281–290 of 1001 posts
Marcos understanding of this situation is extremely telling for a fundamental problem with many americans relationship with politics. Most only get involved around election. After that their political interest is non existing. It's easy to get lured into the idea that politics is a simple choice between the moral good and the moral bad, that the choice is simple and that there is a one to one relationship between wha…
That is in fact not a fundamental principle of democracy. There is no work of political philosophy anywhere that suggests we should be able to say whatever we'd like "without fear of repercussions". What is a principle of liberal philosophy, though, is that we should be tolerant of the beliefs of others (in the sense of not intervening to suppress them), including intolerant beliefs, until those intolerant beliefs th…
Its called freedom of speech/expression. Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights uses very similar words
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference..."
The idea is pretty traceable through the middle ages with also reference to ancient greece and rome often given. However it holds less weight now as it has been brought to bear by problematic issues of slander/libel and also threats of violence particularly but also by state issues (sedition/blasphemy/obscenity/state secrets etc.). Today even pure 'offense' is more and more considered outside of freedom of expression.
Probably the truest implementation however is in english parliament which has had defined freedom of speech dating back to their middle ages bill of rights. This hasnt been fettered in the same way.
So the question is where you put Donald Trump on that spectrum. Personally, I think he's much closer to an authoritarian populist than to a regular politician.
You may disagree with Trump's placement on that axis, but I find it very strange to see so many people in this thread arguing that punishing someone for their political position is always wrong, no matter how vile or dangerous said political position is.
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I'm deeply uncomfortable with the narrative where support for Trump is a basis for excluding a person from discussion and employment. He's a major party candidate, supported (if sometimes disliked) by roughly half the population. That's not a number of people you can fire or silence! The usual argument runs that this time is unique, that Trump has embraced racism and violence and his major-party status should not bur…
Nobody is suggesting excluding Trump supporters from employment.
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Genuine questions here: Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates? If so, how is this not spending money (paper, ink, time) to influence elections? If not, how is this not an unacceptable limitation on free speech? And, (to address a common objection to this line of reasoning), if "bona fide media organizations" get special free speech protections not available to the rest of us, who deci…
Before this goes on too long, I'd like to stress that I don't have all the perfect answers in life. I don't think my views are perfect, but they are what I believe. I know that often, how things 'should' be require laws that are basically impossible to write. But I really don't think I am being that unreasonable to say there's something grossly unfair about one person being able to pour in millions of dollars into an…
If we had wise angels permanently running the government, we could dispose of many precautions. But, since we don't, we should try to have laws where we would be safe from oppression even if our worst enemy took power.
People here defending the donation need to remember that Brandon Eich was let go for much less.
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`Supporting` someone who supports Trump? You do realize he's not their employee, he's wealthy, and most certainly wouldn't change his mind if YC or all of you disagreed with him, right? This is all political/"moral outrage" theater.
Only if you presume the point is to change Thiel's mind - which it clearly isn't.
I don't wanna see this crap in my HN.
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What are Trump and Thiel if not "elites"? So it seems the elites are campaigning against each other.
At times I've suspected this entire cacophony of anti-Trump vitriol was just a ploy to convince the plebes that he isn't one of TPTB... What would really change under Trump? Coke and Pepsi taste the same to me.