lose their job) because of their beliefs.
- mikeash 10y ago
  He's doing his best to convince people that the results of the election will be fraudulent. He has hinted that his supporters might want to assassinate his opponent. That's what a threat to democracy looks like. Saying that a business might want to reconsider who they work with because of the political donations made by a partner is not remotely a threat to democracy.
massysett 10y ago
" is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating." Clinton supporters are never held to this standard. No one calls on Clinton supporters to publicly disavow her statement about the "basket of deplorables". Clinton also shipped classified information to her basement server and destroyed thousands of records when under subpoena. No one claims that Clinton supporters are supporting this behavior. Indeed, it seems just fine for Clinton voters to support her despite her activities which were, at best, "extremely reckless." Clinton supporters can say that, despite her flaws, they will vote for her. But for some reason, any Trump voter automatically supports every bad thing he ever did.