How the Left Use Governmental Power to Silence Opponents

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

No good deed goes unpunished, it would seem. Undoubtedly, Peter Thiel did the world a favor in funding the Terry Bollea ("Hulk Hogan") lawsuit that brought down Gawker[1]. Gawker Media (the parent company of Gawker.com) has a rather sordid history, and its bankruptcy and shutdown should be mourned by none (except, perhaps, those who lined their pockets with advertising revenue gleaned from invasion of privacy, catering to the simpleminded, and generally being terrible).

Of course, Thiel made the 'mistake' of supporting Donald Trump and appearing at the Republican National Convention. Cue Barack Obama's standard attack plan in dealing with those he views as enemies[2] (i.e., sicking whatever alphabet soup agency is near to hand upon the impertinent soul who dared to defy Obama or his cronies). In this case, the attack dog is the U.S. Department of Labor[3].

In one example cited by the Labor Department, Palantir reviewed a pool of more than 130 qualified applicants for the role of engineering intern. About 73% of those who applied were Asian. The lawsuit, which covers Palantir's conduct between January 2010 and the present, said the company hired 17 non-Asian applicants and four Asians.

"The likelihood that this result occurred according to chance is approximately one in a billion," said the lawsuit, which was filed with the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.

Ah, the ever-shifting standard of what is and what is not discrimination. Is it discrimination if your workforce doesn't represent the overall population[4]? In this case, apparently not (the US is approximately 4.8% Asian, so Thiel's company vastly over-hired Asians by this metric). What if your workforce doesn't represent the specific region in which you're located? Again, apparently not (neither California nor Silicon Valley specifically is 20+% Asian).

Also, what sort of mathematics- and logic-illiterate[5] fool did they have writing their complaint[6]? Are we now using true randomness as the gold standard for hiring? That would be ridiculous. The entire point of the hiring process is so that the employer can weed out applicants who would not make good employees and choose from the best amongst those who applied. It matters not at all that who was and who was not hired doesn't match what would have happened by chance. In fact, it seems unlikely that a company whose hiring process was identical to random chance would stay in business for long.

Of course, the law and logic had nothing to do with filing this lawsuit and will have nothing to do with prosecuting it. The entire thing is transparently an attack on Thiel by the Obama Administration in retaliation for Thiel's support of Trump. This level of corruption would be astounding if it weren't so commonplace under the current Administration.

  1. If nothing else, the company was aptly named. ↩︎

  2. The Left stopped viewing the Right as "opponents" a rather long time ago. ↩︎

  3. An agency that exists almost exclusively to harass employers, particularly those the current Administration doesn't like. ↩︎

  4. This horrendously bad logic has been employed in the past and will, undoubtedly, be employed again in the future. ↩︎

  5. This particular fool was also grammar-illiterate, it would seem, as "17" should be "seventeen", which <em>should</em> have been obvious as the error was shortly followed by a correct usage of "four". ↩︎

  6. Oh, right, it was almost certainly written by a number of paralegals and attorneys. ↩︎