We Must Stop Those Evil Koch Brothers From Helping Expand Individual Liberty
Via Reason comes this comment from a poster at Reddit about the left wing’s latest Public Enemy Number One:
The KOCH brothers must be stopped. They gave $40K to Scott Walker, the MAX allowed by state law. That’s small potatoes compared to the $100+ million they give to other organizations. These organizations will terrify you. If the anti-union thing weren’t enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:
- decriminalize drugs,
- legalize gay marriage,
- repeal the Patriot Act,
- end the police state,
- cut defense spending.
Who hates the police? Only the criminals using drugs, amirite? We need the Patriot Act to allow government to go through our emails and tap our phones to catch people who smoke marijuana and put them in prison. Oh, it’s also good for terrorists.
Wikipedia shows Koch Family Foundations supporting causes like:
- CATO Institute
- Reason Foundation
- cancer research ($150 million to M.I.T. – STOP THEM! KEEP CANCER ALIVE!)
- ballet (because seriously: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Family_Foundations
The Kochs basically give a TON of money (millions of dollars) to the CATO Institute. Scott Walker, $40K? HAH! These CATO people are the REAL problem. They want to end the War on Drugs. Insane, right? We know that the War on Drugs keeps us SAFE from Mexicans and keeps all that violence on their side of the fence. More than 30,000 Mexicans killed as of December! Thank God Mexican lives don’t count as human lives. Our government is doing a good, no, a great job protecting us and seriously, who cares about brown people or should I say non-people? HAHAHA! Public unions are good, government is good, and government protects us from drugs and brown people. The Kochs want to end all that. Look, as far back as 1989 CATO has been trying to decriminalize drugs. Don’t worry, nobody listens to them because they are INSANE.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=981
CATO also rejects the Patriot Act. How can you hate the Patriot Act? Are you not American? They made it easy for you to understand by putting the word “Patriot” in the legislation. That means you should vote YES. Giving up our civil liberties is not a big deal. We need our government. Whether it’s Obama or Bush, we can all agree that the TSA is really good at what they do. God, those patdowns feel SOOOO good.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10599
The Kochs also support Reason Foundation. You don’t know about that? Let me tell you. Basically, REASON Foundation is a bunch of cop haters. Last month, they did a “news” (as if we wanna know!) story on three cops that beat up an unarmed black kid. In the aftermath, the cops were suspended, sat around doing nothing and got paid (like that’s a bad thing!). I don’t know about you, but that puts a smile on my face for four reasons:
- I hate black people,
- I love the police,
- I love it when police beat up black people for no reason,
- I love that it comes out of taxpayers’ money, because it’s not like it’s really my money.
The Kochs are trying to end this. The Kochs must be stopped.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/24/a-beating-in-pittsburgh
CATO trying to cut defense spending:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-to-cut-military-spending/
Gay marriage. YUCK. That’s just obvious. If the KOCH Brothers have their way, there will be homos getting married left and right. Here’s another scary thought: gays raising children.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6379
Here are some videos from Glenn Greenwald, one of those “gays.” He writes for the liberal Salon.com, but don’t let that fool you. He’s in the Koch Brothers’ pocket. Here are some videos to prove my point:
Here’s Glenn Greenwald talking about drug-decriminalization at REASON:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjuvXdqKM0M&feature=related
Yeah, he’s that Glenn Greenwald that also defends WikiLeaks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XInz4i6AV8MIf there’s one thing I know about billionaires, it’s that they only care about money. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and George Soros. They aren’t fooling me. Bill Gates isn’t fooling me with his vaccination campaign in Africa. He’s just trying to make African children live longer so they will buy more copies of Windows. Wow. Not even trying to hide it.
Now, I don’t know why the KOCH brothers want gay people to have the right to marry. Everybody knows marriage is for a man and a woman. Even Obama believes that. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve amirite? I haven’t figured out the angle, yet. Maybe it’s like this:
- legalize drugs
- legalize gay marriage
- sell drugs, oil and Koch napkins to gays at their weddings
- ????
- PROFIT$
I don’t know exactly how it would work, but we can all agree that they’re evil. Think about it. CATO and REASON are the only institutions OPENLY advocating these positions. Who would do such a thing? Have they no shame? Minority opinions MUST BE SILENCED.
Anyway, we must reject everything that the KOCH brothers do in Wisconsin and around the country. We will succeed as long as we stick to the GROUP-&-THINK.
YES WE CAN. You’re either with us or against us.
Tongue firmly planted in cheek, obviously
Incidentally, it’s seldom mentioned in the media but David Koch was a candidate for Vice-President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980.
My biggest problem with the Koch’s isn’t donating to the Cato Institute. It’s their business practices. They have a lousy worker safety record. They’ve had instances where poor maintenance of the oil and gas pipelines have led to deaths of locals nearby. They ended up paying millions to the state of Texas because their oil pipelines had polluted ponds, streams, and lakes illegally. They’ve been found to have dumped fuel waste into local water supplies illegally. One more than one occasion they’ve been caught stealing oil from federal and tribal lands and found to have been obstructing investgiations thereto.
Their company history just over the past two decades alone shows a pattern of negligence, reckless disregard for safety, and outright thievery.
Ah, the wild humor of the libertarian polecicist.
I think he forgot the part about wiping out environmental protections, workplace protections, and the transfer of all wealth to the top half percent.
You seriously thought that was so good you had to reprint it? That’s just sad.
Let’s look at some of the other Koch activities. They are trying to:
– Eliminate all environmental regulations, so we can all get the cancer they want to cure.
– Eliminate all banking regulations, so our galtian overlords can destroy the economy for good.
– Eliminate all worker safety regulations, so they can save money while killing their employees.
– Make sure millions upon millions of Americans suffer, go broke, and die early due to lack of health insurance.
– Eliminate all stimulus spending in a time of economic crisis so they can make more profits while most Americans lose their homes, suffer, go broke, and die early.
– Eliminate social security so old folks suffer in poverty and die early.
Here’s some of the other freedoms they promote:
– Freedom to dump waste wherever they please
– Freedom to discriminate against any group for any reason
– Freedom to oppress minorities
– Freedom to steal from American Indians and other groups
– Freedom to secretly buy elections
Sorry mine isn’t filled with randomly capitalized words and straw man after straw man like the Reddit piece you like so much, but maybe now you get an idea why some of us aren’t too keen on the Koch bothers, despite the fact that they give money to the ballet.
I suspect the Koch brothers are the left’s answer to George Soros. Yet another edition of the childish game, “I know you are, but what am I?”
I suspect the Koch brothers are the left’s answer to George Soros. Yet another edition of the childish game, “I know you are, but what am I?”
The Koch brothers were there first. Their family has an illustrious history with the John Birch Society and helping Stalin to build the Soviet economy. They go way back.
Doug:
Have you noticed that whenever you unfurl your libertarian flag you end up with blog posts that disintegrate? And people end up laughing at you?
Is it maybe time to ask why?
The Koch brothers seem to have a lot of influence on corporate issues and jack squat influence on the rest. Any multi-issue advocacy endeavor is going to have its successes and failures, but after awhile if the failures are always on the same side you can’t help but wonder what the deal is. Is the path on those simply too rough to get anywhere? Is it a strategy issue? Or are those lower in priority than they let on?
Michael,
Your comment is the very reason why libertarians don’t consider themselves to be at home among leftists.
Michael,
Your comment is the very reason why libertarians don’t consider themselves to be at home among leftists.
Ignore the points made and continue nutpicking Doug.
Doug:
Yes, we live in the actual world where policies have consequences for real people and ideology does not trump reality.
I understand that makes libertarians uncomfortable, because as any college freshman can tell you, the most important thing is not actual humans (messy creatures) or the consequences to them, the really important thing is to have a system of thought which can then be applied with utmost consistency.
If that system of thought also happens to be self-serving, self-pitying, and have about it the aura of self-righteousness, why, that’s a bonus!
“The Koch brothers were there first.”
No doubt, but now we’re playing “he hit me first!” Either way, it’s kindergarten.
Funny Michael the only smugness and sense of moral superiority I sense is from so-called “progressives” like yourself who think they know how to run people’s lives better than the people themselves do.
Have a nice life
Doug:
Why is it you have no game when it comes to defending or even explaining your libertarian philosophy?
I’m not the only one who has asked. And you never produce.
Then, when you put up some truly libertarian blog post like this one, people literally laugh.
You have unexamined pre-suppositions. It’s faith, not reason. Which is why you can’t find a way to rationalize it. To even attempt to do so is to reveal it as what it is: an assumption not based in logic or in experience. It’s just an empty assertion. It’s so because you want it to be so.
No one doubts for a moment that you are very smart, and very capable of critical thinking. But you never turn the critical eye on yourself. I think that’s a mistake.
I’m sorry that irritates you. But this is a political blog and I think it’s reasonable for you to be questioned on your political beliefs.
Michael,
I’m perfectly capable of doing that. However. I am not going to feed the troll
Doug — There is simply no legitimate way you can label Michael Reynolds a troll. He is as thoughtful as any of your commenters here — certainly more so than me, as he is far more likely to rise above the available cheap shot — and he’s asking a legitimate set of questions.
From your posts today you make clear you feel you have a real reason to live in terror of a government that forces you to buy health insurance and no problem at all with a pair of billionaires who are spending their fortune to bend government to their needs.
God knows you’re entitled to these opinions, and as a dedicated reader I appreciate your sharing them with the world. But as a non-libertarian, I can’t begin to understand how you put these two together. Obviously neither can Michael.
Don’t answer if he annoys you. (I’d prefer that you do, because I am as intrigued as he is.) Insult him if you want. Make fun of that terrible picture.
But calling him a troll merely serves to diminish you. Labelling a serious inquiry as trollery is the last refuge of the desperately confused…
Doug,
Or to put what wr said in a different light, mantis posted a whole list of items liberals do not like about the Kochs’ political activities. Your response is merely the sound of chirping crickets. When you actually start responding to substantive comments, you’ll get more of a pass on responding peevishly to more flippant ones like Michael’s.
For a political blogger with a degree in political science, Doug is very shy about explaining his politics. It’s weird.
“Eliminate all environmental regulations, so we can all get the cancer they want to cure.”
no just the stupid ones like treating spilt milk like an oil spill.
1980 was the first presidential election I was eligible to vote in. I voted for Ed Clark and David Koch because I was reading about Libertarinism from P.J. O’Rourke in Rolling Stone. I voted on principle that year but after I got to college I better understood that elections have real world consequences, so I figured I should vote with one of the two major parties from that point forward.
I’m glad Libertarianism is becoming more accepted, thanks in large part to David Koch.
Seriously? If the masses were embracing Libertarianism in even a slight way Gillespie wouldn’t have to rely on the largess of the billionaires to keep his vanity magazine afloat.
Hell, even Doug, a self described Libertarian admits he doesn’t vote for them. (Read more an embarrassed Republican).
Frankly, the word Libertarian has no meaning anymore. Don’t believe me? Search Reasons hit and run blog for posts on torture, the patriot act, etc.
Libertarians are effectively Republicans without the Baby Jesus bit.
I give Doug credit though, his comment in a previous post that he’d deal with the deficit by starting with Rand Paul’s plan and working from there was hilarious! And in a total lack of self awareness he wonders why no one takes him seriously.
Doug,
Unfortunately, Michael’s not only correct, but your conduct here has proven it.
The issue, is that the Koch brother’s care nothing about personal liberty. They care about Corporate liberty. As long as corporations ar legally people, they get the benefits.
Libertarianism, simply is a failed ideology. Advocates for Libertarianism fail to account for the end results of such ideology.
I’m pretty sure the article points out why the Koch brothers should be reviled. Their actual donations and involvement with “Americans for Prosperity” completely outweighs their meaningless and ineffectual advocacy for the other issues. I haven’t seen any evidence that their support for the issues listed here isn’t completely superficial and only serves to cover up how destructive their other organizations are. (I’m not sure window dressing isn’t too complimentary a term.)
As a specific example, their donation to California’s Prop 23 and lack of donations to Prop 19.
I’d be curious to know what kind of environmental damage George Soros has caused…
wr,
No, Michael is a troll. I’m willing to debate anything with anyone who approaches an issue seriously. At least with me, his comments are nothing but ridicule. So, I’m done.
Well, there was all that smoke he poured into the atmosphere when he was busy running the concentration camps for the Nazis. That’s what I learned from Glen Beck, anway.
So, I’m done.
Doug, you never started.
What a disappointment.
This is one of the few blogs I go to expecting to see civility and intelligence.
I didn’t realize that I had now entered another ‘echo chamber’…
It’s your blog, Doug. But you would look a lot stronger if you actually answered some of his questions about your political philosophy instead of acting hurt. That’s my opinion, for all the huge amounts it’s worth…
Doug,
” I’m willing to debate anything with anyone who approaches an issue seriously. ”
Clearly not, or you would have responded to mantis long before now.
Perhaps a new, more fitting tactic is in order to resolve this dispute:
IANAL, so feel the additional wrath of pro se.
Well, goddam it, if Doug won’t explain it, I will.
While I agree that the Koch brothers aren’t spending nearly as much as they should be on these very important social issues, they have publicly stated their support for them. Which brings us to the fundamental issue that the reddit article failed to address- the reason, as Doug said, that libertarians don’t feel at home with leftists. And it is an ideological difference. You see, leftists make the basic mistake of thing about tax money as the government’
It never ceases to amaze me those who have the cognitive dissonance to, in one breath mock libertarians (and I’m not even one!), and then clamor for increased regulatory power of the state in order to “counteract” the evil corrupting influences of big business. Businesses are only as “powerful” as the governments they can purchase. Short of hiring mercenary squads, how exactly would big business “force” their will upon the individual WITHOUT appropriating the very increased regulatory powers alleged to protect us? When businesses do stupid crap customers do not appreciate, they lose customers, and therefore money, and if they keep it up long enough, they go OUT of business. The only exception to this rule-of-reality is when businesses, instead of focusing their resources on making valuable products and services, instead lobby a government powerful enough to subvert that natural order. If the government had LESS power, businesses would get LESS value out of such attempts. How does anyone not GET this?
Oops. Let me continue…
The leftist think of tax money as the government’s money, when in fact it is the taxpayer’s money. The taxpayers trust the government to use their money to help with things such as national security and education. When the government starts investing the nation’s taxpayer’s money in multibillion dollar projects that are specific to a particular state (californina) or company(GM) the taxpayer feels robbed. The money they entrusted to the politicians to protect and educate them has gone into helping big businesses and far away urban areas. We need minimum wages, we need safety regulations. The Koch brothers agree. Beyond that, they believe in the free market. Not the gilded age kind, but the original Adam Smith version, with SOME government intervention. Just not so much that the government gets bigheaded. And you can talk all day about the plight of the poor, but we all know that the government currently isn’t serving their best interests even more than the Kochs (pronounced Coke, btw). The tax burden on the poor would no be increased in the Koch system- they want everyone to have lower taxes. And all those social benefit programs like social security and Medicare wouldn’t go away, they would just be moved from one corrupt institution to another. Except the private companies can’t force you to spend money on it. There’s CHOICE and free competition. Which the government can regulate, but only to a REASONABLE extent. Which apparently is a bad thing according to leftists.
And here is proof of how Libertarianism will never be more than a fringe fetish indulged in by people who will never gain any significant political power…unless, of course, a majority of the American people change their minds and decide that billionaires should pay the same tax rates as the janitors who clean their offices and that Social Security and Medicare should actually be privatized…good luck with all that Libertarians…
Well, isn’t it fair that the same amount is taken out of every dollar regardless of whose dollar it is? That seems pretty fair to me.
“transfer of all wealth to the top half percent.”
I love when people use this line. Im assuming this is reffering to wanting lower tax rates. Couls you explain to me the process in which taxing high income earners less is “transfering wealth”?
I have to agree with Doug. Liberals were a lot more fun to hang out with when their guy wasn’t in office. Don’t worry, though, we’ll talk again in 2016.
> Your comment is the very reason why libertarians don’t consider themselves to be at home among leftists.
Doug, how exactly do you figure Michael is a “leftist”? After all, this is just a lame dog whistle for pinko. I realize you are kind of wet behind the ears still, but when I was coming up, if you called a guy in America a leftist, you needed to be prepared to fight him because you were calling him a commie, a red, whatever.
Weak crap dude. And it’s pretty typical of what you have been serving up recently. Are you trying to get a gig on bithead’s blog?
> And you can talk all day about the plight of the poor, but we all know that the government currently isn’t serving their best interests
Nope. They are paying them off to preserve the peace and maintain a social compact that has worked pretty well for folks in this country who are not poor. And the right wants to screw with this? Amazing.
I know I am really looking forward to living in a country where the poor are so desperate and so angry that they are ready to start killing the haves just to blow off steam…
> Short of hiring mercenary squads, how exactly would big business “force” their will upon the individual WITHOUT appropriating the very increased regulatory powers alleged to protect us?
Oh, it’s pretty easy. They just systematically overcharge people. If you do catch it, you are off to “customer service” hell, where you can spend 2 hours trying to get a $45 overcharge taken off your bill. I don’t know about you, but 2 hours of my time is worth quite a bit more than $45. So I can just give in and take the screwing, or I can fight it, raise my blood pressure, and still come out behind, even when I get the charge reversed and hear the obligatory “sorry for the inconvience” which is great compensation for a blown evening spent talking to someone in a call center in India.
I have given up on fighting overcharges more than a few times because it simply was not worth the fight, and my skills at that sort of thing are probably a lot better than that of the average American (I reached the Director of Customer Service for Apple once, which shocked the shit out of the call center person I was fighting with).
So that is one way large corporations have imposed their will on me, without gunplay. And it’s funny, they NEVER seem to undercharge you…
Oh Jesus Christ, you’re reposting comments now? You have completely given up, Mataconis.
Of course a list of positive things the Kochs may/may not fund (I haven’t checked) totally proves whether or not they also fund negative things, right?
Wow, having now read the comment thread it is obvious that Doug has in fact given up. He scrolls right past the long list of reasons people might be uncomfortable with the Kochs after all and instead decides to take up the important issue of whether liberals are meanies with disagreeable personalities. Eventually announces he’s not going to “Feed the trolls” after an extended back and forth with someone he accuses of being one. It’s almost enough to create the impression he’s looking for an excuse not to deliver on that spirited defense of his position that he would certainly have delivered if Michael wasn’t so mean.
> I’m perfectly capable of doing that.
Except you have not actually done it. If you served that cheese up in court, the judge would have you for breakfast. Play your cards, if you have any. You are starting to lose a pretty sympathetic following.
Doug, do you really believe these two give a rat’s ass about gay marriage (which is being more and more accepted without libertarian “help”) or drug legalization?
“The Left” isn’t trying to stop the Koch brothers on those fronts, but on environmental regulations (which bother their heavy industry interests) and union busting (their safety record is abysmal and would be even worse without workers’ defense organizations).
For a “smarty pants and lefty”, but well researched and written, piece on the Koch family read he following from The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
P.S: if you don’t want snarky comments on your blog, you would be well advised to ban snark from your posts.
The Kochs supported Walker.
Walker is institutionalizing no-bid contracts, wants the government to tell people they can’t bargain collectively and also wants to make women’s wombs state interests.
Is that really all it takes, Doug? Cato SAYING nice libertarian things? Where is your sense of skepticism or basic cynicism?
You are really pathetic and a bad libertarian. You’ve been duped by simplistic marketing efforts.
That’s the best example of how a business can “force its will” on you? By working through a process that you both voluntarily agreed to when you freely chose to buy from them? That’s not even a half hearted attempt! Even if there are no decent competitors for a niche market at the moment, you can still choose not to use them. Try opting out of federal regulation though, see what happens when you don’t voluntarily buy health insurance. Even if the implication is that overcharging would become some massive monopolistic conspiracy tactic, you don’t lose legal protections against fraud under any minarchist government. Point is, no one buys a product that’s not worth the cost, and no one would bribe a government that wasn’t worth the investment. With no faceless FCC, EPA, FDA, etc, unelected bureaucracies and czars to bribe, there’s no one with the power to give them the special treatment they want to buy. The only way to get big money out of politics is to get big power out of politicians, NOT vest them with more!
The reason the FCC, FDA, FAA etc. is because those on the suffering end of information asymmetry don’t want to find out after the fact that they are purchasing from a corporation that is doing damage. It’s too much of a transaction cost for customers to keep a check on and investigate corporations themselves.
This is like saying cancer is good for you because you get to eat hospital food. They Koch bros are not in this for you. I personally don’t care what they are “for” since as citizens their opinion should only be worth 1 vote each in their state like mine.
You’re much less likely to get an informative response from Doug if you insult him or his ideals.I would love to hear Doug answer some of these questions so if y’all could be respectful I’d appreciate it 😛
“I know I am really looking forward to living in a country where the poor are so desperate and so angry that they are ready to start killing the haves just to blow off steam…”
Wow.
So to you the “poor” are just a pack of animals to be placated?
“They Koch bros are not in this for you. ”
But the lefties sure are! That’s why they want to restrict free speech, free assembly, end my right to self-defense, confiscate my property, and have the state seize more and more of my labor to benefit themselves!
That’s why they want to restrict free speech, free assembly, end my right to self-defense, confiscate my property, and have the state seize more and more of my labor to benefit themselves!
We don’t want any of these things.
A nice takedown of Reason’s silly fluff from Jonathan Chait is at http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/84196/koch-fiends
Gosh, you’re right… it’d be IMPOSSIBLE for some kind of independent ranking firm to make a business out of supplying a service for which there is a demand. Only the government could fill that void. Who does this “J. D. Powers” fool think he is? I know I hate it when I go somewhere and they’ve got “ZAGAT” in the window. And even if there were one such a “Consumer Report” service, there’s NO way that multiple such entities could compete with eachother by trying to become the most trusted endorsement their customers look for.
michael reynolds: Those who laugh mostly do so out of:
Character weakness (caving to peer pressure- choosing the side of force for fear of being ostracized from the herd)
Lack of historical perspective (living in the here and the now with no indication of the larger ramifications of their transient belief systems)
Stockholm syndrome (a disorder which causes people to love their abuser after being abused for a long enough time)
Lack of philosophical basis (they repeat like parrots whatever they see on TV, without any way to apply it to 2,000+ years of western philosophy to see if it holds much water, or is just some empty PR speak by a corporate monolith out to get ratings, rather than report the news)
A desire to dominate others (literally to force their way of thinking and living on others against their will. Neoconservatives also do this. You will all take away each other’s rights until there are none left, and drag us who are sane down with you)
This sort of collectivist thinking is downright stupid. As if even if the Koch Brothers were evil incarnate (which I am not convinced of), it proves that the larger libertarian philosophy which has been kicked around anywhere from the founding of America (America wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for libertarian Philosophy) to ancient history is suddenly wrong. I will not judge the Koch Brothers. If they cause deaths via their company, that would be a rights violation, and according to libertarian theory, they should be prosecuted. Do you have any source for this that doesn’t come from an enviro-fascist propaganda rag? Were these injuries and deaths due to the employees’ own stupidity? It doesn’t make any sense to kill off your employees. You’d lose a ton of money having to train and re-train people. That’s why corporations who play the game of shedding workers like crazy to make a little bit of cash in the immediate, often tend to take a nose dive as time passes (it’s a common pattern. . . bankruptcy almost always follows).
Most ultra billionaires call for socialism and big government, and most of them don’t even work for a living (most of the ultra rich top billionaires are spoiled brat heirs who couldn’t be a good, honest capitalist if their life depended on it, who have nothing to do but try to meddle in government). It’s actually quite rare to see people of such wealth donating to libertarian causes.
One of the top Progressives in the Senate is Jay Rockefeller (he’s the guy who pushed for ObamaCare the most, for example). Who is Jay Rockefeller? Well he is the son of David Rockefeller who owns Standard Oil and JP Morgan Chase Bank, and the grandson of John D Rockefeller, the guy who all you leftists call the penultimate Robber Baron (In his case, that label actually fits, since he used government to rob everyone, from his customers to his competition), who was among those who originally machine gunned early union movements by the hundreds (men, women and children), caused literally tens of thousands to die from poor working conditions on the railroads. . . The Rockefellers literally funded the rise of Hitler, helped Stalin come to power, and not only funded, but praised Mao’s murder of 100 million Chinese people. . .yet, he is in the Senate, a Progressive Democrat, and nearly every single bill he writes is for more regulation and larger government power.
Shall we play guilt by association? Comparing the Koch Brothers to the Rockefellers will lead you to lose by default. Want to go there?
Rob Crawford: That’s all the poor ever were to socialists and communists. . . just a herd of animals to use in their rise to power, and to keep as trained slaves to use against anyone who threatened their monopoly of power. Karl Marx came from an ultra-rich family and hadn’t been poor once in his life, and communist/socialist societies have a larger divide between the rich and the poor even than we do (In the Soviet Union there was a tiny class of ultra elites who leeched off of “the proletariat” who were all kept barely above starvation level so they could still “produce” – talk about worker exploitation – socialism and communism are IT)
Socialists use the poor as leverage to further themselves. There is no incentive in Capitalism to do this. The poor, along with everyone else, are consumers. They don’t care whom buys their products, just that someone does. Socialists make no sense because screwing the poor would be the last thing capitalists would want. If the poor are broke, they’ve got a lot less customers, which will dwindle their own fortunes. Just look at the current economic mess. Are capitalists thriving? If I’m not mistaken, they’re all going bankrupt at record rates.
Capitalism brought us to a point where even the poor in our country life better than the middle class in much of the third world. These people tend to be spoiled brats who have no idea how bad people have it in other countries with a lack of capitalism. How many people go hungry in this country? How about a third world country with a much larger “social safety net”?
Anyway: these arrogant statists are quite amusing and are great intellectual cannon fodder, so bring it on, you statist fools.
. . . and by “these people”, I don’t mean “the poor”. I mean. . . socialists. I’ve been dirt poor in my life, and the last thing on my mind is that I wanted more government in my life. I just wanted to be left alone and untaxed so that I could get back on my feet.
Wow. Those darn Koch brothers gave Walker 40K to destroy the rights of our poor school teachers? Who will defend these helpless teachers? Oh, look. Here comes some one to the rescue!
The Top 10 Lobbying Organizations so far in 2009-2010 Session have been:
1. Wisconsin Education Association, 10,462 hours, $2,143,588
But how can a mere 2.1 million from WEA compete with the outlandish sum of 40k given by those nefarious Koch brothers? If people are being bought here, I don’t think the Koch brothers brought enough money to the table!
Nice try. They gave money to the Cato Institute, so they must favor drug decriminalization?? If they’re such big libertarians on drugs, how much did they give to support Prop 19 in California? As far as know, zero. (George Soros gave $1 million.) They did contribute a lot of money to support another initiative, to stop California regulating CO2. The Koch brothers (unlike Soros) never gave any money to any political cause that didn’t advance their financial interests.
Howard: a lot of pro-legalization folks didn’t support Prop 19 because of the extreme regulation and possible new crimes that would come along with the (partial) legalization that was advertised. That Proposition would have passed if all the pro-legalization folks though it was a good bill, but they didn’t.
I’m still waiting for the day that Libertarians can actually be blamed for all the things that the political majorities have done. When that happens, I’ll discuss how Libertarian policies have failed. Till then, I’ll just enjoy watching the dems and republicans playing political football from the stands, and blame the libertarian referee for calling the penalty.