Only Idealogical Heirarchy Divides Presidential Opinions

Maybe disagreements in this Presidential election are an issue of hierarchy. Which issue is the higher order sort that should be paid attention to?

Some see it one way: a nation is built out of all the people; don’t offend the people.

Mr. Armont (President of YC Group) wrote, “[People who won’t ostracize Mr. Theil] are defending the large-scale support of racism, bigotry and sexual assault by an influential partner and adviser to their start-ups as its own form of ‘diversity.”

Ellen Pao, head of Project Include, wrote, “We agree that people shouldn’t be fired for their political views, but this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence.”

It appears these two are hypersensitive that some person might be offended, while they watch the nation hosting the people asymptotically approach zero productivity and eat itself alive with taxes and debt. Okay, some truth here.

Some see it oppositely: a nation is built as a great framework that lets any individual person do well; don’t kill the great framework.

Mr. Peter Thiel (venture capitalist) “No matter how crazy this elections seems, it is less crazy than the condition of our country.” “Not everyone is hurting,” he said adding, “In the wealthy suburbs that ring Washington, DC people are doing just fine.” “Where I work in Silicon Valley, people are doing just great, but most Americans don’t live by the beltway or the San Francisco bay.

At the Republican Convention, “When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won. Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares? Of course, every American has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I’m proud to be a Republican. But most of all, I am proud to be an American. I don’t pretend to agree with every plank in our party’s platform, but fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline. And nobody in this race is being honest about it except Donald Trump.”

“In 1968, the world’s high tech capital was not just one city, but all of America,” he said. “It’s hard to remember, but our government was once high-tech, too.” Now, he said, “most of the time (government) doesn’t even work at all.” Noting a “staggering decline,” he said “we don’t accept such incompetence from Silicon Valley, and we must not accept it from our government.”

It appears this view values inanimate ideas more than the people, which the ideas are suppose to serve. Okay. Some truth here.

One time in my life I had someone critique me with a total lack of grace because I wasn’t a graceful enough person. Ever since then, I’ve been sensitive to hypocrisy such as “I value diversity but not unless you agree with me.”

So, I value those trying to reconcile the differences in the two viewpoints.  It’s not that one idea is right and the other wrong.  Instead, we need to figure out how to do both without vilifying the opposing party.

Mark Zukerberg, ““We care deeply about diversity,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an internal Facebook post to employees. “That’s easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It’s a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about. That’s even more important.” “We can’t create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate.”