Slashdot Mirror
Paypal Founder Peter Thiel To Speak At Trump's Republican Convention (nbcbayarea.com)
Slashdot reader speedplane writes: The New York Times is reporting that renowned Venture Capitalist, Paypal Founder, and Gawker Litigation Funder, Peter Thiel will be speaking at the Republican National Convention. The original story does not state what Thiel will discuss at the convention, only that he'll be speaking the last day, but there's plenty of speculation.
Facebook issued a statement that though Thiel is on their board of directors, his appearance was "personal," saying Thiel "is not attending on behalf of Facebook or to represent our views." NBC reports Thiel will be the first openly-gay man to speak at the convention in 16 years, "as party leaders refuse to soften the GOP's formal opposition to gay marriage," noting Thiel "has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump's run for the oval office, previously supported Ron Paul for president and has identified himself as a conservative libertarian in the past... Other speakers will include four of Trump's children, Las Vegas casino owner Phil Ruffin, and actor and former underwear model Antonio Sabato Jr."
Facebook issued a statement that though Thiel is on their board of directors, his appearance was "personal," saying Thiel "is not attending on behalf of Facebook or to represent our views." NBC reports Thiel will be the first openly-gay man to speak at the convention in 16 years, "as party leaders refuse to soften the GOP's formal opposition to gay marriage," noting Thiel "has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump's run for the oval office, previously supported Ron Paul for president and has identified himself as a conservative libertarian in the past... Other speakers will include four of Trump's children, Las Vegas casino owner Phil Ruffin, and actor and former underwear model Antonio Sabato Jr."
A(nother) self-loathing destructive psychopath with money.
I really want to like Donald but he makes it so fucking hard. He has so many bad points that it's gotten to the point I keep telling myself "at least he's not Hilliary, he's not Hilliary." I swear I hope a third candidate gets enough traction to make them viable.
"Other speakers will include four of Trump's children, Las Vegas casino owner Phil Ruffin, and actor and former underwear model Antonio Sabato Jr."
WTF? Is this a presidential convention or the debut of some big-titted pop star's latest crappy album?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Thiel is on their board of directors, his appearance was "personal," saying Thiel "is not attending on behalf of Facebook or to represent our views."
Would they issue the same statement if someone from their board of directors had appeared at a Clinton or Sanders event or the DNC convention? Because, you know, there are plenty of things to dislike about both of them as well.
Enough said.
Why is it so important to stop people doing what they want when it doesn't affect you in the slightest?
Tax benefits, hospital visitation, inheritance issues, insurance costs...and on, and on, and on.
Things that heterosexual couples take for granted that gay couples could not prior the the legalization of marriage equality nationwide. Do this: Be in a heterosexual marriage for 15 years, and follow your spouse's ambulance to the hospital. Then have a nurse deny you access to their bedside because your "marriage" offends her sensibilities. This same shit had to be fought over interracial marriage as well.
Perhaps your spouse dies in that hospital. Now have their family swoop in and take away your home, along all the money from your spouse's bank accounts. Sure, they could set up trusts and contracts and PoA's, but the point is, I'm married, and if I die, my wife by default is my next of kin. I don't have to do any of that noise, and neither should someone else just because they're gay. Inheritance and capital gains were an even worse issue.
Try having a shred of empathy for people whose circumstances are different from yours, how does that sound? Gay people don't necessarily care if people "like" their marriage, but they should be equal under the law. Statements like yours sound like they're straight out of 1963 and just repurposed from "Coloreds" to "Homos".
I like music
Try not to get any of that on you. It doesn't wipe off.
What, does he wear pink socks? Whoops! Sorry, that was Ted Cruz
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"Thiel will be the first openly-gay man to speak at the convention in 16 years"
Yeah right, Milo Yiannopoulos has that fabulous title.
I find it kind of endearing when an Anonymous Coward posts a reply to himself, thinking that no one can tell it's the same person.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nobody wants to gay-marry you. You don't have to worry.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Thiel "has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump's run for the oval office, previously supported Ron Paul for president and has identified himself as a conservative libertarian in the past...
Anyone who supports Trump is certainly not a libertarian. In fact, it was clear that Thiel had abandoned libertarianism when he gave an interview two years ago. During the interview, he said that he was opposed to competition because "it's very, very hard to make money" when there's competition!
That's so cute. He thinks he will get to talk at the convention. Actually we have him scheduled for the Leviticus 20:13 event.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Tax benefits, hospital visitation, inheritance issues, insurance costs...and on, and on, and on.
FYI that won't be enough in the long run. We had that in Norway from 1993 to 2009, homosexuals could register as "partners" but not "married" but had equal rights in all of the above, though adoption was kept out of it. Despite being quite equal in law there was a strong emotion on both sides from homosexuals that felt their love wasn't regarded as equal and from fundamentalists who were quick to point out that this was not to be understood as marriage. So in our current law there is marriage and only marriage, regardless of sex.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except of course that before "marriage equality" was imposed by the courts many states were passing domestic partnership laws. Domestic partnership laws solved all of those issues. The advantage of domestic partnership laws was that they were not limited to people in a sexual relationship. This meant that two people could share a house and other things without being sexual partner and have all of those benefits as well.
In time, it is likely that such laws would have made it feasible to remove marriage laws, with their religious overtones, from the books altogether.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
As someone who's actually KNOWN Bernie Sanders (to the extent that I've lived in Burlington when he was Mayor, met the guy, argued with him, etc, I don't have any personal relationship with him) for 30 years, and greatly appreciated what he's brought to national politics in the last year or so, I believe this 'Sanders supporters hate Hillary' meme is mostly bunk. There may be a very vocal minority of people who became 'Sanders supporters' suddenly in the last 6-12 months because it was fashionable and they yell and squawk about how much they 'hate Hillary' because that's apparently fashionable too.
See, I would draw a huge distinction. I dislike the ESTABLISHMENT, and all the dirty tricks that the powers which be have used against Sanders IS galling. Clinton is ABSOLUTELY a pillar of that community. OTOH if you look at her in terms of an actually realistic view and not the bizarro-world distorto-vision that FOX News and etc have created around her, she's a relatively center-left candidate with fairly conventional views for a President. Nothing is going to change vastly, but its likely she'll implement some modest policy changes and programs that are part of the agenda for more left-leaning people. In fact she'll probably continue largely in the same vein as Obama, with increases in the minimum wage, labor-friendly policies outside of trade, some expansion of publicly funded healthcare, and otherwise she's probably closer to Nixon than to say Kennedy.
The bad things will be the environment, which Clinton seems to have little interest in at a critical juncture, and the military-intelligence-police-industrial-state that seems to have been building itself under every president of the last 70 years happily regardless of what policies they supposedly espouse. I'm not even convinced a President Sanders or somesuch could change those things.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Remember? This is the guy who advocates replacing the Republic with some sort of crazy dictator/king/something. Well, he sees an opportunity for it to happen, because if Trump is elected? There won't be elections anymore. Not in the way we think of them now. They'll be rigged sham affairs more like what goes over in places like Russia. THAT is what he's behind. Not that he probably thinks Trump specifically should be in charge, but once you've ditched the reality of people having a say in the system then guys like him with loads of money figure they'll rearrange things to suite themselves. Its a rather vapid fantasy, but there are fools of all stripes in this world.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
And rules for the sake of rules
Yes, there are lots of rules in societies that are related to being married or in an equivalent registered relationship..
If you need some Iron Age book to tell you that it's wrong to kill someone, you weren't brought up right.
You are welcome on my lawn.
theil is a gay man who pushed for anti gay legislation.
Right, because treating same sex couples equally under the law--that is to say, not kicking them out of the ambulance; not having their homophobic relatives contest their wills and leave their widows and widowers nothing--somehow instantaneously nullifies and "fucks up" your heterosexual marriage, your rights, your recognized status under the law.
Are those rights now DENIED to you simply because they are recognized for same sex couples? You still don't understand. Your so-called "right" to be a pompous, bigoted asshole; your right to treat a group of people as inferior under the law, is not a right. The only thing that gets fucked up here is that you don't get to take out your prejudices against gays and lesbians and call that your "religious freedom."
This idea of needing to "protect heterosexual marriage" because it is somehow "threatened" by men marrying men, and women marrying women, is really a statement to the effect that straights regard their own marital bonds to be so fragile, so tenuous, that they need the security of denying other people their rights, to say to other people how THEY should be recognized when that has no bearing on their own status in society. How pathetic for you that you feel that way.
... when one of his funds passed on my venture. Really wouldn't know how to deal with this guy. What a disappointment. Used to admire him.
Seriously? You just don't go around killing people because it may endanger you prospects in a hypothetical afterlife?
Charming.
Wow. A human being, in a free country with free speech, is going to speak at a public event.
*Why* is this news?
Seriously, if people can't handle this without shitting their pants, *that* is the story that needs to be reported...
The more that people crap themselves over people exercising their rights in our free country, the more appealing it makes the people they condemn seem.
All I can say is the level of hypocrisy is truly sickening when self-righteous losers claim to ascribe to basic principles of freedom - so long as it never involves them actually having to enact it in their own conduct.
Yup. I wasn't brought up Christian. What is your point? Did you also miss the illegal part too? Or can you not address the entirety of a statement?
The Ten Commandments are pre-Christian. So what's your point?
Is the reason you don't kill people really because God told you not to?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yup. That and the illegal part has saved several people's lives. I doubt I'm alone in this restraint to. Isn't there anyone you wished would die but refused to cause the death yourself? If so, what stopped you?
What stopped me is empathy, even in my enemies I recognize a shared humanity.
Seriously dude, if you feel that way there's something seriously wrong with you. Although the condition is not too uncommon.
I am dead serious, get yourself tested.
And please don't take this comment as a reason to add me to your enemy list.
The condition is nothing to be ashamed of, in a sense it could be said it makes you more free in your choices than other people. But if you fall onto that spectrum you should know about it.
This is from DSM-V:
The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits. To diagnose narcissistic personality disorder, the following criteria must be met:
AND
Tell me that doesn't send shivers down your spine.
Gay _female_ couples can have children, yes. Gay male couples can't. As to raising children, I'd be fine cutting them a tax break if they adopt, if there wasn't one already. I figure two dads is better than no one at all.
Your funds & civil rights have been temporarily frozen,
just until we can figure out whats going on.
Are your glasses dirty or something? This will be the third time i have mentioned illegality and you seem to have missed or ignored it the other two times.
And yes, The ten commandments are pre Christianity. It was a law of the Jews. What Christianity did was expanded the concept to all people instead of a select few already of a religion.
There is nothing wrong with me. There are people who served no obvious purpose or value to society. There are people who piss me off, more trouble than they are worth and if it was livestock, they would have been culled a long time ago.
Your empathy is hollow too. It was empathy that was the driver behind Germany's T4, the modern euthanasia push for terminally ill as well as the old and aging in liberalized European countries. It is empathy that has legally killed. And note the legally part.
If you could rationalize it, empathy has historically allowed and caused the death of others and it would bring you to the same place.
It's called assisted suicide for a reason. So yes, empathy can sometimes lead to the act of killing.
Pretty straightforward with people since they can tell you what they want. Less so with animals. My 16 year old dog is not doing that well anymore, going to have to make a difficult call pretty soon.
Religious fundamentalists are against gay marriage for the same reason that religious fundametalists believe in creationism. They interpret their holy book in some peculiar way, giving them a “truth” that is completely inconsistent with reality, and they insist on imposing that truth on you.
I saw this video where Kent Hovind and Hugh Ross argued over the age of the earth. Both are conservative Christians. Hovind insists on a literal interpretation of the Bible, while Ross is unwilling to deny solid evidence from astronomy and geology that the earth and the universe are very old. So Hovind calls Ross a HERETIC. For not denying objective evidence.
They believe that death didn’t enter the world until after sin, and sin didn’t happen until Adam and Eve, who lived about 6000 years ago. Therefore the earth CAN’T be billions of years old or else is violates a tennet of their beliefs about salvation.
The thing is, not everyone interprets the Bible in such a strictly literal way, allowing them the option to face reality. Creationists can’t do that.
So back to gay marriage, there are some Bible verses that they interpret as being anti-gay. SOME of them may have been and may have made some limited sense (to them at least) at a time when human populations were very small. Others are not clearly about homosexuality but instead seem to refer to other "perversions," like pagan fertility rites. Out of ignorance both of the scriptual meaning and its historical context, they insist on less-than-clear-cut interpretations of the Bible and declare homosexuality to be a sin.
Therefore they CANNOT accept an enlightened modern perspective on sexuality.
Christians worry about the erosion of Christianity. It’s rigid thinking like this that is the cause of Christianity’s own undoing.
Actually, it is called medical malpractice. What I'm talking about is the reports of doctors evoking end of life treatment plans for the elderly in which they stop life saving treatments based on an expectation of death in patient care situations where they could live a lot longer but they want to free up bed space or conseeve limited resources. This is done completely without the patient permission.
Yes, you can kill you dog when it is lame or old. I do think that there is a huge difference between your pet and a human. Maybe that is just a relic from an iron age book that describes my prospects in an afterlife, but you not understanding it seems more frightening than any mental condition you attempt to ascribe to me.
Oh.. look up the fact that nih and other public health systems in Europe denying life saving treatments to the elderly who are obviously wanting treatment and to live. It is not euthanasia I am talking about.
Except of course that before "marriage equality" was imposed by the courts many states were passing domestic partnership laws. Domestic partnership laws solved all of those issues.
Water under the bridge now, but I always thought this was the right solution... as long as it was taken one step further: Establish standard legal structures for domestic partnerships that mirror existing legal structures for marriage but can be used by any pair (or more, for that matter) of competent adults, then classify all existing marriages as domestic partnerships and stop issuing marriage licenses. Just have civil unions/domestic partnerships for everyone.
That approach would have left "marriage" as a purely symbolic and religious act, and left it up to churches to decide how they wanted to define it. Undoubtedly, some churches would refuse to solemnize gay marriage while others would be fine with it... indeed some churches might be established precisely in order to provide that religious service for the LGBT community. No need to make anyone feel like their religious freedom is being trampled, and no need to treat any segment of society differently.
This was my position on the issue from the early 90s when it first started to get some traction. I knew from the beginning that there was no way the restriction on homosexual marriage could be justified under the 14th amendment, and that if the religious right wanted to preserve the institution of marriage the way they saw it they needed to get government out of it, but instead they tried to fight it head on, and lost.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Except that the "religious right" was beginning to accept the idea of domestic partnership when the activists said that was not good enough.
In order to get where you said you think things should have gone, you need move one step at a time. The first step was to establish the concept of domestic partnership. I am firmly convinced that the reason the activists did not want domestic partnerships was because they knew it would leave it up to churches (and other organizations) to decide how they wanted to define marriage. They did not want to allow churches the option to define marriage.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Except of course that before "marriage equality" was imposed by the courts many states were passing domestic partnership laws. Domestic partnership laws solved all of those issues.
Except of course that the case that "imposed" marriage equality, Obergefell v. Hodges, invalidated a statute that barred domestic partnerships:
Ohio Rev. Code 3101.01(C)(3):
The recognition or extension by the state of the specific statutory benefits of a legal marriage to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is against the strong public policy of this state. Any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of this state, as defined in section 9.82 of the Revised Code, that extends the specific statutory benefits of legal marriage to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is void ab initio.
So, no. Stop trying to rewrite history, and particularly history from just last year.
Have you ever heard the phrase "separate but equal"? Are you aware of its context?
Except that the "religious right" was beginning to accept the idea of domestic partnership when the activists said that was not good enough.
They said that because it still placed them in a different, and by implication lesser, class. Eliminating government-sanctioned marriage for heterosexuals would have removed that distinction.
They did not want to allow churches the option to define marriage.
What they wanted churches to do or not do wouldn't have mattered at all. Removing government sanction for heterosexual marriage would have left gay marriage activists without any logical basis to demand that government should sanction homosexual marriage. And there's clearly NO way government could intervene to prevent churches from defining marriage however they like for their own religious purposes. Any attempt to do so would have been a blatant violation of the first amendment protections on freedom of religion.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Here we go, folks, the #1 reason why SJW, once a beautiful term full of meaning, has now become entirely useless and deserves to be retired.
Raising children is more of an accomplishment and service to society than anything any government has ever done in history, today, or at any point in the future.
Your equivocation between straight and homosexual couples raising children flagrantly disregards any sense of practicality or morality.
I have a gay acquaintance who personally told me gay people should not be allowed to raise children. I'm not sure which of the many, many reasons he had in mind when he made this claim to me, but please respect that homosexual guy enough not to slam the door in his sensibilities there.
Many statistics have show that the average homosexual relationship is incredibly short. Months. Weeks. That is no place to be raising children. I would never want to be raised that way. Are you saying you would?
It's becoming fashionable to label churches that only marry hetero's as bigoted and full of hate.
Homosexuals aren't just pushing for the ability to legally practice homosexuality. They also want to be socially validated for their views.
I don't see why I have to tell anyone homosexuality is OK.
Or any other practice.
I'm no SJW, I just don't get why you or anyone else cares