That is in fact
not a fundamental principle of democracy. There is no work of political philosophy anywhere that suggests we should be able to say whatever we'd like "without fear of repercussions". What is a principle of liberal philosophy, though, is that we should be tolerant of the beliefs of others (in the sense of not intervening to suppress them), including intolerant beliefs,
until those intolerant beliefs threaten society.
You may not believe Trump is a real thread to society. I disagree. So far, so good. The issue here is: Sam Altman and Paul Graham disagree too. Both of them compare Trump to a dictator. Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy.
Sam Altman cannot coherently believe this while supporting Peter Thiel, who is not just a Trump supporter, but an important part of the Trump campaign. Even most leaders of the Republican party refused to get on stage at the RNC to support Trump. Thiel did. When he did, he used his time to claim that Donald Trump was the only honest candidate in the race. He bundled millions of dollars of donations for Trump. And, just last week, after Trump pivoted his campaign as a crusade against the legitimacy of our elections and of the black vote, Thiel donated $1.25MM more.
Nobody denies Sam Altman's right to support Peter Thiel, or, for that matter, Thiel's right to support Trump. But we are all very much entitled to criticize what Altman is doing, and we would be doing Altman no favors by withholding that criticism.
You may not believe Trump is a real thread to society. I disagree. So far, so good. The issue here is: Sam Altman and Paul Graham disagree too. Both of them compare Trump to a dictator. Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy.
Sam Altman cannot coherently believe this while supporting Peter Thiel, who is not just a Trump supporter, but an important part of the Trump campaign. Even most leaders of the Republican party refused to get on stage at the RNC to support Trump. Thiel did. When he did, he used his time to claim that Donald Trump was the only honest candidate in the race. He bundled millions of dollars of donations for Trump. And, just last week, after Trump pivoted his campaign as a crusade against the legitimacy of our elections and of the black vote, Thiel donated $1.25MM more.
Nobody denies Sam Altman's right to support Peter Thiel, or, for that matter, Thiel's right to support Trump. But we are all very much entitled to criticize what Altman is doing, and we would be doing Altman no favors by withholding that criticism.