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Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

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Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#751

Post by grzm »

lightcatcher wrote: post #734
Jtsummers wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Seems a bit strong to tell someone what they can and can't say. 2) He didn't get half the country to vote for him. It looks like around 55-60% of voters turned out this year (the whole tally isn't calculated yet). Of those, he got less than 50% (as Clinton got more votes than him). So at best he seems to have gotten around 30% of the voters to vote for him. Not everyone is a voter (age, other disqualifying factors…

> So at best he seems to have gotten around 30% of the voters to vote for him. What do you mean by this exactly? Trump lost the popular election with 47.5% support to Clinton's 47.7%. How did you come up with the "around 30%" figure?

Perhaps that's looking at the number of eligible voters, rather than a percentage of actual votes cast.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/eligible-voter-turnout-for-201...

231,556,622 eligible voters

59,791,135 for Trump (25.8%)

60,071,781 for Clinton (25.9%)

I just grabbed the first website in the search results that had numbers, which are based on projections. I'm not standing behind their accuracy (I don't even recognize the site), but I have no reason to suspect they'd be purposefully wrong. And we're talking ballpark figures anyway.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#752

Post by return0 »

hamax wrote: post #741
return0 wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: libel laws, europe has much much stricter libel laws than US, i don't think they are controlling what we say.

I'm not against stricter libel laws. I think speech should have limitations. And not just in cases of libel. But I also don't think that liberals and "SJW" are controlling what we say. I was just trying to point out the double standard in the post I was addressing.

well, you did say that he wants to control what you can say by opening up libel laws

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#753

Post by dbmikus »

masondixon wrote: post #717
prairiedogg wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok - thanks for clarifying. I don't think that this assertion strengthens an argument that voting for Trump is better than voting for any other candidate. I would argue that someone who does not have experience in public office should not be considered a viable candidate for president of the United States, much as I believe that someone who has not driven a car before should not be considered to be a driver in the In…

> does not have experience in public office Reagan didn't. They can just surround themselves with people who know. I think its good though. The longer you spend in politics, the more favours you owe people. Political capital. Don't you get excited at the prospect of a leader not beholden to any special interests at all? > Is that a fair characterization of our positions based on this limited conversation? In terms of…

Reagan did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#Early_political_...

And then he became governor of California before becoming president.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#754

Post by [deleted] »

mason240 wrote: post #694
mch82 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muslims often say: "Stop calling all of us terrorists and stop saying Islam encourages terrorism because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your understanding of terrorism is flawed." Can you recognize the parallel between your statement and the one I've paraphrased above?

Can you?

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#755

Post by josho »

BurningFrog wrote: post #724
dev1n wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when you are getting strong-armed by the likes of Putin. I can only imagine how Trumps "business-sense" will fail him upon entering Beijing, much like Bush and Clinton failed to keep their resounding statements of "strategic competitors" and "butchers of Beijing"[1] after arriving during their respective terms. Trump has even less foreign policy acumen than the other two and I can only imagine he will bow down to…

> I can only imagine he will bow down to both Russian and Chinese demands My worry is the opposite. Trump's style is furious counter attack at the slightest provocation. That's obnoxious when you're a jerk billionaire. It's more serious when you control the deadliest military machine in history.

An NPR politics podcast had mentioned that Trump always responds to the last statement from the other side, even if it's irrelevant to the rest of the statement. Clinton leveraged that during the debates.

I can imagine foreign diplomats quickly catching onto this and using it to their advantage in discussions.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#756

Post by mch82 »

masondixon wrote: post #701
mch82 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muslims often say: "Stop calling all of us terrorists and stop saying Islam encourages terrorism because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your understanding of terrorism is flawed." Can you recognize the parallel between your statement and the one I've paraphrased above?

But the punch line to my statement was: "Then we win the election because you missed the point." As in, ignore the message at your own peril, we don't have to care because we are content now. But in the Muslim's case, the implications for us ignoring their message are more profiling, xenophobia, etc. Which is why I would argue they need to look internally to resolve the issues inside their communities.

Except that the Trump administration is who will be doing that additional profiling and exhibiting xenophobia.

That makes Trump's administration racist and makes the people who voted for Trump seem to appear racist. Though, as we've agreed, most of them aren't.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#757

Post by mtw »

masondixon wrote: post #575

A huge issue today is the lack of calm, reasoned debate. As a Trump supporter I have never been able to properly explain the rationale to a liberal. I believe there is a worthy debate beneath all the political smear, but it is never reached. I believe the reason for this is the liberal media and the incredibly effective Democratic party election machine. The argument stays at the high level of "how could you vote for…

So how can you explain the rationale?

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#758

Post by masondixon »

mch82 wrote: post #652
masondixon wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever had explained the liberal rationale to you and did you understand it? My Medium daily update newsletter is full of feminist, progressive, black lives matter articles. I read all of them. I read all the comments on Reddit, and on HN. Everything is labelled as racism and misogynistic and full of vitriol. There is no priority on sound and valid argument. Its all about feelings. Maybe I live in a filter b…

Is it fair to acknowledge that the feelings expressed in the articles you reference are valid feelings and feel true to the people who share them? Edit: Is it fair to acknowledge that the people of the United States have a history of discriminating against minorities?

> Is it fair to acknowledge that the feelings expressed in the articles you reference are valid feelings and feel true to the people who share them?

Yep!

These sensitivities are learned though. And being overly sensitive is bad for social cohesion.

A certain discipline needs to be enforced to allow society function.

The right is about tough love. The left is about coddling.

This is entirely 100% debatable though. This is the debate that should be happening IMHO. What are the side-effects if no one has to feel a bad feeling or ever be offended.

> Edit: Is it fair to acknowledge that the people of the United States have a history of discriminating against minorities?

Absolutely. But not for a long time.

We had a black president. A female can extremely close to becoming the president. Etc. Etc.

To argue that the system is against you because of your race is a hard argument to swallow now.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#759

Post by zymhan »

BurningFrog wrote: post #747
notahacker wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we can assume that just because somebody accepts a job working for the President necessarily means they necessarily condone the tone of his campaign or ever judged him to be a good choice for president. They can of course be judged on how they influence and shape policy proposals, and their participation in the process might well be much better or much worse than a principled boycott. Peter Thiel is not…

You can definitely judge him for supporting the campaign. But do you judge him even more for pitching in after the election? As an admirer of Thiel and... the opposite of Trump, I find the whole thing confusing, but I'm definitely glad to have a sharp voice outside the Christie/Gingrich/Guiliani-axis involved. Thiel is not some random rich fat cat who buys an ambassadorship. He's an extremely capable and accomplished…

No, but his financial and verbal support for Trump before the election colors his participation in the administration.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#760

Post by yummyfajitas »

hamax wrote: post #644
masondixon wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you. Please argue! And thank you for not slurring :) > Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here? I supported Obama. I always considered myself a liberal. I support gay marriage, I support gun control. I support universal health care. I support decent welfare and a safety net. As a programmer, the formative moment for my Trump suppo…

> One side is for freedom of speech, the other side is for controlling what you can say. There was just one candidate in this election that wants to control what you can say. And it wasn't Hillary. “We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win…

There was just one candidate in this election that wants to control what you can say. And it wasn't Hillary.

Hillary wants to change the constitution to take away your 1st amendment right to make and distribute "Hillary: The Movie".

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-citize...

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