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…
Of course; what upsets people (you included, probably?) is the hypocrisy and rationalization. For his friend, Altman is willing to throw all principles and grand declarations about "no asshole policy" through the window. In a way it's charming; in another way, it's hard to fathom.
If anyone on HN said 1 thousandth of what Trump says everyday, they would get banned. But giving $1M to his campaign so that he can continue saying those same things, that's totally fine.