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Theil is becoming the liberal media's George Soros - the enigmatic billionaire pulling the strings of his evil conservative conspiracy.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Well, Soros does, in actual reality, fund and support the promotion of democracy and this has made him enemies amongst those who don't like that kind of thing. Theil and some of his buddies are on record as thinking that democracy is holding their libertarian dreams back, that it's incompatible with capitalism. And that generates pushback from those that prefer democracy. So, they do seem very neat opposites, but no need to assume it's all based on fairytales.
- briholt 9y ago
  This is a highly politicized and subjective use of the word "democracy." It would be more forthright to just say, "I like Soros's politics."
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Are you suggesting Soros doesn't promote democracy, or that Theil hasn't bemoaned democracy and suggested its incompatible with capitalism. Or both? I mean, just to avoid doubt, I do like democracy so to the degree that someone enables democracy then I do like their politics.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      I think it would be possible for two people to reasonably disagree over whether any given move "enables democracy" though. I don't have a good internalized list of the positions that Soros' critics take issue with, but looking at [0], I could see my way to arguing that lots of the issues either do or do not enable democracy, based on different initial assumptions. [0] http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_For_America http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_F...
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Well, yes I can see how "the demolition of technological/industrial civilization" might be considered anti-democratic but in fact, once Soros has destroyed industrial civilization, the remaining 12 humans alive will vote on everything so really it's a win for democracy. Or maybe we can find slightly less cranky sites to reference in our political discussions.
        InitialLastName 9y ago
        I was trying to track down an easy shot at a critical framing of his viewpoints. It's surprisingly hard to find people on the internet who criticize George Soros in a coherent and reasoned way.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        If you follow the source links from that page you do find a coherent and reasoned criticism of Soros. The authors don't want felons to vote, don't want poor people to vote, don't want African-Americans to vote etc. Soros funds efforts to make this happen. The Republican party on the other hand has aimed towards the opposite goal for decades and is on the record that they're doing it intentionally because the less people vote the more likely they are to win. So it's perfectly logical and rational, it's just anti-democratic. I mean are we all supposed to just pretend this stuff doesn't happen? There's been supreme court arguments about it, it's all on record.
throttledagain 9y ago
Not really. Liberals aren't really talking about grand conspiracies and the deep state and all that trash.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

Well, Soros does, in actual reality, fund and support the promotion of democracy and this has made him enemies amongst those who don't like that kind of thing. Theil and some of his buddies are on record as thinking that democracy is holding their libertarian dreams back, that it's incompatible with capitalism. And that generates pushback from those that prefer democracy. So, they do seem very neat opposites, but no need to assume it's all based on fairytales.

briholt 9y ago
This is a highly politicized and subjective use of the word "democracy." It would be more forthright to just say, "I like Soros's politics."
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Are you suggesting Soros doesn't promote democracy, or that Theil hasn't bemoaned democracy and suggested its incompatible with capitalism. Or both? I mean, just to avoid doubt, I do like democracy so to the degree that someone enables democracy then I do like their politics.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    I think it would be possible for two people to reasonably disagree over whether any given move "enables democracy" though. I don't have a good internalized list of the positions that Soros' critics take issue with, but looking at [0], I could see my way to arguing that lots of the issues either do or do not enable democracy, based on different initial assumptions. [0] http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_For_America http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_F...
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Well, yes I can see how "the demolition of technological/industrial civilization" might be considered anti-democratic but in fact, once Soros has destroyed industrial civilization, the remaining 12 humans alive will vote on everything so really it's a win for democracy. Or maybe we can find slightly less cranky sites to reference in our political discussions.
      - InitialLastName 9y ago
        I was trying to track down an easy shot at a critical framing of his viewpoints. It's surprisingly hard to find people on the internet who criticize George Soros in a coherent and reasoned way.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        If you follow the source links from that page you do find a coherent and reasoned criticism of Soros. The authors don't want felons to vote, don't want poor people to vote, don't want African-Americans to vote etc. Soros funds efforts to make this happen. The Republican party on the other hand has aimed towards the opposite goal for decades and is on the record that they're doing it intentionally because the less people vote the more likely they are to win. So it's perfectly logical and rational, it's just anti-democratic. I mean are we all supposed to just pretend this stuff doesn't happen? There's been supreme court arguments about it, it's all on record.

throttledagain 9y ago

Not really. Liberals aren't really talking about grand conspiracies and the deep state and all that trash.