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Billionaire Tech Investor Peter Thiel To Back Trump As GOP Presidential Candidate (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Billionaire tech investor, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal Peter Thiel has agreed to back Trump as a California delegate in Cleveland this summer. He will be one of 172 selected Golden State delegates headed to the Republican National Convention. His support for Trump contrasts many other leaders, like A16z's Marc Andreessen who has voiced his distaste for Trump, tweeting: "OH: Trump is like an Internet comments section decided to run for President." In the past, Thiel, who is a libertarian at heart, has donated $2.6 million to Ron Paul in 2012 and added $2 million to a Super PAC backing Ted Cruz's former running mate ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina. He also gave $250,000 to Ted Cruz's bid for Texas attorney general in 2009.
"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause..."
Enjoy the slide down my dear countrymen. It's Mr. Toad's wild ride from here on out. Enjoy the political litmus tests and loyalty oaths...
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
...to have more decent candidates.
so I feel I can make an observation. I've noticed over the last 30 or so years that people have lost the art of public discourse. No one can disagree anymore without resorting to hateful vitriol, slinging insults, rioting in the streets. I don't get it. It's one thing to have a sense of justice, but quite another to act out.
People confuse freedom with permissiveness. Freedom is the ordered pursuit of the good (or at least that's how I was taught). These days, if someone votes differently, acts differently, they are a bigot, a hater, a misogynist. It's time to restore decent public discourse.
Peter has a right to back whomever he wishes, despite what we may think. We don't have to lambast him for his God-given rights. You would not want people to lambast you for your choices.
... if he's backing Cruz, Trump, Fiorina, and even Ron Paul.
Nothing about the first three's positions have anything to do with Libertarian beliefs. The first is in favor of autocratic theocracy, the second is simply a demagogue with no actual beliefs other than saying whatever pops into his brain at the moment, and the third is a straight up Establishment Republican in favor of lots of regulation (just not on big business), no business taxes, and significant social dictates. Ron Paul only looks like a Libertarian; a closer examination of his policies reveal nothing more than an anti-internationalist foreign policy, long discredited economic views (a Gold Standard, really?), welded to a George Wallace view of social issues.
Thiel's not a Libertarian. He's just a garden-variety Big Money Republican. He might be an interesting tech person, but his politics are pretty reprehensible.
Can anyone explain to me why so many libertarians seem to support Trump? He's not small government at all. He even just recently stated that taxes"may need to go up" for high wage earners.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Abe Lincoln: "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" is a good thing that should "not perish from the earth".
Teddy and Ike: Accepted that 'government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%' was a pretty good thing, but they expressed certain reservations.
Trump: "Elect me for government of the Donald, by the Donald, for the Donald."
NOT trolling. Just stating what is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer of American history, though I am unable to see how Thiel plans to profit from the resulting mess. Maybe he's just so bored with money that he wants to get rid of the entire concept?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
It's like religion. They get hooked on an ideology. Even when it's proven to be incorrect. They believe.
9/11 proved the Libertarian ideal WRONG!
people continue to believe despite facts
some actually learn:
Truth can not confront truth:
Saint Pope John Paul
He said that about changing the Church's view on the origin of the Universe.
I'm not catholic. I have immense respect for the man's ability to adjust his view.
And just let ok at how he had his PayPal treat minority groups. He, like BoA did, gave them too much credit.
If there ever was a +5, Troll that deserved it, it's Trump.
Trump has loads of experience dealing with the upper echelons of finance, which is something that none of the other candidates have. If there's any candidate who is prepared to kick Wall St in the pants without destroying finance in general, it's probably him. Say what you will about him, but in bankruptcy, he forced them to come to the table and help him get out in order to save everyone's hides. That's the kind of man you want controlling the federal side of the table the next time Wall St threatens that if they don't get there way, we'll see an economic collapse.
Don't forget that Obama and Bill Clinton are complicit in this too. Not acting is the same as participating.
Peter Thiel has agreed to back Trump as a California delegate in Cleveland this summer.
What is that supposed to mean?
Than brains.
Peter "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" Thiel.
There's a man whose opinions I'm going to care about.
The Republicans got a candidate that in the general election will bring in a huge number of Democratic votes - one poll shows Trump at 2x the support of minority voters as any other Republican candidate (like Romney) has had.
Yes Trump will lose some women, but more because Hillary is running than because of Trump - and that doesn't really matter because again polls show Hillary losing as many male votes as Trump loses female. That part is a wash.
Lastly Trump is finally a candidate who is not a political insider like Hillary.
The Democrats had their chance to elect someone as good, Sanders, but they choose to go with the most ancient rapist-protecting white person they could find, so they are toast in the general election.
The very first debate will seal the deal with Trump dancing verbal rings around Hillary.
Some Republicans right now say they will not vote for Trump but Hillary is a rather powerful counterforce for that notion...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As if Trump weren't objectionable enough!
PayPal...UGH!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A libertarian believes in live and let live. Not bigotry
Hopefully Obama will recommend that the DOJ not file charges.
He's a "libertarian" in the weak sense that he combines an enthusiasm for 'seasteading' and similar probably-lost-causes with a conventional dislike of paying taxes; but that's not saying much.
This. The housing loan crisis was created by banks giving bad loans.
Not very sure about the details, so I am posting my question here ...
Need to know who was at the helm when the above happened?
Was Paypal under Elon Musk when it happened or was Peter Thiel in charge?
Anyone??
First he helps to create the utterly evil PayPal; then he starts funding a list of politicians who, (with the possible exception of Ron Paul), are venomous and/or vacuous scuzzbuckets. "Peter Thiel - Raising Corporate Political Influence while Razing Your Country". Sounds rather like a campaign slogan, doesn't it?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I was there
I was even the moderator (no shit, I was) for one summer, until I had to drop it because of workload (I was working for Bell Labs at that time, severe lack of sleep negatively affected my research)
What is going on right now is chicken shit compared to what we had over there
But I gotta level with ya ... there was a difference, in substance
The cursing, the threats, the whatnots going on in FLAME were (largely) based on substance
Nowadays most of the online arguments are pretty much content-less, void of substance
sigh!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Rich guy founder of famously abusive financial racket backs rich guy fraudster thug presidential candidate. Who woulda thunkit? Chickens lay down and prepare to be plucked.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Libertarian at heart = "I've got mine but fuck you if you want me to give the people who work for me a fair days pay for a fair days work".
Libertarian in reality instead of at heart would be for the rights of everyone and not just employers.
So since he isn't that latter a Casino boss is a good match.
With Carter undermining a scam and Reagan pushing oil etc with nobody to promote civilian nuclear since (except for a stillborn thorium project in Clinton's time that the nuclear incumbents actually opposed), it's been dying for years. If you want a nuclear industry (or just about any industry) you've got to keep on building equipment or you end up with nobody capable of building or running it. As an example, if it wasn't for a pile of R&D paid for by the Japanese taxpayers Westinghouse would have nothing viable to build today. If it wasn't for a pile of work for them ordered from China they wouldn't have the skilled people to build anything tomorrow. In the USA civilian nuclear died long ago. You want nukes, you've got to fund a nearly complete restart of an industry or rely on imports.
I don't think people understand what libertarian means. Even people who come closer to being libertarian like McAffee don't get it. You would need to be for eliminating most regulations and laws and shrinking the size of government for the purpose of increasing liberties (ie free speech, free travel, etc).
If your pro-drivers licenses, pro-vehicular registration, non-government mandated social security, pro-license plates, anti-abortion, anti-uber, etc your not a libertarian. Under libertarianism if there is no victim there is no crime. If the government uses force/violence/threats of jail/etc to make you do something (regardless of if it is for 'your benefit' or someone else) that's wrong that’s anti-libertarian. Taxation is theft. Government should not be stealing money from one person to do something for another. Libertarians aren't against socialism. They are against government mandated socialism as that involves theft and violence and libertarians are against the use of violence to achieve political aims.
You should read more on Trump's history. Despite having money Trump has always been an outsider, because he was not from NYC proper originally. He's vastly farther away from being a political insider:
1) Never been elected.
2) Not from Harvard or Yale (how long ago do you have to look through presidents to find one that is not?)
3) Not a lawyer
You may think of him as the 1% because he is rich but the 1% generally do not really consider him to be "one of them". You know how it is in any group, some will not be accepted.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hillary MAY have received more total votes - which may just have something to do with the Democrats having two viable candidates and the Republicans starting with around six, all splitting votes...
But it's hard to say how that will factor in because Democrat turnout is down this year and 44% of Sanders voters will vote for Trump.
Keep pretending Hillary is fine, I'm sure that will work out well just like it did for every other Republican candidate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He either fears Hillary or Sanders so much that he's willing to dump measurable percentages of his personal wealth into keeping them out of office or...
He seems to think he has a means of recovering the investment by donating these large sums into the candidates.
Where is the value or profit in this for him? He has backed multiple candidates that are basically all incompatible with one another. Backing Fiorina, Paul and then Trump doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. It can't be religion, it can't be politics, it can't be money... it just seems to me it has to be an absolute hate of Hillary, Sanders or possibly just "liberalism"... which doesn't really even exist anymore.
How does someone with that much hate in them manage to succeed?
whatever happened to Condorcet voting? just sayin, we do have Elon Musk.
So somebody with a great deal of political influence who was even born to it, and who has even run played politics to the extent of this not being his first run at President is still an outsider? It looks like the inside is a very tiny group by your definition. I consider your three points fairly worthless as a definition since they would even fit some of the "neocons" that hung around Washington for decades.
Care to substantiate any part of that disparaging comment?
Last time I looked both the first and second amendments were in rude good health. Plus all other essential freedoms.
Please don't confuse "freedom" with "I want things done my way", or "I'm angry about ... whatever" with "someone's encroaching on my freedom". Citizens will always have duties, will always face laws and regulations, will always need experts to formulate policy details for them and then administrate that policy, and will always have to pay tax to pay for all of that.
Even mr. Trump has no plans to change any of that, and won't change any of that if he ever came to think about it. Chaos like that would be bad for business, you see.
Plus it would be an extremely unstable state of being, because some gang boss would step in where the government withdraws.
I'm guessing he's not a RNC delegate, just another rich person making his voice heard. His personal dislike of Trump, however valid, does not hold the election process or the political system responsible for offering the worst candidates available.
Maybe the lesson here, is there's something wrong with his competition, the election process, or the political system? If only someone would ask these questions. Instead there is shock and awe that a rich person is supporting his own party.
Libertarians aren't 'Libertarian' - because behind all the rhetoric, Libertarianism is all about decentralizing/dismantling public power, so that power can be centralized in private democratically-unaccountable hands.
Trump is perfect for them,
That sounds like a reasonable description of modern US 'right-wing' libertarianism, especially because it manages to keep libertarianism somewhat distinct from 'left-wing' anarchism. But there is one thing I don't get: If taxation is theft, how on earth would a government be able to pay for anything? Police? Military? Roads? Electricity? Water lines? Dams? Food and water safety (to avoid poisoning)? Aviation safety? Disaster response? Nuclear safety? Embassies? Railroad tracks?
The list could go on and on. There is a bazillion necessities for modern society that cannot be handled at the local level and require lots of money. Where does this money come from if not from taxes? Is the idea that the government sells these things to citizens, and if you don't buy them, you can't have them? Like, if you don't pay your road toll, you can't drive with your car on public roads? How would that work and how would it be better than having taxes?
I've never heard any coherent explanation of that, hence my suspicion is that US libertarianism is either "moderate libertarianism" -- a nebulous desire to have less government interference -- or is just not well thought through.
This is the fellow who famously quipped: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible". What'd you expect? Go a little further and you end up in the territory of the "libertarian monarchists" who say that autocracy is no problem as long as you in theory can leave the country any time you want.
If I've understood libertarianism correctly, the difference is in that the libertarian variant always gives you an option to not participate, in theory. I.e. "you can't make me". If you don't have a car, you don't need to pay the road toll (unless walking on them also means you have to pay). If you live by the ocean and really feel like making your miniature desalination plant, you don't need to pay for water, etc. So all of these fees would give you at least two choices, even when there's a monopoly: pay and get the service, or don't and don't.
There's a problem with this, of course. On the one hand, the choice of paying taxes is in theory also a choice: pay, or emigrate or face the IRS or whatever. Even absolute coercion has the "alternative" of not going along with it and dying. On the other hand, the vaunted alternative choice in a libertarian setting can also be pretty dismal: e.g. a property developer buys up all the land (including the roads) around your house and says you have to agree to work for him without pay or he won't let you cross his property to buy food or get water. You can choose to decline, but in essence on pain of death.
In practice, libertarianism would likely fold political power into economic power. The plain way of saying that is that the rich could pay to free themselves of the constraints society would otherwise place on them. And that's why it appeals to them. The market makers gain greater power to make the rest of the people offers they can't refuse. So extreme libertarianism/ancap carries the very real risk that the people will eventually reach for the National Razor and do some redistribution of their own.
See also An Anarchist critique of Anarcho-Statism
In particular:
"Anarchists have long argued that, as a class, workers have little choice but to "consent" to capitalist hierarchy. The alternative is either dire poverty or starvation. "Anarcho"-capitalists dismiss such claims by denying that there is such a thing as economic power. Rather, it is simply freedom of contract. [10]
Anarchists consider such claims as a joke. To show why, we need only quote Murray Rothbard on the abolition of slavery and serfdom in the 19th century. He argued, correctly, that the "bodies of the oppressed were freed, but the property which they had worked and eminently deserved to own, remained in the hands of their former oppressors. With economic power thus remaining in their hands, the former lords soon found themselves virtual masters once more of what were now free tenants or farm labourers. The serfs and slaves had tasted freedom, but had been cruelly derived of its fruits." [11"]
Anarcho-capitalism turns all power into economic power and then denies that economic power exists.
Voting reform is very hard because the people who benefit from the biased voting methods are also those who decide what goes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K4MctEmkmI
Obama at Howard U...
And you think Trump is bad? Why?
... that with all Trump is known for, and who is supporting him, that he has a large following in the low-income parts of the people? The myth of "trickle down economics" has been shown to not work, as proven by the US economics, as well as world wide, with the gap between the wealth of the wealthy and that of the poor ever widening ... how can ANYBODY (apart from the very well off) vote for someone standing for the policies that Trump (and, for that matter, most of the other GOP candidates)??
Just wondering ...
The final sentence there, is an excellent way of putting it - which sums up Libertarianism very well.
sanders
It's hard to imagine that a successful entrepreneur would hire an executive for a company who has NO EXPERIENCE in that job, LITTLE KNOWLEDGE of the issues that the company faces on a daily basis, and has demonstrated a tendency for racism, sexism, and bullying. So how can any successful entrepreneur back Trump? I don't get it.
"In the past, Thiel, who is a libertarian at heart, has donated $2.6 million to Ron Paul in 2012 and added $2 million to a Super PAC backing Ted Cruz's former running mate ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina."
I only hope his losing streak continues...
The Democrat establishment despises him, and is terrified he will upend the globalist systems their Wall St paymasters demand and disrupt the massive incompetent bureaucracy they have built and staffed with huge numbers of unionized (therefore mostly Democrat) workers who have good pay and great pensions and no concern for productivity or the public.
The Republican establishment despises him, and is terrified he will upend the globalist systems their Wall St paymasters demand and disrupt the mighty (and fake) military/foreign policy machine which pretends to be about "national security" while refusing to actually secure the nation's actual borders but then goes around the world wearing out equipment (so more must be bought from big contractors) and grinding up soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines securing the borders of other nations.
BOTH party establishments are terrified he will look at the government with the eyes of a businessman and actually demand performance out of the government, possibly eliminating or replacing parts of it that fail to perform for the public. BOTH party establishments are freaked out by the degree to which his run has highlighted the corruption of the electoral systems they have rigged, and his run thus far has used the least money per voter of any recent national campaign, which is a HUGE threat to the beltway army of wealthy campaign consultants, pollsters, analysts, media and marketing "experts" etc. There are literally thousands of wealthy people in the Acela corridor who are in full panic mode that their industry is being shown to be unnecessary and their "expert" prognostications are being exposed as a mix of partisan wishful thinking and fanciful daydreams.
2016 is the first time in decades that there is an actual disruptive candidate who can win and who has both party machines in a panic and leaders of both parties flinging hate at him like a bunch of monkeys flinging feces. In November the public will have a choice: one of the most notorious machine politicians who has been given every position she has ever held, become rich by speaking to various groups behind closed doors while making NOTHING and has a 40+ year record of unethical behavior (starting by getting kicked off the Watergate investigation by Democrats for her ethical shortcomings) hiding things from the public and the courts, etc.......... or a rouge business guy with decades of executive experience actually making things, employing people, and demanding performance, who is hated by the entire political machine. Neither is a perfect choice. It's telling that entrenched politicians in BOTH parties have talked about their desire for Clinton. She has a long toxic record making her predictably bad, but would preserve every bit of the political machine both parties have meticulously built for their own benefit. Trump, as a business guy, has a long record but none at all in government making him far less predictable (for good or for bad) and has proven he is willing to completely upend the applecart.
Trump's far from perfect. He's not as left-wing as the progressives would want, but he's also nowhere near as right-wing as conservatives would want. Social conservatives in the GOP have had to accept that he is not one of their own in order to vote for hm anyway to give the machine in Washington the middle finger. The question is: will other voters be similarly willing to support him even though he does not meet their particular litmus tests, in order to also give Washington the same finger, or will they double-down on establishment machine politics and policies. We'll know in November.
Sanders? Never had a chance. He's just misleading his followers into fantasy land like Kasich or Rand Paul on the GOP side - the Democrat party rigged its primaries over a year ago for Hillary with their "Superdelegates"; it does not matter how many primaries Sanders wins, Hillary gets more delegates and becomes the nominee. It's "her turn".
Oh, and the US is NOT a Democracy. It was founded as a Constitutional Republic with democratic elections.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams
Please study up. Facts matter, even when they violate your firm partisan political fantasies.
All the Supreme court did was end the endless re-counts that were selectively being performed in only certain Democrat counties and using ever-changing standards for what counted as a vote. The court doubled-down on the old rules that [1] you cannot change the rules of an election after the voters have cast their votes and [2] you cannot select only a part of the population which is known to be likely to vote one particular way, and then recount and recount and recount until you get the result you want. As always, it's a good idea to actually READ the opinions of courts rather than just whine about one's partisan political imaginations.
Gore's lawyers went to court to prevent military ballots from being counted, and went to court to prevent recounts in Republican districts (neither of which would have been done in an HONEST recount). Over the years after the 2000 election, various media outlets (OTHER THAN FAUX NEWS) looked at the numbers and concluded that Gore did indeed lose Florida by a very tight margin. Had Gore simply won his home state of Tennessee (something nearly every president in history has done) none of this would have mattered - he would have easily won the election with no recounts needed.
You "Gore won the 200 Election" types are no different from anti-Obama "Birthers" or members of the Flat Earth Society - you probably could make a drinking game out of this nonsense, but that's about all it's worth..
You can be libertarian and support the candidates who aren't libertarian, but are closer to it than others. Cruz, for instance, isn't libertarian, but he's far, far closer to libertarian than any of the Democrats. Thiel is practical, which makes sense for someone who has been so successful.
Thiel represents a significant Republican demographic who would have in a saner political year supported Rand Paul. When the party hierarchy decided to shut out Paul before letting the people decide, Thiel and company say, "Let's vote for a bigot."
There, fixed that for you. That type of political grievance described by this that you call "significant Republican demographic", it amounts to a first world problem talked from a position of privilege. Because it is only through privilege that a person can think voting for a bigot is an acceptable idea. No legitimate grievance could morally justify this (they *can* explain, but never justify.)
Are you saying Hillary is a racist and that's why the FBI is going after her?
The nuke shills promised "energy too cheap to meter" and gave us the most expensive, dangerous and militarily vulnerable energy possible.
The frackers promised the people who lived on top of the shale that shattering the bedrock of the nation would make them rich, instead they got the shaft while the banksters got the profits.
Meanwhile, the Germans turned their backs on unsustainable fuels, as Tesla recommended in 1915, and ten years later they are literally paying people to use energy - on a good day their energy is literally cheaper than free - and they aren't even done building out yet.
It's time to recognize that fracking and fission are fundamentally unprofitable in a free and fair market, and require economically harmful government manipulation of commerce. If governments have a place manipulating energy markets, that place is to sponsor clean energy, not military liabilities like fission plants or environmentally unsustainable fracking scams.
Just to stir the pot.
The same could, and has, been said about Obama, just from the other side. Now it is Democrats saying these things about Trump, before it was Republicans saying it about Obama.
Time to offend someone
Being foreign born Elon Musk is not eligible to be President of the United States.
Anybody know or guess why he's doing this? Maybe to get some push in Washington for the pretty secretive Palantir company? Why is nobody talking about this?
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power"--Abraham Lincoln
http://www.petition2congress.c...
Casteism