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CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

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Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#131

Post by Spooky23 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #105
koheripbal wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to make that assumption if you haven't lived in those worlds yourself and only consume social media to give you an impression of what those communities are like. You might be surprised, but the vast majority of law enforcement officers and soldiers are not, at all, racist.

>You might be surprised, but the vast majority of law enforcement officers and soldiers are not, at all, racist. Both have substantial ties to white nationalism, and neither have a reputation for helping people move past such racist views. Everyone involved doesn't need to be racist, somebody that already has connections to the KKK would find plenty of like minds.

Police and soldiers more commonly in my observation develop a type of cynicism or nihilism.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#132

Post by kstrauser »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #78
forgot_user1234 wrote: post #24

When reached for comment, Patton wrote: "32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my…

>Eventually, I was able to get myself away from this world while serving in the United States Navy. This turned my life around. While serving my country, I worked with law enforcement agencies in hate group prosecutions and left this world behind "The US Navy and law enforcement freed me from my racist past" is a bit difficult to believe.

It's really hard to be racist when your boss is Filipino and your coworker (who outranks you) is black and you're stuck in a small room with them all day long. You see pretty quickly that everyone is fundamentally the same and we all want the same things. Prejudice has a hard time surviving a strong dose of reality.

Sure, there are racists in the military, just like with every given set of people you could care to name. The Navy absolutely does not put up with it, though, and it's a career-ending mistake to act on any of those leanings.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#133

Post by illumin8 »

contemporary343 wrote: post #116

"Typos on records connected to Brown and Armstrong’s case — first a misspelling of Patton’s first name, Damien, as “Damion” in an initial affidavit of probable cause; then, in subsequent filings, spelling Damien as “Damian” — have helped prevent the discovery of Patton’s full biography for the past 30 years." How remarkably lucky for him. It is striking that such luck, and second chances, are rarely afforded young me…

Agreed. This hate crime was committed 1 month from his 18th birthday. A defendant that wasn't white would have been tried as an adult and thrown in jail for years.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#134

Post by wmichelin »

Pils wrote: post #126
forgot_user1234 wrote: post #24

When reached for comment, Patton wrote: "32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my…

or, more simply, "I'm sorry I got caught" Look, the man participated in a drive-by shooting on a synagogue when he was a legal adult. It's disgusting that people on this site are defending a literal terrorist because "he's one of our own."

Is it so unrealistic to think that an abused child would fall into a world of hate? Yes, participating in a drive-by shooting is absolutely horrible, but if he paid his dues to society through our legal system, why should this man be unable to run a business?

He clearly shows remorse for his hatred. I am not defending nazism in the least, but I think "cancelling" someone who made absolutely terrible decisions as a literal child is not a healthy way for our society to operate.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#135

Post by ceilingcorner »

Tough situation. I can understand him trying to hide the mistakes in his youth. I certainly wouldn’t want to be haunted by whatever idiotic things I did or said as a kid, although they definitely were nowhere near what this guy was doing.

Admitting such things before building a career would instantly be a non-starter. I also think as a society we have to acknowledge that rehabilitation and forgiveness needs to be possible, especially for mistakes we make as kids. The mob seems to want people like this to be disappeared, which is unfortunate for a country so influenced by Christianity, in which forgiveness is a prime value.

On the other hand, this guy seems to have really been a subscriber to some bad, dangerous ideas, and more importantly, he doesn’t seem to have done much to atone for it. Donating to the synagogue, getting involved with the community or somehow seeking forgiveness by acknowledging his mistakes would have been better than just hiding it.

He didn’t need to do anything public that would dig up the past either: I imagine he could have donated or helped the synagogue in an pseudonymous way. Certainly the people he hurt would be far more willing to defend his rehabilitation now if he had done so.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#136

Post by maerF0x0 »

rvp-x wrote: post #123
koheripbal wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He joined the navy at 18, in 1991 - immediately after getting off the street and out of the gang. Did you expect his transformation to be instantaneous?

A bigger question is how is one allowed to join the navy after taking part in a racially motivated drive-by shooting?

and it's follow up is how can a remorseful person make amends and resume normality? I'd argue if there is no path back to normality they they will, by definition, forever find fringe behavior necessary and rational

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#137

Post by dang »

koheripbal wrote: post #101
stephenhuey wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine to point out it’s questionable. Both of you were just throwing at one-liners with no substance like you’re fighting on a playground. I rarely downvote and thought about downvoting him but I decided to search to see what he might be talking about. You didn’t even look at my links, otherwise you would’ve known the first one was talking about a DNA study. Yes, as far as I can see it was very much up in the air…

> Both of you were just throwing at one-liners with no substance Welcome to HN - the new Reddit.

Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html to the end.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#138

Post by kstrauser »

iamleppert wrote: post #118

Once a nazi, always a nazi.

That's an incredibly dangerous mentality, as it tells people currently in those situations that all is lost and that they can never participate in the rest of society again, so why bother? I think it's important to give sincere people a path to redemption, not because I have any sympathy for nazis, but because I want to have fewer of them around.

Really, you could say the same about criminals, drug dealers, gang members, and anyone else with a terrible back story. I want those people to get out of those lifestyles and become productive contributors to civil society. If we tell them they're beyond hope, then their numbers can only increase over time as people join but then never leave.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#139

Post by linuxftw »

e5india wrote: post #125

It's so interesting how these surveillance/data-gathering companies (Palantir, Banjo, Anduril) are founded by right-wing types. Professed small government libertarians building that very same government's intelligence apparatus for profit. It's exactly this double-speak on government and individual liberty that makes minorities distrustful of conservatives.

> right-wing types

What you perceive to be the right wing, possibly. Some would call these types 'Neocons' or 'RHINOs' implying they're not actually conservative, they're authoritarian statists. This is why there was the 'tea party' deal a few years ago.

Many people actually do believe in smaller government and individual liberty, but the media likes to point out the crazies and the statists as proof that all 'conservatives' are bad, immoral people. So far, their propaganda is working.

Edit: Spelling

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#140

Post by erdos4d »

e5india wrote: post #125

It's so interesting how these surveillance/data-gathering companies (Palantir, Banjo, Anduril) are founded by right-wing types. Professed small government libertarians building that very same government's intelligence apparatus for profit. It's exactly this double-speak on government and individual liberty that makes minorities distrustful of conservatives.

Small-government libertarians in my experience are really ok with big-defense. They are the sort who fund NSA and it's incessant attempts to vacuum up all internet data, spy on all people, etc. They rarely understand that those same powers might be turned against us all as easily as flipping a switch. It is a blindness that has always baffled me, especially since we have more proof everyday that that switch has already been flipped.
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