SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In a case that should have the Founders of the USA spinning in their graves, The Intercept has got hold of documents relating to Peter Thiel's NZ citizenship. These documents reveal that Thiel would not normally qualify for citizenship, which requires the holder to actually reside in New Zealand. NZ law provides for citizenship under "exceptional circumstances and public interest" for people who don't plan to live in NZ.
Thiel's extreme wealth was the exceptional circumstance that allowed for citizenship and which in turn allowed Thiel to avoid certain administrative protocols that a non-citizen would have had to follow relating to the purchase of his large estate in NZ.
As part of taking up citizenship, Thiel had to pledge an oath of loyalty to HM Queen Elizabeth II (in her role as Queen of New Zealand), which certainly raises questions about either his sincerity or his fitness to be an advisor to the President.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @05:14AM
Wouldn't it be great, then, if both of the parties stuck to those important issues?
Instead, we have crazy activists telling us that we're all fucked up because we don't allow deviants to follow our daughters into the girl's rooms, and other equally wild shit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @07:50AM
Am I to presume that you don't want lesbians to use female toilets? I surely don't see the issue with someone who considers themselves female and are attracted to men using female toilets, even if they were born a man, as why would that be a problem?
What in the case of a person, born female, identifies as a man and not yet had surgery to change their penis to a vagina, and also dresses and looks like a man, should they really use the female toilets? Wouldn't lots of women have a problem with an apparent man using the female toilets?
How would you structure a law that prevents people from using toilets of people of the same gender they are attracted to?
People who want pre-op transsexuals to use toilets that match their genitalia really haven't thought this issue through. So instead of complaining about people using toilets of the gender they identify with, how about campaigning to make all toilets unisex so the gender of the user doesn't matter?
While there are far more important issues than this, if some people are essentially prevented from using public toilets because of other people's fucked up prejudices, then it becomes something that needs to be delt with, and for that you can blame the people who get a bug up their arse about the specific genitalia of people who just want to use the loo.
(Score: 5, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 06 2017, @09:30AM
because we don't allow deviants to follow our daughters into the girl's rooms
Look, it was his teenage beauty pageant [nypost.com], he paid for it, so he had a right to go wherever he likes. If teenage girls don't want to be ogled by sleazy middle-aged oompaloompas while they get undressed, they should pay for their own damned beauty pageants. Besides, he's seen it all before..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @05:02PM
I don't know all the details of this situation, but it's far from as obvious as you +5: Touche ranking implies. There is the concept of reasonable expectation of privacy.
As the most obvious example, can an employer put surveillance cameras in the restrooms or employee changing areas of a restaurant? To be clear, this is employee-area only, so the concept of a customer applies. Your argument would say that they can, as they paid for the building and the employee is working for them. However, the courts have found (and I would suggest society thinks) that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that they can't have security guards ogling the pretty college girls while they are changing into uniform.
I don't know how things work at a beauty pageant. Possibly either the contract or the expectation is that everything is semi-public (e.g. everybody always gets dressed in a single large room with few walls and male hairstylists/tailors/etc were present too, so "everybody knows everybody can see everybody else"). Or maybe everybody has a private changing room and Trump really did intrude inappropriately.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 06 2017, @05:19PM
I think your sarcasm detector needs recalibration. To make my position perfectly clear to anybody else who has misunderstood:
As the most obvious example, can an employer put surveillance cameras in the restrooms or employee changing areas of a restaurant?
No, absolutely not.
I don't know how things work at a beauty pageant. Possibly either the contract or the expectation is that everything is semi-public (e.g. everybody always gets dressed in a single large room with few walls and male hairstylists/tailors/etc were present too, so "everybody knows everybody can see everybody else").
Yes, I think that is usually the case, but that still doesn't give just *anybody* the right to wander in. Think of it like military "need to know" information. You only allow in those people who have a need to be there. Hair stylists etc have a legitimate reason to be in the changing area. Delusional pussygrabbers do not. Doubly so in this case, where the girls were as young as 14 years old.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @10:01PM
I think your sarcasm detector needs recalibration.
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying. Apparently I do need to brush it up,
Yes, I think that is usually the case, but that still doesn't give just *anybody* the right to wander in. Think of it like military "need to know" information. You only allow in those people who have a need to be there. Hair stylists etc have a legitimate reason to be in the changing area. Delusional pussygrabbers do not. Doubly so in this case, where the girls were as young as 14 years old.
Here I think you may be a bit off-base. To be clear, I am not a lawyer. However, I would suggest that a court and a "reasonable person" would not agree. Assuming that public changing area I described before, if I were defending a Mr. Drumpf in court, I would have no problem suggesting that "the girls in question expect male strangers of the event to be wandering around and seeing them partially/unclothed. There is no difference between Mr. Drumpf and a hairdresser: they are both staff members in support of the event."
I'm *sure* that a criminal court would agree, and I'm fairly sure that a civil court would agree. Note this is not saying it is moral or right; I'm only saying that it would be legal... from my non-lawyer perspective, of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @03:09AM
Take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror.
You just tried to make a 'legal' argument justifying dear leader's abhorrent behavior while simultaneously saying you have no legal expertise from which to draw on. Furthermore no one else said anything about the courts. You had to grasp hard at those straws in order to come up with some rationalization to avoid admitting that the emperror has no clothes.
That's called motivated reasoning. At least you are in good company with it, 40% of the country is so drugged out on partisanship that they too are deeply motivated reasoners when it comes to the minority president. When you finally do come down from that high, the withdrawal symptoms are going to be a bitch.