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While this subject matter has been covered to exhaustion in a previous post, I believe it is a very dangerous slippery slope to boycott Peter Thiel. If one ost
by dannylandau 10y ago
While this subject matter has been covered to exhaustion in a previous post, I believe it is a very dangerous slippery slope to boycott Peter Thiel. If one ostracizes a person based on their political beliefs (and contributions), then we will need to review every election going back decades. Just a few examples off the top of my head:
1) Woodrow Wilson -- An avowed racist and segregationist
2) Teddy Roosevelt -- Warmonger (War with spain)
3) Franklin Roosevelt -- Fire bombing of Tokyo as retribution for Pearl Harbor, among other major civilian cities (and internment of Japanese Americans).
4) Harry Truman -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki
5) Dwight Eisenhower -- Korean War
6) John F Kennedy -- Getting involved in Vietnam War
7) Lyndon Johnson -- Continuing the War (Gulf of Tonkin)
8) Richard Nixon -- Expanding war to Cambodia
9) Ronald Regan -- Nicaragua, and other smaller wars, bombing of Qaddafi in Libya as well.
10) George H. Bush -- 1st Iraq war
11) Bill Clinton -- Bombing of Serbia, and launching missiles at Tunisia
12) George W Bush -- Afghanistan and Iraq
13) Obama -- Increasing Drone strikes 10x fold.
Many progressives (Noam Chomsky et al) would consider the above actions corresponding to each president as rising to the level of war crimes. Hence, by this logic, anyone that voted for them is equally culpable. That's nonsense!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gurkendoktor 10y agoThanks for bringing up foreign policy! My impression is that most vocal progressives (even here in Europe) have stopped caring about the big picture in favour of domestic social justice. Killing a million people abroad = normal establishment politics, saying misogynist crap = unique threat to democracy. It boggles the mind.
- tzs 10y agoNearly all of those are things that one could, at the time the decisions were made to do them and using only what was known at the time, argue either way reasonably. What I mean by "reasonably" is that neither side was objectively right or wrong. It came down to where one stood on various issues that are largely a matter of judgement or opinion. Furthermore, the opinions that led to most of those were backed by a significant fraction of the experts in the relevant areas. Trump, on the other hand, has some positions that are objectively wrong [1]. He has repeatedly claimed that global warming is a hoax and said that the planet is actually freezing. He said that doctors and vaccinations cause autism. I find that a lot more disturbing and disqualifying. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-comments-on-science-are-shockingly-ignorant/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-comments-on...