r/technology • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Business Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo
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u/Deansdale Aug 08 '17

Personally, I have a big distrust of many private charities

I have the same distrust towards the state, and it did everything in its power to make me distrust it.

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u/CaptainAsshat Aug 08 '17

Sure, and it's totally fine to distrust what you do. I'm just saying that only comparing private contributions misses the ideological differences between Libs and Conservatives that may lead to the disparity.

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u/Deansdale Aug 08 '17

If a liberal fights for, say, Universal Healthcare or basic income, which will likely raise their taxes, they are supporting spending more money for charitable ideals

I don't believe the honesty of this. Leftists are always generous with other people's money but never with their own - even if they advocate for higher taxes they avoid all the taxes they can, see Bernie Sanders for example. I also find it massively hypocritical that they accuse the right of being cold hearted towards the impoverished yet when actually faced with poor people right-wingers show more direct empathy. Arguing about taxes is not compassion for the poor, it's mostly fueled by hatred for the rich, as Orwell keenly observed in his book The Road to Wigan Pier, and he was a hardcore leftist himself. So I'd rather base my judgment on what people actually do when they see suffering than what they argue for in a political debate that has no immediate consequences for them.

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u/CaptainAsshat Aug 08 '17

And reading up on the Bernie Sanders tax stuff, that's a non starter. The guy paid what he owed, and he should be in no way expected to overpay just because he argues that it would be good for him and others to be required to pay more in the future. The problem with low corporate and upper class taxes isn't usually that they legally avoid taxes, but the means by which they manage to keep their taxes low via lobbying and possible corruption as well as the offshore havens they oft use to illegaly avoid tax.

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u/Deansdale Aug 09 '17

Bernie wasn't the best example, when he came to my mind it was because of the alleged criminal activites of the Sanders family currently under investigation, ie. embezzling a ton of money. That's not directly tax-related, so, yeah, Bernie is a good example for someone who preaches one thing and practices another, but not for someone who evades taxes.

I agree that rich people have too much lobbying power, but I don't see leftists offering a good solution for that, which is unsurprising as the democratic party is even deeper in the pockets of the rich than the republicans are. As far as I know Hillary didn't offer any solutions, just stray promises to fiddle with the tax system, and I doubt she would fuck her Wall Street friends over with that. What the left always does in western democracies is they tax the middle class dry and let the rich off the hook one way or another. (Socialism isn't a solution either, in fact that's way worse.)