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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

#251

Post by selimthegrim »

s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #169
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

He should be afforded some basic right to contribute to society - like managing a restaurant, or something. It is not appropriate for a former Neo-Nazi to receive state surveillance contracts. It is not appropriate for a former Neo-Nazi to be able to work with any kind of sensible data. Even if completely rehabilitated, their origins are - to my mind - treacherous.

*sensitive

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

#252

Post by selimthegrim »

yellowapple wrote: post #229
stareatgoats wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tarek Mehanna might benefit.

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

#253

Post by [deleted] »

ChrisCinelli wrote: post #192
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…

I met the guy probably in 2010-2012 at some social event where he was trying to recruit people. What I remember of him is that he said: "I used to do car racing. I run our company as a race team." Whatever it means... At that time Banjo was a social network that let you see where other people were. It was the time when privacy was dead. I think they may have pivot into news and then I lost track... Until today. When…

[deleted]

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

#254

Post by smt88 »

ChrisCinelli wrote: post #192
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…

I met the guy probably in 2010-2012 at some social event where he was trying to recruit people. What I remember of him is that he said: "I used to do car racing. I run our company as a race team." Whatever it means... At that time Banjo was a social network that let you see where other people were. It was the time when privacy was dead. I think they may have pivot into news and then I lost track... Until today. When…

> This is a vile attack to a person that seems to have reach some kind of success.

Is it a vile attack to just tell everyone, "Hey, this guy who has a sensitive govt surveillance contract shot up a synagogue with his skinhead gang and never went to prison for it"? Those are all facts. You perceive them as an attack because they reflect terrifying, repulsive behavior.

The alternative is not to report it because it makes him look bad, but... doesn't he deserve to look bad, especially if he didn't do any time in prison?

> I heard somebody says that in these days the standards are too high.

"You should not get a government contract if you were a dangerous skinhead" is not a high standard. Almost every human who has ever lived can meet this standard. I have personally found it incredibly easy to get through life's hardships without shooting at a synagogue. So have countless other people who would love the same contract this guy got.

> The world does not need more of that. It needs more compassion.

If you think compassion is finite, as some people do, then who should we spend it on? Should we lose sleep over ex-skinheads, or should we worry more about their intended victims?

I don't really see why we need to shed tears over people exposed for things they did. No one is smearing him -- just talking about what he did. People may change, but the facts of their life don't.

If you think compassion is infinite, then I'm not sure your suggestion makes sense anymore. If compassion were free, we would have more of it in the world.

> I believe people can change and I believe in forgiving those that try their best to become better human beings.

Absolutely! I agree 100%.

However, he continued hanging out with skinheads even after joining the military, and it's not really clear he feels remorse beyond the "I got caught and now I have to apologize" angle we're seeing in the news now.

Why hasn't he been working with anti-skinhead orgs? Why hasn't he written about his mistakes at length, like Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who was a Klansman and white supremacist as a younger man? Surely if a long-serving senator can rehab his public image, so can this guy.

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

#255

Post by ceilingcorner »

robocat wrote: post #205
ceilingcorner wrote: post #135

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 pos…

> I imagine he could have donated or helped the synagogue in an pseudonymous way How do you know he hasn’t donated anonymously? > Certainly the people he hurt would be far more willing to defend his rehabilitation now if he had done so. I think “I did some donations” would be perceived as self-serving, or would simply be cynically attacked. Your comments feel would be damned either way.

Now would be the time to mention that he’s been donating to the synagogue for X years. If donations are too cold and abstract, then starting an organization that fights hate, or somehow getting involved seems doable. He is a wealthy person and had the resources for it.

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

#256

Post by dang »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #112
dang wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Clearly" is an interesting word to use for something that you've imagined. The submission was "nuked" by user flags and the software known as the flamewar detector or overheated discussion detector.

I apologize for my assertion, however there is a decided lack of transparency around issues like this that definitely contributed to my thoughts on the topic. Not sure how to balance transparency on HN's moderation with the fact trolls and bad faith actors will abuse it.

Well, we're always happy to answer specific questions and there's no question we aren't willing to answer. In that sense we're pretty transparent. It's true that there's no facility that publishes a log of everything that happens, but that's for reasons I've discussed many times (and could probably dig up links to if you care).

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

#257

Post by yellowapple »

Pils wrote: post #247
yellowapple wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

> [citation needed] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_and_the_death_pe... . There are quite a few under-18 cases. > "the pursuit of happiness" (one of the three inalienable rights upon which my country was founded) inalienable rights are, by definition, forfeitable in the cases where one's actions violate another person's or group's inalienable rights. Shooting up a synagogue qualifies as one such action. >…

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_and_the_death_pe.... There are quite a few under-18 cases.

Per the article: "No one was struck or killed in the shooting."

So again, [citation needed] about people committing the "exact same" crime being on death row, given that the crime described in the article is far below the bar necessary to warrant capital punishment.

> let me state that I find it incredible that many people such as yourself believe that the CEO of a multimillion dollar company, who participated in a violent hate crime and avoided the consequences of his actions due to a sympathetic court and typo, is the victim in this whole affair.

And let me state that I find it incredible that many people such as yourself believe that people (especially teenagers) can't be victims of indoctrination, can't possibly feel genuine remorse for their mistakes as teenagers, and must be deprived of their rights forever because of those mistakes. I don't give the slightest sliver of a damn whether he's a CEO or a cashier. Morality is morality.

Comparing a crime that resulted in zero injuries or deaths to two men beating someone to death face-to-face is nonsensical. We can possibly argue intent (i.e. did Patton et. al. intend to actually kill people inside the synagogue), but it should be entirely unsurprising that someone who neither injured or killed someone went relatively unpunished due to said lack of injury or death, especially given that he was willing to plead guilty and testify against the other perpetrators.

Patton still did a shitty thing, but we have every indication that in the 30 years since then he's turned his life around and is genuine in his remorse. If there was evidence he continued to fraternize with skinheads even after that trial, especially recently, then by all means it's reasonable to be skeptical, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

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

#259

Post by yellowapple »

selimthegrim wrote: post #252
yellowapple wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Tarek Mehanna might benefit.

Indeed. The situation's a little bit different - the alleged crimes happened somewhat more recently, and he was a couple years older than Patton was when he traveled to Yemen - but I'd be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, I'm just a random citizen with effectively no power to help, so that's probably cold comfort for him.

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

#260

Post by mikekchar »

weare138 wrote: post #206
canadaduane wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought a lot about this. I think there is actually a form of manipulation / abuse that makes a leader objectively GOOD at their job. They become successful, wealthy, etc. That said, that form of leadership has costs. I think there are other modes of leadership that can be even better (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teal_organisation ) and that's what many company cultures are trying to cultivate.

> I think there is actually a form of manipulation / abuse that makes a leader objectively GOOD at their job. Based on my experience, I'm more inclined to think the inverse it true. Those types of leaders are actually pretty bad at their jobs but appear subjectively good through manipulation and abuse.

I'll be honest. I like working in companies where the top executives are good at making money. Sometimes that coincides with working for people who treat others terribly, but are good at extracting money out of situations. I often wonder if certain people I've worked for are actually bad at their job. You've got survivor bias, so the fact that the company is successful is not necessarily due to the actions of the management. However I have to say that I've seen a really impressive number of situations where I think management has made the most incredible cock-ups and yet end up with considerably more money than they started with. I'm left with the impression that I'm actually a poor judge of what makes a good senior executive.
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