Robert ReichBillionaires aren’t just supporting Trump for the tax cuts.
As Peter Thiel once admitted: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Make no mistake: The goal of American oligarchy is to tear down democracy itself.
DRBLD2009@rbreich. Fuck Them...
Lolo le 13
AndyGER 
@rbreich It's the right time to Thiel ... (Satire)
Carolannie@rbreich Freedom for them, but not for the people they consider disposable, who will have the freedom to die so that the Übermensch can have an extra yacht or airplane
SimplySarah@rbreich Really odd position for Thiel, a gay man, to hold considering the 140 ppl Trump had (/has?) working for him connected to Opus Dei and the Opus Dei affiliated Supreme Court Justices. If he thinks Opus Dei wants a gay man like Theil to have any kind of freedom or rights, he might want to re-think things.
Bruce Heerssen 
@SimplySarah @rbreich Thiel doesn't have anything to fear. His billions insulate him from all of that.
OhioCheryl@bruce @SimplySarah @rbreich
Trump's economic plans might crash the world economy badly enough to make his billions evaporate. No, I don't consider this looking on the bright side.
Trump's economic plans might crash the world economy badly enough to make his billions evaporate. No, I don't consider this looking on the bright side.
FediThing 
Unfortunately it is far from the only example of queer people riding the tiger of fascism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm#Personal_life_and_death
As a queer person myself I cannot fathom why someone would do this! Perhaps they think that the horrors of fascism only apply to "little people", and assume their power and/or wealth will protect them?
enoch_exe_inc@FediThing @SimplySarah @rbreich Plenty of wealthy Jews supported the Nazi Party under the mistaken assumption that their wealth would protect them from persecution. They did not survive.
@enoch_exe_inc @SimplySarah @rbreich
Neither did Röhm:
"Once inside Röhm's cell, they handed him a Browning pistol loaded with a single cartridge and told him he had ten minutes to kill himself or they would do it for him. Röhm demurred... Having heard nothing in the allotted time, Eicke and Lippert then shot and killed Röhm."
Friedrich@enoch_exe_inc @SimplySarah @FediThing @rbreich
They did not survive, when staying in Germany and occupied countries, but in US, Swiss etc. as very rich people with connections and passports.
Shaman@rbreich ... and freedom means freedom from paying their share and being held accountable for their actions, incl. crimes against the environment.
#TaxTheRich #NoMoreBillionaires #BanPrivateJets
#TaxTheRich #NoMoreBillionaires #BanPrivateJets
@rbreich Torches and pitchforks. And a fifth of bourbon to persuade the oligarch’s security detail to switch sides.
DrBob, 🧠 Mechanic
MattFellow white dudes, join the call to elect Kamala Harris! http://bit.ly/whitedudesforharris
WHITE DUDES FOR HARRIS CALL SIGN-UP FORM
Thank you for RSVP'ing to the White Dudes for Harris kickoff call! Over 50,000 white men from all across the country are expected to join the effort this week and will be on hand to welcome Vice President Harris to the presidential race and pledge to help get her elected. Together, we aren’t going to sit around and let the MAGA crowd bully other white guys into voting for a hateful and divisive ideology because we understand that under MAGA everyone loses. We know that as white dudes, we have both a strong, and positive role to play in America’s shared future, and it begins with all of us cutting through the MAGA crap and reminding the folks who have co-opted American symbols what America actually means. We are excited to join together with you in this fight. Note: By RSVP'ing to this call, you are agreeing to be contacted by White Dudes for Harris. We will ensure that your information is kept safe and secure, and will only be used for correspondence with the White Dudes for Harris team. White Dudes for Harris launch Monday, July 29th 8:00 p.m. ET
SumJackass@rbreich So Thiel and his coterie of oligarchs are saying they've maximized all the freedom they can experience without expressly violating the freedoms from others.
James 🦉 #FBPE 
@rbreich This is how Henry V invented the iphone
xs4me2Clear and present danger…
Cluster Fcku@rbreich Billionaires are the new kings. The peasants need be brought under their rule.
SearingTruth"My fellow Americans, our ideology has not been directly challenged from within since the Civil War.
But please make no mistake, it is again.
And the argument is once again between those who desire more humanity and those who desire less of it.
However Trump and his Republican Party have added an ominous hoped for end.
Autocracy.
And the elimination of everything we ever were."
SearingTruth
René Seindal (MOVED)@rbreich
Freedom for whom?
Without democracy he'll be free, and we'll be slaves.
climate voter/degrowthist@rbreich Abolish billionaires and then work
your way down.
your way down.
Thiel also said that women shouldn't have the vote:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_n_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5
Luna chan@rbreich No longer believing freedom and democracy are compatible is an oxymoron.
Morgan Rees
derptron@rbreich What would they replace it with? It's totally true that many founders disliked democracy as it was known of then. Paine called government a necessary evil. We know democracy does have a weakness with mob rule, but that's why you regulate it. Now we know that you can have other forms of democracy than was had in Athens. We should always look for ways to improve the situation and maybe democracy actually sucks...but what's the better option offered? So far they've all been way worse
Rob Lake@rbreich Thiel is headlines in NZ. He proposed some elitist tourist monstrosity near where he has his bunker. Was rejected planning permission. The outrage flows.
Mike Rockwell@rbreich do you have a link for that Thiel quote?
Dreaming of dad jazz.@rbreich So much of this ideology comes from neoreactionary creeps like Curtis Yarvin (a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug) who think we'd be better with a league of technocrat kings. These turds have been floating around for 20 years, it's time to flush them all for good.
Tucker Teague@rbreich They're supporting Trump for Project 2025 and beyond; not for any of the "moral" issues but for the power structures it promises.
Kent PitmanBe careful about the use of freedom in political speech. The ordinary use is benign to describe a kind of relaxed ability to be oneself.
But when examined closely, it's easily seen that some freedoms are in natural tension with others.
Freedom of speech can infringe on people's privacy or safety, both of which people see as freedoms. If I can publish your name and address you may lose your freedom to move about freely.
Freedom to own and carry weapons, taken to extreme, can likewise limit freedoms to make use of public spaces, such as schools, movie theaters, etc.
We usually expect these will be naturally resolved by a sort of golden rule, where one person's freedoms must naturally stop where they trample the freedoms of another.
But when freedoms are spoken about in isolation and with some presumption that they are absolute, a thing that can't really be true without deliberately ignoring/denying constraints of the rest of the wotld, you can reach nonsensical or dangerous conclusions.
If freedom means the unfettered ability to do all things with no one ever objecting, then it's either the freedom to be a bully or the freedom to not be bullied but it cannot be both.
Too often, what bilionaires seem to be wanting is precisely the ability to be bullies, to never be told there's anything they can't do. Freedom to bully is not a freedom for all. It's an elite privilege of the rich to menace the poor. And even then, the rich will still squabble among themselves, until perhaps there is only one dominant bully even among themselves.
But beware the terminology. They'll never speak of "freedom to bully", just of "freedom" itself, usually to say it's being infringed. They'll want to speak of it in isolation, as if details don't matter, as if it were absolute and undeniable. Who doesn't like freedom, right? It's the only way their wished-for freedom to menace others can get the time of day, by conversationally excluding mention of any freedoms belonging to others that might be trampled in the process.
We hate to say freedoms are not absolute, but in a complex society, those freedoms that infringe freedoms of others require discussion and balance.
Regular people know this. We make compromises every day. The billionaire class hates this. They're not used to being told no. So they want to rile us up against each other, tearing down all rules. They try to convince us rules are bad, are anti-freedom. They call a world without rules freedom, but it is not.
Rules are not automatically anti-freedom. Good rules, properly enforced, are about balance and fairness and justice, the basis of all practical and fairly achievable freedoms.
Where there are no rules, bullies rule. That is not what most people mean by "freedom".
#rights #freedom #justice #fairness #balance #society #democracy #oligarchy #bullies #GoldenRule
Tina@rbreich I don't think that's a different reason. Freedom for Thiel means freedom from being taxed.
KeithW@rbreich You already have, in reality, a plutocracy in the USA. Money is trying to achieve the same in Australia too.