In Opposition to Liberty and Progress - Edward Miller

Peter Thiel, one of the PayPal ‘brats’, is one of the oddest people around, with profoundly bizarro political beliefs, as I have said before (see Peter Thiel, Techno-Utopian). Edward Miller has uncovered some new news that suggests his ideological bent is becoming even more neoconservative:

You may have heard of Peter Thiel, the right-wing “libertarian” co-founder of Paypal and early investor in Facebook. He seems to be a magnet for controversy and intrigue, with his penchant for casual misogyny and exotic philanthropic endeavors. So, who or what is he really?

Despite his attempts to label himself a libertarian, it should be clear that Thiel is anything but. His ideology seems neoconservative or worse if you trace some of his other “philanthropy.”

For instance, he donated $75,000 to the far-right Institute on Religion and Public Life, gave $25,900 to Meg Whitman’s failed gubernatorial campaign, and provided the funding to the smear group that attacked ACORN.

I wish that were all. He has a long history of this sort of thing. What kind of libertarian would fund anti-immigrant groups? All the real libertarians I know are so pro-immigration that they can even make lefties uncomfortable.

But what you may not know about Thiel is that he was a founder of Palantir Technologies, a company that provides analysis and informatics tools to governments and large corporations. Palantir was in the news this week for its role in waging cyber warfare against WikiLeaks and its supporters at the behest of Bank of America.

I guess this should come as no surprise, considering that Thiel believes giving women the vote was a very, very bad idea.