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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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone verify that he actually has a "Jewish mother?"

Claiming to have a Jewish mother (and thus being considered Jewish by pretty much everyone else, regardless of how you self-identify) does it for me. You call yourself a Jew? You're welcome. There are way more people shunning their Jewish identity, but I've never met someone pretending to be Jewish.

I'm sure there are interesting counterexamples here but all I can think of is the anti-dentite episode of Seinfeld :)...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yada_Yada

I guess (anecdotally/hearsay) at least one person has done it to get a free birthright trip?

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/i-pretended-to-be-jewish/

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone verify that he actually has a "Jewish mother?"

Claiming to have a Jewish mother (and thus being considered Jewish by pretty much everyone else, regardless of how you self-identify) does it for me. You call yourself a Jew? You're welcome. There are way more people shunning their Jewish identity, but I've never met someone pretending to be Jewish.

But this is a great time to play a card like this, it sells a narrative of reconciliation and "acceptance of who I really am". Don't you see? He was attacking himself - he's both the perpetrator and the victim!

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

#223
post #195
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that, but would you extend that sympathy to e.g. people running for political office?

Yes? I do not see why that would be different.

I also agree, but it's a crazy world we live in and I don't know if most people feel the same when it's pointed towards a political opponent. We think the current President did questionable things in his past, but imagine what kind of dirty laundry will be revealed looking farther out into the future in the age of total & instant information... The entire life of future politicians from the time they were wearing diapers through adulthood will be documented in HD, geographically tracked, word-for-word. It will be interesting!

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why they're down-voting you. I'm at least concerned that someone with that kind of past has anything to do with building such sensitive and influential law enforcement infrastructure. I don't know what his current state of mind is and I believe in second chances but this kind of history should disqualify you from at least some types of sensitive roles.

> I believe in second chances but this kind of history should disqualify you from at least some types of sensitive roles. What exactly do you think a second chance is?

A second chance doesn't have to be perfect, it might just mean you can survive. How many people have gone to prison for much lesser crimes, like marijuana possession, and then become a millionaire? Not many, most just work shit jobs to survive. He was lucky, but doesn't have any right to his second chance.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One way a sincere ex-neo Nazi could return to normality is by ceasing to socialize with active neo Nazis. That was not the case here. From the above quote regarding his seeking out and spending time with the same white supremacists: "I ended up meeting with them..." How does one "end up" meeting with neo Nazis? He fails to take responsibility for his behavior after his hate crimes conviction!

[deleted]

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

#226
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

Lets be clear, he showed remorse once he was caught, but none before then. What dues did he pay? He appears to have moved on from that stage of his life fairly quickly, and appears to never have been rejected employment/housing via background checks due to a technicality. There are men on death row who committed the exact same crime. I disagree with your second paragraph entirely. I do not want to live in a society w…

> There are men on death row who committed the exact same crime.

[citation needed]. There are very few crimes eligible for capital punishment in the United States, and neither juvenile delinquency nor property damage are among them, even if ethnically motivated and/or involving a firearm.

> I do not want to live in a society where CEOs of multimillion dollar companies have indiscriminately shot up places of worship when they were 17 years old.

I do not want to live in a society where teenagers are prevented from "the pursuit of happiness" (one of the three inalienable rights upon which my country was founded) for the rest of their lives simply because they were victims of white supremacist grooming/brainwashing.

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

#227
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Republican party is powerful in this country, most of all because it is a single beast where every member from the highest to the lowest office tows the party line. I know of another party that operates in a similar fashion. > Fiscally, every R in DC is a neoconservative No argument here. But we were talking about 'conservatives' rather than a particular political party. Parties have done a great job at brandin…

I'm with you on the military. I think its the biggest waste of budget we have, personally. Vietnam should have been the death knell of an overinflated military seeing as we failed to subdue farmers with rusty weapons, and continue to fail against farmers with 50 year old weaponry today. At least with the democrats there is a lot more heterogeneity in political opinion, although I'm jaded by the lack of imagination fr…

While spending is an important part of being against war, it's not really the leading reason. Vietnam did change a lot. No more graphic reporting, no more hard hitting journalism after that. The Pentagon approves which reporters get to embed and how the story is going to go. The only real reporting now is from leaked footage of war crimes that we through someone in prison for.

> Nationally, Bloomberg was sort of a DINO candidate.

I don't agree. I think he's the prototypical national Democrat. Rich, well connected, wants to expand state powers. Supports well fare and broad taxation, supports war.

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

#228
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets be clear, he showed remorse once he was caught, but none before then. What dues did he pay? He appears to have moved on from that stage of his life fairly quickly, and appears to never have been rejected employment/housing via background checks due to a technicality. There are men on death row who committed the exact same crime. I disagree with your second paragraph entirely. I do not want to live in a society w…

So what do you do with those people who did do those despicable things as teens? I don't just mean this, but any reprehensible action. I think obviously we can maybe keep them from getting any kind of comfortable jobs, keep them doing drudge work. But even then, do you really want a neo-nazi cleaning your toilets? No, that's not good enough. We need to round them up and contain them somewhere. Their remorse can't be…

It's interesting that you bring this up, considering we've placed people into camps for far less (such as the crime of 'crossing the borders'), not to mention the hardline stance we've taken against MS-13 including things such as deporting teenagers whom gave us information on MS-13 and were undoubtedly marked for death.

Can you tell me what the difference is between a neo-nazi gang and MS-13 and why one gets crocodile tears while the other has the book thrown at them?

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

I agree. At the same time I wonder if you would extend the same empathy towards a reformed jihadist? Or if you would, if it would receive the same up-votes here and elsewhere. It's certainly not an easy task, being the harbinger of universal forgiveness and second chances.

> At the same time I wonder if you would extend the same empathy towards a reformed jihadist?

I definitely would.

On that note, you'd might be surprised by the degree to which "jihadist" and "neo-Nazi" overlap, especially when the latter's of the Christian fundamentalist flavor; the Venn diagram more often than not ends up looking like a slightly-out-of-focus circle.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

There are many literal children in jail, seriously injured, closed out from future gainful employment or dead for doing far less.

Indeed. I'd personally rather reduce that number instead of increase it, though.
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