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He is not disgraced for his political beliefs, but because he was caught red-handed involved in government corruption and political meddling by foreign nations[

He is not disgraced for his political beliefs, but because he was caught red-handed involved in government corruption and political meddling by foreign nations[1]. [1] Short summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair

coolso 5y ago
Wasn’t the current President involved in some pretty shady stuff involving him, his son, and jobs from foreign countries which the media pretty much swept under the rug?
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  There is a boatload of evidence that Hunter Biden is a shady grifter, but I don't think there is anything pointing to the President.
- midasuni 5y ago
  Don’t know much about Van der Bellen, do you have any links?
- stefan_ 5y ago
  It's hard to tell, the old man gives the impression of being about as clued in as a 86 year old von Hindenburg.
  - karpour 5y ago
    Van der Bellen is doing a great job and has great approval ratings. Also the role of President in Austria is vastly different than the role of President in the U.S. Usually the Austrian president appoints a new cabinet and dissolves it after the regular period (or this year several times, thanks to our corrupt chancellor)
- loudmax 5y ago
  With a two party system, the choice is between the lesser of two evils.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pstuart 5y ago
  If you have concerns based solely upon party affiliation then your concerns are suspect.
  - coolso 5y ago
    If the media sweeps things under the rug and looks the other way solely upon party affiliation then isn’t that of everyone’s concern?
    - pstuart 5y ago
      I'm going to try and engage in good faith, can you do the same? Disclaimer: I voted for Biden but only because I felt like he was the least-worst option. I am no fan of political parties but affiliate with one of them because they ostensibly represent a decent cross-section of my values. I'd be more than happy to point out their flaws another time. Hunter Biden clearly had no qualifications for the BOD role other than his last name. That part would be a challenge to disprove and and I'm not going to make such a claim. But what that apparently purchased is not clear to me, and I'm not willing to go through Infowars level of "intelligence" to try and decipher. The politics in that sector were dirty AF and I've not seen anything to date that shows the corruption went to his father. But since we're using the word "corruption" and discussing the office of the President, it would be fair to ask the same probing questions of his predecessor. So do you have any qualms about that man? The one who has volumes of questionable legal behavior documented well before he took office? If the answer is no, then we're done here -- I have to save energy to "debate" with my anti-vaxxer uncle. If yes, then please demonstrate you care about corruption regardless of party line.
      - CalChris 5y ago
        Hunter Biden is a Yale Law grad and was nominated to the Amtrak board by George Bush. He's a lobbyist and investor. He's exactly the kind of person you'd expect on this sort of board.
        pstuart 5y ago
misslibby 5y ago
Is there more to it, because from that wikipedia site it sounds as if he wasn't actually involved?
- stefan_ 5y ago
  Well, the FPÖ was half of his cabinet. No, what brought him down specifically was his party lieutenants paying a fake researcher (Sabine Beinschab) with state money for fake survey results benefiting Kurz, then paying news media some more out of state coffers to place those surveys. With his full knowledge as proven through text messages, of course.
- lambdasquirrel 5y ago
  I think there's a bit more to it. Kurz decided to form a coalition government with the politicians involved – i.e. the far-right party in Austria. Keep in mind, in Germany, none of the other parties have been willing to form a coalition government with Germany's respective far-right party, the AfD. This has effectively shut out the AfD from having any actual influence in the government, despite having a sizable minority in Thuringia and Saxony.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    But that in itself should not be "falling from grace", neither should be forming coalitions with the AfD - it would just be democracy. Of course it would be unforgivable in the eyes of some people, but that goes for many things. I personally find coalitions with socialists unforgivable, but the other parties in Germany have no issues with it, and no media outlets spin it into a scandal.
    - neuronic 5y ago
      AfD are literal fascists, there is nothing democratic about them. NSDAP was also democratically voted into the Parlament… only to disassemble it.
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
anonuser123456 5y ago
Your link, and its supporting sources does not make it so clear cut that he was 'caught red-handed'. In fact, it seems to be that he was setup and news papers that reported on the issue were not perfectly honest brokers of the information. https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article214060112/Ibiza-Video-Neue-Sequenzen-koennten-Strache-entlasten.html https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article214060112/Ibiza-V... One can imagine Peter Thiel having sympathy for such an individual.
freyr 5y ago
OP is almost certainly talking about Thiel, not Kurz. Thiel is a libertarian, and is ostracized by many in tech for rejecting the tenets of Bay Area progressivism. Kurz is not, as far as I can tell, a libertarian.
- wavefunction 5y ago
  I can't speak to whether he's been ostracized for rejecting the tenets of Bay Area progressivism but he has expressed extreme political stances that lead people of all kinds to question his character. For example Thiel has expressed his desire that the right of women to vote be revoked. Disenfranchising adult women's right to vote on the basis of their gender is an attack on fundamental human rights.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    It doesn't sound as if he was proposing to remove women's right to vote, according to this article (first hit in search): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_n_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_n... "It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better." Nevertheless it should be possible to discuss the results of giving women the right to vote. The main difference from state of affairs before that presumably being that people got to vote on things they did not have direct stakes in. Or to give a modern example: afaik more women are opposed to abortion than men, so giving women the right the vote makes it less likely that abortion is legalized. At least some people would consider that a negative outcome.
    - tartoran 5y ago
      > more women are opposed to abortion than men Source please?
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
karpour 5y ago
You're sharing the wrong story. This is about the corruption scandal of H.C. Strache. Of course Kurz was in the government with the extreme right party back then, but this was not the cause for his downfall. (Though it was reason for one of several times the government was dissolved recently)

coolso 5y ago

Wasn’t the current President involved in some pretty shady stuff involving him, his son, and jobs from foreign countries which the media pretty much swept under the rug?

anonuser123456 5y ago
There is a boatload of evidence that Hunter Biden is a shady grifter, but I don't think there is anything pointing to the President.
midasuni 5y ago
Don’t know much about Van der Bellen, do you have any links?
stefan_ 5y ago
It's hard to tell, the old man gives the impression of being about as clued in as a 86 year old von Hindenburg.
- karpour 5y ago
  Van der Bellen is doing a great job and has great approval ratings. Also the role of President in Austria is vastly different than the role of President in the U.S. Usually the Austrian president appoints a new cabinet and dissolves it after the regular period (or this year several times, thanks to our corrupt chancellor)
loudmax 5y ago
With a two party system, the choice is between the lesser of two evils.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pstuart 5y ago
If you have concerns based solely upon party affiliation then your concerns are suspect.
- coolso 5y ago
  If the media sweeps things under the rug and looks the other way solely upon party affiliation then isn’t that of everyone’s concern?
  - pstuart 5y ago
    I'm going to try and engage in good faith, can you do the same? Disclaimer: I voted for Biden but only because I felt like he was the least-worst option. I am no fan of political parties but affiliate with one of them because they ostensibly represent a decent cross-section of my values. I'd be more than happy to point out their flaws another time. Hunter Biden clearly had no qualifications for the BOD role other than his last name. That part would be a challenge to disprove and and I'm not going to make such a claim. But what that apparently purchased is not clear to me, and I'm not willing to go through Infowars level of "intelligence" to try and decipher. The politics in that sector were dirty AF and I've not seen anything to date that shows the corruption went to his father. But since we're using the word "corruption" and discussing the office of the President, it would be fair to ask the same probing questions of his predecessor. So do you have any qualms about that man? The one who has volumes of questionable legal behavior documented well before he took office? If the answer is no, then we're done here -- I have to save energy to "debate" with my anti-vaxxer uncle. If yes, then please demonstrate you care about corruption regardless of party line.
    - CalChris 5y ago
      Hunter Biden is a Yale Law grad and was nominated to the Amtrak board by George Bush. He's a lobbyist and investor. He's exactly the kind of person you'd expect on this sort of board.
      - pstuart 5y ago

misslibby 5y ago

Is there more to it, because from that wikipedia site it sounds as if he wasn't actually involved?

stefan_ 5y ago
Well, the FPÖ was half of his cabinet. No, what brought him down specifically was his party lieutenants paying a fake researcher (Sabine Beinschab) with state money for fake survey results benefiting Kurz, then paying news media some more out of state coffers to place those surveys. With his full knowledge as proven through text messages, of course.
lambdasquirrel 5y ago
I think there's a bit more to it. Kurz decided to form a coalition government with the politicians involved – i.e. the far-right party in Austria. Keep in mind, in Germany, none of the other parties have been willing to form a coalition government with Germany's respective far-right party, the AfD. This has effectively shut out the AfD from having any actual influence in the government, despite having a sizable minority in Thuringia and Saxony.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  But that in itself should not be "falling from grace", neither should be forming coalitions with the AfD - it would just be democracy. Of course it would be unforgivable in the eyes of some people, but that goes for many things. I personally find coalitions with socialists unforgivable, but the other parties in Germany have no issues with it, and no media outlets spin it into a scandal.
  - neuronic 5y ago
    AfD are literal fascists, there is nothing democratic about them. NSDAP was also democratically voted into the Parlament… only to disassemble it.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

anonuser123456 5y ago

Your link, and its supporting sources does not make it so clear cut that he was 'caught red-handed'. In fact, it seems to be that he was setup and news papers that reported on the issue were not perfectly honest brokers of the information. https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article214060112/Ibiza-Video-Neue-Sequenzen-koennten-Strache-entlasten.html https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article214060112/Ibiza-V... One can imagine Peter Thiel having sympathy for such an individual.

freyr 5y ago

OP is almost certainly talking about Thiel, not Kurz. Thiel is a libertarian, and is ostracized by many in tech for rejecting the tenets of Bay Area progressivism. Kurz is not, as far as I can tell, a libertarian.

wavefunction 5y ago
I can't speak to whether he's been ostracized for rejecting the tenets of Bay Area progressivism but he has expressed extreme political stances that lead people of all kinds to question his character. For example Thiel has expressed his desire that the right of women to vote be revoked. Disenfranchising adult women's right to vote on the basis of their gender is an attack on fundamental human rights.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  It doesn't sound as if he was proposing to remove women's right to vote, according to this article (first hit in search): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_n_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_n... "It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better." Nevertheless it should be possible to discuss the results of giving women the right to vote. The main difference from state of affairs before that presumably being that people got to vote on things they did not have direct stakes in. Or to give a modern example: afaik more women are opposed to abortion than men, so giving women the right the vote makes it less likely that abortion is legalized. At least some people would consider that a negative outcome.
  - tartoran 5y ago
    > more women are opposed to abortion than men Source please?
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

karpour 5y ago

You're sharing the wrong story. This is about the corruption scandal of H.C. Strache. Of course Kurz was in the government with the extreme right party back then, but this was not the cause for his downfall. (Though it was reason for one of several times the government was dissolved recently)