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Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

yeah what a tragedy that people stopped liking him for financing Trump Super PACs. Maybe he should try being as rich as Thiel so people care less.

He made his own bed.

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so people who support politicians you don't like should lose their jobs?

The big issue right now when it comes to the US is where you draw the line between "this person is a politician I don't agree with" and "this person is dangerous to the country and has completely unacceptable views".

If David Duke ran for president, and Elon Musk supported him (using both to illustrate a point, not implying anything), would you still think it just for Musk to maintain the power he has, or would you be concerned with what projects he would power?

Obviously, there two situations aren't perfectly parallel, but it's a question of severity. The point is that Trump is crossing that line for some, and not for others, which drastically changes the way people judge actions related to Trump. So no, I don't think the parent here is saying just any politician.

I'm more worried about people who think they can decide what political candidates or projects are acceptable, than the actual candidates or projects.

Eh? Like people who think they can vote and voice their opinions about candidates?

People voting is fine. The problem is the people who think they should have the power to remove politicians from the ballot, because they want to assume control over the votes of everybody else.

If you're actually funding the campaign on a massive scale, you are sharing the campaign's values. It's not that complicated.

Nobody writes sob stories about the Koch brothers.

This isn't necessarily true. We don't have a system where a wide variety of viable candidates all get equal representation, since their representation is mostly controlled by for-profit businesses.

We end up with 2 imperfect candidates and if it is your duty to choose one and see to it that they win versus the other option, you might donate some money. An individual might donate for a pet cause that's important to them even if they disagree with other things. A company might donate, because it is actually going to help their business and they have a duty to their shareholders to increase profit.

You say it's not complicated as if the issue is settled and final, but there is a lot more subtlety to this topic.

There were enough issues with Hillary as a candidate that she deserved to lose regardless of whether the republican candidate was a controversial figure like Trump or not. For that reason, I expect many people donated to Trump as a way to avoid Hillary.

in general no. but maybe ask yourself, is there a politician you can think of in the last hundred years or so that you would fire someone for supporting? if not fire, at least not hire. surely there is at least one. the way you frame your question is not charitable.

Speech and political action is not and has never been free of consequence

Consequence, punishment and revenge are very different things, and it's infuriating how so many otherwise well-meaning people have been taught to conflate them.

Just ask Kathy Griffin, Colin Kaepernick, and Tim Tebow.

I'd expect freedom of speech should come with much the same rights as freedom of sexuality. However, popular opinion says it's bad to fire someone for being gay but it's OK to fire someone for offending the boss's preferred political party.

Conservatism used to/still is the default political persuasion of business so it definitely isn't his views that are the issue. Rather it was the way he chose to express his political views. It wasn't intelligent, nuanced, principled, insightful or constructive.

It was the behaviour of a immature teenager.

From a 21 year old kid

I like how people now get thrown into trash bin for rest of their lives for one stupid thing, and what did he even do? He gave some money to a people making memes. Then he apologized and lost his position in his own company (yeah yeah he had already sold it whatever he was founder) and people still have a stick up their asses about this. I can't tell if it's plain old jealousy or if political climate is just so toxic in US now that you can't even express your opinion(s) without being forever marked (and then these same people dare to speak how we are going towards Orwellian society even though they are already living and implementing it)

That's because he was just two years out of his teens.

I'd love to see the people bashing him be 21 years old and have $500M in the bank.

People care(d) plenty about Thiel, and continue to.

not the right people, apparently

That's a dangerous slippery slope you're descending. You may at some point end up on the receiving end.

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