The animus against Peter Thiel

 

It’s been reported that the enormously successful tech-entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel has become a New Zealand citizen and bought property at Lake Wanaka. True or not, since journalist Matt Nippert spotted it a few days ago, you’ll have noticed that this news immediately flushed out an enormous amount of interest from the sector of the commentariat who on other occasions can be heard preaching peace, love and tolerance.

But not for Mr Thiel, who has had the temerity to become a New Zealand citizen without telling them. Instead of their open arms he’s been “greeted” by them, if he’s even noticed, by a seemingly endless outpouring of venom. Which still hasn’t stopped.

It’s like they think he needed to ask their permission first. As if “we” (whoever “we” are) get to decide who should and shouldn’t be allowed to sully “our” lake shores and waterfronts.

And what has prompted all the venom that wasn’t there when, say, Ahmed Zaoui or other folk dropped in to say “Hi”?

Maybe it’s the enormous success.

Maybe it’s because he donated a million dollars to Trump and calls him a friend. (But so does Hillary, or did.)

Maybe because he still advises Trump. (But so does Chris Liddell, and I assume “we” are still okay with him coming back occasionally and enjoying some lakeside recreation.)

So you think maybe it’s the success? That it’s his money?

As he so often does when the twitterati are a-flutter, Toby Manhire clarifies. See if you can pick from Manhire’s snark what he takes for granted what would generate all the animus.

• “He has an amazing stare – not altogether unlike fellow Trump acolyte, spokesman Sean Spicer, in his recent appearances – that gives the impression of having necked half a dozen espressos and quietly soiling oneself.”
• “Peter Thiel secretly funded a lawsuit against the gossip and commentary site Gawker, which had outed him as gay many years earlier, that drove it to bankruptcy.”
• Peter Thiel has said he thinks there is “a sense in which government is an almost literally demonic entity in the world we’re living in today”.
• Peter Thiel once, according to two former Stanford classmates, described apartheid as “a sound economic system”. Thiel denies ever having supported apartheid.
• Peter Thiel wants to inject himself with young people’s blood.

So, gossip, trivia and bullshit.

And then there’s this, which had Tweeters all a-flutter yesterday

• Peter Thiel wrote in 2009: “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.” (He later clarified: “It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.”); and
• Peter Thiel also wrote, of democracy: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” And: “Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country.”

And then there’s this

• “Peter Thiel is a libertarian, a Republican, a wildly successful investor, valued by Forbes at $2.7 billion.”

So really, so what? Someone you may or may not agree or disagree with chooses to set up home here.

May I ask why that is anybody’s fucking business outside the person and

What has he done this alleged “techno-fascist” (as he’s been called) that he inspires this kind of welcome?

Well, he helped set up Pay Pal, which I bet most of moaners use. He helped bankroll Facebook, on which I read much of their drivel. So he’s obviously not out for people’s blood by those means.

Maybe it’s more what he represents than what he’s actually done. That he is a libertarian, a Republican, a wildly successful investor, and is valued by Forbes at $2.7 billion. Even just one of those things would generally be beyond the pale for the envy-ridden conformists of the commentariat – unless of course his name was James Cameron and he made drippy films about blue people saving the planet. But to be all four, and proud of it, and making his home here – without ecen asking them first! … well, they just can’t bear it, can they.

It’s sick.