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What Thiel means by “libertarian” is that he wants to be able to do whatever he wants without anyone constraining his actions in any way; here “libertarian” is
by jacobolus 5y ago
What Thiel means by “libertarian” is that he wants to be able to do whatever he wants without anyone constraining his actions in any way; here “libertarian” is more or less a euphemism for “antisocial narcissist”.
He wants to bring his preferred racist, authoritarian, reactionary government to unchecked power so they can dismantle those parts of the state or any other social institutions which protect the disempowered from corporate abuses, without any care for the rights and lives of millions of less wealthy and connected people that get trampled in the process.
What we are talking about here: corrupting elected officials, the civil service, and the judiciary; undermining elections and nullifying their results; diverting public money and property into private hands; erecting barriers to competitive markets to entrench the power of the already powerful; turning law enforcement against peaceful dissenters; encouraging the use of private political violence and threats of political violence as a tool to suppress dissent; etc.
- systemvoltage 5y agoI've probably heard every single interview of his - I completely disagree with your charaterization or rather mischaracterization of him. If anything he wants to bring prosperity by various means and lift the lower classes into a productive society. Absolutely zero hint of any white supremacy or racism. Can you point me to a thing he wrote or spoke to support your accusations? I almost guarantee, you won't be able to. What have you been reading?
- jacobolus 5y agoI don’t know whether he ever said anything that was carelessly blatantly racist: I haven’t been hanging on his every word, and he’s somewhat cautious and not an idiot. But he keeps dumping millions of dollars to support nativist white supremacist liars like Kris Kobach and Donald Trump. In this election cycle his biggest beneficiaries are all-in on building a border wall with Mexico and stripping rights from Latin American immigrants, preventing immigration from Muslim-majority nations, harassing Chinese living in the US, violating the sovereignty of indigenous American tribes, preventing or rendering useless the votes of Latinos and African Americans, etc. I don’t know if Thiel is personally a racist. I think it’s more likely he’s just an opportunist angling for personal profit who sees supporting racists and racist policies as a winning bet. A web search turns up https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/what-is-it-about-peter-thiel https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/wh... – that probably does a better job than anyone will manage in a tiny comment here of probing Thiel’s motives.
- systemvoltage 5y agoI was asking for a direct quote, not a left wing magazine article that is biased. You owe it to yourself to listen to him!
- jmeister 5y agoForget it Jake, it’s Chinatown. It’s impossible to discuss non-left politics on HN.