
Thiel to support Trump at RNC Thursday - george_ciobanu
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/peter-thiels-embrace-of-trump-has-silicon-valley-squirming.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
======
chollida1
Peter has made a huge fortune by seeing things other's did not.

This might be a good idea for people who are staunchly anti republican to
reexamine their beliefs and look to see what Peter sees. Here is the current
GOP platform if you are interested:

[https://www.gop.com/platform/](https://www.gop.com/platform/)

I mean if Trump is going to be president, and to be honest I can't see it
happening, don't you want him surrounded by some incredibly smart people like
Thiel that can talk him down from some of his more "bolder" ideas?

The Republican's have some very good platform points they are pursuing. The
return of Glass Stegal is the biggest one I can see. There is almost no way I
can see the Democrats under Clinton proposing this.

~~~
mikeash
How much of that platform can I actually believe? For example, one of their
planks is "living within our means." The Republicans have been the party of
fiscal discipline my whole life. Yet in that time, Republican administrations
have grown the Federal budget deficit, and Democratic administrations have
brought it down. Later on they talk about protecting the Fourth Amendment, yet
the last Republican administration carried out a huge assault on those rights.
Then they talk about supporting the troops, when the last time they had power
they got thousands of our troops killed in a fruitless and idiotic invasion.
Am I to believe that the party has completely reversed itself on all of these
things in eight years?

Much of it is stuff I'm just plain opposed to, of course. "The Continuing
Importance of Protecting the Electoral College"? Ridiculous. They go on about
the importance of freedom of speech, then they drop this gem: "By whatever
legislative method is most feasible, Old Glory should be given legal
protection against desecration." So what is the Republican platform, "freedom
as long as we like it"? Continuing on, they want to outlaw abortion, encourage
coal burning, restrict marriage rights, and preserve our bloated defense
budget.

Here's a real gem: "The Internet must be made safe for children.... Current
laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously
enforced." How obscenity laws are compatible with their supposed belief in
freedom and liberty is beyond me.

Yes, there are some good things in there. But not nearly enough to get me to
see past all this stuff above, and a lot of it is just generic platitudes.

(And don't respond to any of this with "but the Democrats...." I don't like
them either. Although I dislike them somewhat less.)

------
carsongross
Thiel is smarter than nearly everyone posting here at HackerNews.

Ideally, this fact would cause people to pause and reflect.

~~~
smt88
Does being "smart" (however you define it) mean that you know the best way to
govern? Does it mean you know how to make it happen in the real world? Does it
mean you can pull together all the moving parts of a republic to turn ideas
into policies? If so, the smartest world leaders would be the best, wouldn't
they?

I think Vladimir Putin is one of the smartest world leaders currently. Barack
Obama probably is, and it would be contradictory for someone to argue that
both he and Peter Thiel are correct about how the US should be governed.
Elizabeth Warren and Karl Rove are also both seemingly very intelligent.

Someone took a stab[1][2] at assessing and ranking the smartest presidents,
and they're ideologically mixed (from Roosevelt to Reagan).

1\.
[http://www.eoht.info/page/Dean+Simonton](http://www.eoht.info/page/Dean+Simonton)

2\.
[http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcampbel/documents/SimontonPres...](http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcampbel/documents/SimontonPresIQ2006.pdf)

~~~
carsongross
_Does being "smart" (however you define it) mean that you know the best way to
govern?_

I suspect there is an inverse relationship.

------
kartD
Can someone explain this? Mr. Trump doesn't seem very libertarian which is
what Thiel identifies with, so why is he supporting him?

Thiel also seems to hold some confusing opinions (not very pro-immigration
despite working closely with and benefiting from immigrants such as Elon Musk
and Max Levchin).

~~~
maxerickson
He probably thinks a Trump administration will be better for him than a
Clinton administration. It's pretty much down to those two.

It's also an opportunity for him to raise his own profile in political
circles.

------
elgabogringo
As he should. Democrats and big business are leading us down an orwellian
rabbit hole (with the help of two Bush presidencies), but Rebulicans and
Libertarians are still the two parties of principle and debate.

All the Democrats care about is power. Witness the shadiness with which
Democrats forced Hillary as the nominee and then let her get off when she
obviously broke the law and had been lying about it for a year.

When a group wants power _that bad_ it's my job as an American citizen to keep
them out of power.

~~~
mikeash
The Republicans just officially nominated a twice-divorced guy with no
consistent positions on anything and no political experience, who has
threatened to jail women who get abortions and blatantly violate the
constitution by imposing religious tests on immigrants, on the basis that he's
the guy to advance their platform of family values and freedom.

And I'm supposed to believe that they're a party of _principle?_

~~~
elgabogringo
Hmm... I'm not granting anything in your post because there are a number o
inaccuracies... But...

The level of debate that existed during the primaries, that continues to exist
inside the party, the discussion of supporting a 3rd party candidate (in this
case libertarian) is all centered around principles and positions.

Meanwhile, the complete lack of candidates, let alone debate among the
democrats during the primary, the fait accompli of nominating Hillary, the
complete disinterest in holding her accountable for breaking the law and
putting national security at risk.... This is all centered around power.

~~~
mikeash
What inaccuracies? I can accept that "no consistent positions on anything" is
probably going to be debated, but the rest seems pretty much factual as far as
I know.

If the result was this guy, does it even matter if the primary debates were
centered around principles?

I'm not commenting on the Democrats here, so the nature of their process is
not really relevant. I am not arguing for them in any way, and will cast my
vote in that direction only with great reluctance.

------
throwaway2016a
It's a shame because if people like him actually got behind the Libertarian
party this year Johnson actually has a real chance to win. I know there are a
lot of people here who will say a third party can never win but this is a
perfect storm of opportunity if the party can raise enough to stay in the
public eye.

------
boto3
He's probably looking for an exit for Palantir. You know, making America safe
again :)

------
return0
... Aaand, thread is downmodded.

~~~
dang
Users flagged it.

Thiel is mostly on topic here, of course, but Trump is mostly off topic, so
there's a tradeoff. I don't think HN gets better if we resolve that in favor
of more arguing about Trump.

~~~
return0
Fair. Just noticed it , because i couldnt find it.

