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asdf32 posted:Talking about ideology is one thing, fixating on two guys to this extent is another. This is weird. While I think the slide into death worship is bad for the thread insofar as it suffocates actual meaningful debate and, as was previously mentioned, is counterintuitive to the goal of understanding how sane, warm - blooded human beings arrived at such a FYGM attitude, I think I speak for almost everyone when I say shut up asdf32. In a world without actual monsters, the Koch family comes pretty close, and nobody needs your content-less holier than thou-bullshit defending them like you're some sort of intellectual. The Kochs are sort of like Reagan or Thatcher in the respect that they are intractable forces of nature, and the only thing that can win out of them short of an act of God is entropy. Their ideologies will survive them, though, and that theater is what I imagine the scope of this thread encompasses. Hopefully, we can come up with better ways to combat their looming specters than mocking objectivism on a forum and keeping the champagne on ice (not that it isn't cathartic).
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Apr 5, 2014 05:09
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First Bass posted:While I think the slide into death worship is bad for the thread insofar as it suffocates actual meaningful debate and, as was previously mentioned, is counterintuitive to the goal of understanding how sane, warm - blooded human beings arrived at such a FYGM attitude, I think I speak for almost everyone when I say shut up asdf32. In a world without actual monsters, the Koch family comes pretty close, and nobody needs your content-less holier than thou-bullshit defending them like you're some sort of intellectual. The way to kill their ideology is to move beyond government, to encourage communal groups. Masonry? Church groups? The YMCA all are part of exterminating what really is nothing more than society allowing the virus of sociopathy to flourish. Take part in encouraging communal activities, likewise the formation of workmans federations, that would give to a worker who had fallen on hard times, and similar reasons. Open soup kitchens, and food shelves, all of this promotes the idea that one is part of a greater whole. This system they have created flourishes under the idea one is an alienated automist thing, this will do well to crush that virus.
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Apr 5, 2014 05:26
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Crowsbeak posted:This system they have created flourishes under the idea one is an alienated automist thing, this will do well to crush that virus. Yeah, soup kitchens are really going to teach the financial class about their dependence on their fellow man.
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Apr 5, 2014 06:05
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VideoTapir posted:Yeah, soup kitchens are really going to teach the financial class about their dependence on their fellow man. The financial class is not the target, those things should never be the target, hell targeting them is what got such organizations like third way prominence. Why would you want change the mind of what is obviously the enemy here? If you wish to change how a society works, you must change the way it thinks. That starts from the bottom, not from the top. Those at the bottom in the end allow a system its foundation, by which it stands. To change, or burn a system you must start with the foundation. Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 06:59
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asdf32 posted:Talking about ideology is one thing, fixating on two guys to this extent is another. This is weird. If you're going to troll, concern troll.
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Apr 5, 2014 07:00
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Crowsbeak posted:The financial class is not the target, those things should never be the target, hell targeting them is what got such organizations like third way prominence. Why would you want change the mind of what is obviously the enemy here? If you wish to change how a society works, you must change the way it thinks. That starts from the bottom, not from the top. Those at the bottom in the end allow a system its foundation, by which it stands. To change, or burn a system you must start with the foundation. You're not going to reach ANYONE who needs reaching that way. You're not going to combat any ideas directly that way. Strengthening institutions which hold opposing views, making it harder to snuff those ideas out, sure. But it's a defensive move. edit: Chris Hedges talks about this stuff; not as a way of fighting back, but as a way of SURVIVING. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 10:37
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At this point the process of globalization has more or less stabilized (with no faster means of communication/transport likely to emerge) - we are returning to human normalcy where Might makes Right. Internationally this means force of arms, and domestically it means cold hard cash. The domestic pretense must be chipped away until people realize that justice is a collective and democratic effort. Rights do not come from nature and God, they come from a vigilant and engaged citizenry.
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Apr 5, 2014 15:16
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I brought that memorandum of understanding between The CGK foundation and FSU to work last night and just left it laying on a table at the shop. A couple of FSU students asked me about it and we started chatting. They said people are still concerned and that they would be interested in doing a little activisim. We're going to be meeting next Sunday to talk about it, and they are bringing some interested friends as well. My idea is to do a Kickstarter for 6.5 million dollars to buy back the FSU economice department. We have no chance of raising that money, but if the video is good and has a healthy dose of humour then it might have a shot at going viral, and at least raising awareness.
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Apr 5, 2014 15:51
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Crowsbeak posted:The financial class is not the target, those things should never be the target, hell targeting them is what got such organizations like third way prominence. Why would you want change the mind of what is obviously the enemy here? If you wish to change how a society works, you must change the way it thinks. That starts from the bottom, not from the top. Those at the bottom in the end allow a system its foundation, by which it stands. To change, or burn a system you must start with the foundation. This is what my post was getting at. I agree with this. Individual leaders are always a function of their time and place, reflecting existing realities more than shaping them. Certainly that's true for the Koch brothers who about 99% of people are utterly unaware of. It's not really about the top. menino posted:If you're going to troll, concern troll. Good enough?
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Apr 5, 2014 17:22
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Crowsbeak posted:The way to kill their ideology is to move beyond government, to encourage communal groups. Now that I can get behind. But unfortunately even dead ideologies don't go away. More Koch articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/us/politics/to-hit-back-at-kochs-democrats-revive-tactic-that-hurt-romney.html?_r=0 Dems planning/using same rhetoric they used on Romney in the races the Kochs pour money into. Not Koch but Rand Paul: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/pauls-gop-hostile-takeover-gets-more-hostile.html?test=true more Libertarianism's take over of GOP Darrel Issa: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/10/lois-lerner-contempt_n_5126463.html Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in contempt. Haven't seen anything about a vote in the full house on this yet. Think it would go to attorney general after that (so eventually this won't go anywhere). But: "Today, this committee is trying to do something that even Joe McCarthy could not do in the 1950s -- something virtually unprecedented." - Elijah Cummings (Md.) Again, It's not like McCarthy it's same as McCarthy. McCarthy -> Birchers -> Tea party. A reminder: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/herman-mccarthy.html "The John Birch Society, the final word in right-wing extremism and anti-Communist paranoia, made its home in Appleton — keeping vigil, as it were, beside the fallen hero's tomb " This is a couple of years old but relevant: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/28/1151495/-How-Mormon-Leaders-Built-the-John-Birch-Society Something I was unaware of apparently there was a great deal of over lap between the Mormon Church Hierarchy and the Birchers too. Apparently the JBS is even structured organizationally like the Mormon church. This connection explains why Glenn Beck is the way he is. It also explains the the right wing Christian stuff. I hadn't found a direct link between dominionism and the Tea Party/JBS stuff, just shared ideas. This means those ideas probably came into all this right wing thought via Mormonism. It also links Romney to this type of thought (not because he's Mormon, because he references some of these people directly). Leroy Diplowski, Added a link to your FSU post at the top of the OP. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 15:52
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mcmagic posted:He really believes this poo poo. But I guess if you're a billionaire son of a millionaire you're so disconnected from the reality of what normal people's lives are that it shouldn't be that surprising. Anyone who believes that a business will answer to it's customers and not misinform or coerce them hasn't been a part of functioning society for some time.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:51
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FADEtoBLACK posted:Anyone who believes that a business will answer to it's customers and not misinform or coerce them hasn't been a part of functioning society for some time. Right. Every business tries to screw every customer all the time. This isn't an extreme point of view.
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Apr 15, 2014 05:10
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asdf32 posted:Right. Every business tries to screw every customer all the time. This isn't an extreme point of view. There are exceptions to the rule, usually to do with small mom and pop businesses, but by and large this isn't really an extreme point of view, no.
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Apr 15, 2014 06:59
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FADEtoBLACK posted:Anyone who believes that a business will answer to it's customers and not misinform or coerce them hasn't been a part of functioning society for some time. In a system with perfect information and free competition this is true. The real world has neither of those things. One of the biggest issues in the American business climate is that some businesses or sectors have literally no competition or so much collusion that they can bone customers how they want, when they want, and customers can't do a drat thing about it. It's part of how Comcast, for example, is a lovely company that everybody hates but is still in business. There are a lot of places where Comcast is your only way to get internet and/or cable. Your choices are Comcast or nothing in those areas.
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Apr 15, 2014 07:16
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asdf32 posted:Right. Every business tries to screw every customer all the time. This isn't an extreme point of view. You know if I had meant it like that I would have worded it your way. Know about what happened during the GM recall? How about the fact that banks own commodities and also the property those commodities are stored so they can create whatever price they want. This isn't a non-provable conspiracy theory. They purposely send something like aluminum to another aluminum storage facility and keep repeating it until the price goes up due to demand. Our entire economy is built around getting as much money as possible and not worrying about the results unless they are absolutely unavoidable and even then it's about damage control in order to continue maximum profitability, not about correction. ToxicSlurpee posted:In a system with perfect information and free competition this is true. The real world has neither of those things. One of the biggest issues in the American business climate is that some businesses or sectors have literally no competition or so much collusion that they can bone customers how they want, when they want, and customers can't do a drat thing about it. Pretty much any service that has government sanctioned monopoly, but not oversight is going to act like this. People complain about how much we are over-regulated in the same week we have a massive chemical spill because no one stopped by to look at how things were running for years. You want to know the whole thing with Koch, business in general, and the problem with America? It's not a conspiracy, its just that we no longer accept any kind of negative economic growth for the short term in order to establish a more positive long term outlook. That things like individual education sounds good, it's an easy way for you personally to get better than average education, but the point of mass education isn't that you personally are educated to a certain point, it's that everyone you have to interact with in this country will have a baseline of education as well. That not only prevents them from trying to do long term damaging things to get rich quick, but that also prevents you, who are more educated, from imposing your own personal bias on them without repercussions.
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Apr 15, 2014 08:58
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Leroy Diplowski posted:
Holy poo poo that is the wankiest thing I've ever seen. Also he sees no irony here: quote:3. I am originally from Montana (and I really miss the mountains and high plains): perhaps as a result, I have a substantial interest in Western History: I developed and regularly teach a course in “The Economics of Native Americans”, for instance, perhaps the only course of its kind in the world (as a Westerner, I also was raised to appreciate the value of personal freedom, personal responsibility, individualism, and private property, another reason for becoming a libertarian)
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Apr 15, 2014 15:48
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Wow, Did any one read the papers he has online (and yes all his hyper links aren't done right, click the one below to look at the one you want) http://mailer.fsu.edu/~bbenson/HIGHWAYS.pdf "" posted:"An Alternative for the Benevolent State: Privatization" Some medieval roads in Great Britain were clubs, therefore all roads are clubs, private goods, or common pools and therefore we should privatizing them and while we're at it privatizing schools and the police I bet that "Native American Economics" course he teaches is uh, interesting to say the least. To bad the link the syllabus is dead. Looks like the guy corresponded directly with Rothbard for years. http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig3/benson2.html and his Vietnam experience is well, here are his words: "" posted:"As a squad leader I learned to avoid dangerous situations when ever we could (by not doing what we were told to do if we could get away with it; e.g., spending our nights well off the trails that we were ordered to set up ambushes on) and to be very aggressive when a situation arose that could not be avoided (in hopes of either surprising the enemy and getting things over with quickly, or quickly running them off)" "" posted:"After a bout of malaria (we were ordered to take malaria pills but I never did, hoping to get sick so I could "get out of the field" and spend some hospital time in Vietnam, only to catch it just before leaving so it appeared after I was back in the States)" but this is the kicker "" posted:"The more I read about and wrestle with the issues I explored in The Enterprise of Law, and other related issues, the more I am convinced that my general views are valid. There is virtually no chance that I will veer off my path now." Another example of how these libertarians are certain they have the Truth in Praxeology. This is why, to me, it's more a demonized religion than just an ideology. They have their concepts which are treated as the Absolute.
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Apr 16, 2014 16:27
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Stuff that really didn't fit into the last post, the link to Lew Rockwell moved me onto things I hadn't seen before. All this is from the Rothbard side of Libertarianism so it's against he Kochs There was a split between the Rothbard people and the Koch people, it was nasty. Here's a great deal on it: http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/david-gordon/why-the-koch-brothers-went-after-murray-rothbard/ I should probably start thinking in terms of different denominations within Libertarianism. Seems like the Pauls are on the Rothbard side. Now this is interesting: "" posted:The word on the street (K Street, that is) is that Charles Koch’s lawsuit against the CATO Institute is motivated by his desire to abandon what he once believed was a potentially successful Grand Strategy and replace it with a different institutional strategy. The Grand Strategy was explained to me back in the early 1980s by Richard Fink, the longtime head of the Koch Foundation, when we were both young assistant professors of economics at George Mason University (and before Richie was with the Koch Foundation). The strategy was to use institutions such as George Mason to educate undergraduate and graduate students in free-market economics who would then work for various arms of the Kochtopus, for members of congress or the executive branch, or become journalists or elected officials themselves. In other words, the strategy was all about influencing or taking over the Washington Establishment. That FSU professor has some George Mason honors listed on his website. http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/charles-koch-makes-a-good-point/ "" posted:Quite instructive in the piece, for which Charles and David were clearly cooperating, is that Friedrich Hayek is mentioned, but not the Austrian economists Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises: Koch Industries essentially applies the ideas of Friedrich Hayek to the art of making money. Meh, I've got examples of Charles referencing Ludwig von Mises all over the place. This Rothbard split might be nastier that it seems. To imply the Kochs don't reference Mises (they do) and only the Rothbard people do is to imply the foundation of the Koch's ideas are not from praxeology. Meanwhile the whole article argues their money actually comes from Rothbard's ideas. This is Rothbard apologia, for an internal audience. http://www.lewrockwell.com/2012/12/robert-wenzel/how-the-koch-brothers-becamebillionaires/
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Apr 16, 2014 16:50
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Bernie Sanders on the Kochs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/who-are-the-koch-brothers_b_5165995.html?utm_hp_ref=politics Bernie Sanders posted:As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires and large corporations can now spend an unlimited amount of money to influence the political process. The results of that decision are clear. In the coming months and years the Koch brothers and other extraordinarily wealthy families will spend billions of dollars to elect right-wing candidates to the Senate, the House, governors' mansions and the presidency of the United States. These billionaires already own much of our economy. That, apparently, is not enough. Now, they want to own the United States government as well.
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Apr 18, 2014 16:11
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It reads like the description of some made for tv movie villain but every bit of it is depressingly true.
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Apr 18, 2014 20:56
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I really wish they took up a hobby that didn't involve hijacking the US government. Something like mountaineering would probably fit them well.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:03
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FSU thing made the Tampa news on Friday http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/college/some-fear-charles-kochs-influence-damages-fsus-integrity/2175919 Tampa Bay Times posted:It's not quite a fair fight. Or even a practical fight. And some Krugman on the Kochs. About a month old missed it before. Things go better with Kochs posted:Hey, I had to use that headline before someone else claimed it. Some more older stuff, Reid and Schumer commenting on the Kochs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/chuck-schumer-koch-brothers_n_5073850.html Edit: One more older thing. Chris Matthews doesn't think C. Koch wrote the OP ED http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/04/matthews_charles_kochs_ghost_writer_makes_it_look_as_if_hes_literate.html I'm pretty certain he did (it's very much like other things he has written) and that Matthews is wrong. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 14:14
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The "Libre" Intiative http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/libre-initiative-_n_4637158.html Koch Backed libertarian outreach to hispanics "" posted:For example, the group organizes free health clinics and English classes year-round. Last year, it provided free tax preparation services as well as legal advice related to immigration and home foreclosures. This year, it will begin to offer free GED courses online. This is the important part here. Salvation and Truths are tied up together. If you keep someone from being deported, from losing their home, from being uneducated, or from death, that's a salvation. This is a long game they are playing here. As long as the buy our way into the educational system game. It's a moral influence approach. They produce a positive moral change, which is credited to the idea (Freedom) to create individuals who will spread the idea with their lives. There is a large spectrum of how this way of acting looks. On the healthy side think the way the Pope acts. On the hosed up side think of the social services of something like Hezbollah. Not Kochs but worrying: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/kkk-neighborhood-watch-group_n_5186525.html I've talked about my family in other threads. My dad's side is Appalachia and gangsters. But my mom's side is New York / New Jersey WASPy. If I go back far enough there, I have some (well a) klansmen in the family tree. So I've heard apology for that from older relatives (now dead relatives). This neighborhood watch stuff drips of those types of apologies and it's a very very bad thing to see going on. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 14:46
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I hope Latinos will freely avail themselves of those services, but I'm imagining any preaching about Mises is going to go over like a lead balloon. I'm guessing that the toy thought of Mises and Rand looks pretty ridiculous to a person who hiked into the US across a desert, or who was kept in the basement of a disco while cartel thugs took everyone's picture for their records.
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Apr 22, 2014 16:40
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BrandorKP posted:The "Libre" Intiative You see this is why we need to create our own community organizations and do what I said. Its the only way to combat the influence of sociopathy. If you are to win a peoples hearts and minds you must give them a reason to identify with them. Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 17:13
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SedanChair posted:I hope Latinos will freely avail themselves of those services, but I'm imagining any preaching about Mises is going to go over like a lead balloon. I'm guessing that the toy thought of Mises and Rand looks pretty ridiculous to a person who hiked into the US across a desert, or who was kept in the basement of a disco while cartel thugs took everyone's picture for their records. What I find most amusing is that they won't shut the hell up about Oblammo giving free stuff to Latinos and then...give free stuff to Latinos.
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Apr 22, 2014 17:30
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They aren't sociopaths unfortunately. This would be easier if they were. I think create community is right. But it's hard, it's really hard. A practical example. Where I live the schools in the city are terrible. What's happened is that the public schools aren't really funded properly and all the children of anybody with any money go to private schools. If one doesn't have money (but has some brains) they move across county lines where the schools are better. This creates a defacto segregation. Basically poor African American or Latino students go to to the public schools downtown. Middle class people (of all races) either move to the suburbs or send their kids to private schools. Racial segregation by means of economic segregation. To be involved in creating community in the face of this problem one has to participate in the community. Participation means sending ones children to frankly awful schools, where they will be an outsider. In other contexts it might mean living in depressed areas. It might mean taking on risks to ones job security by talking publicly. Or it might mean taking a job with the intent of organizing. But the way things are stacked right now creating community carries varying degrees of risk to self (or to family.) In some cases community has been co-opted already, and it's not just a matter of joining and participating but of really truly creating community from scratch. In some places we are isolated by the very structure of society (especially in the suburbs). gently caress, I have hard even getting my neighbors to acknowledge I exist. Earlier in the thread (maybe it was another thread, I can't seem to find the post), I brought up the older man I had been talking to who had lived through McCarthyism and who knew first gen Birchers in Wisconsin, who said: "Everybody knew these people were crazy." Well he and I spoke some more over the holiday and he said something else: "We might have to hit bottom before people see what's going on." I do not intend to be afraid of that. I read an article over the holiday that expresses the way I feel "Rather than fearing or stigmatizing those who are dying --in truth, all of us are dying-- we should seek to find ideas, causes, and people worth living (and, perhaps, dying) for." http://www.ebony.com/news-views/easter-a-revolutionary-holiday-492#ixzz2zdhoRXIk Creating community is right in-line with that. The problem confronting me personally is that I have more community with the sailors I encounter professionally than I do with my neighbors. I don't even know the name of the person I live next to. But I know how Oleg's kids are doing. I have more in common with a Burmese AB taking soundings for me on a ship, than I do with the congregation of the church directly across the street from my home.
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Apr 22, 2014 20:31
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BrandorKP posted:They aren't sociopaths unfortunately. This would be easier if they were. It's tough to create any kind of real left-wing community in the US since our citizens are inculcated with authoritarian and/or right-wing thought. Most western religions are authoritarian, at least as practiced today in the US, and most citizens are religious in some way or it's at least the basis for their cultural moorings, so the groundwork is already laid for Republicanism (whatever the gently caress that is today) or Libertarianism - it's natural for great men to exist and for us all to follow them for we are but humble servants. You have to fight a lot of indoctrination to get people to rise up and take control of their own destiny since they don't really believe that they control it at all in the first place. Also, can you explain "Can you and I even have a conversation about anything. I'm entirely serious. I'm obsessed with a universals. You very often argue as if universal don't exist and totally and completely miss the point of any type of conversation about them." to me? 
Dystram fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 20:21
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Dystram, I argue with Who What Know a lot. We have the same argument over and over again. I have a crazy rear end high Christology and am very logocentric and he basically thinks I'm a bad person for being religious and for a while was following me from thread to thread. (Although he didn't buy the title) Simultaneously I recognize that these ideas I believe in are constructions, that they are ideas put together by people, and that they originate out of historical circumstance. But I think those ideas point to a truth a universal, an absolute, the real, God, whatever word one wants to use. Anyway I have an extreme dislike for constructed ideas being treated as the Absolute, instead of as tools (messengers) that can point towards the absolute. Basically, that's my criticism of the Libertarians. Freedom isn't the Absolute, it isn't God. In another thread I pissed people off by basically saying the same thing about math. It's a construction a tool we created, it isn't some essential, and it certainly isn't the real. I then compared Tegmark's ( a physicist asserting a mathematical universe) thought to other esoteric religious thought and to natural law type thoughts. Who What Know, wants legitimacy of the above way of looking at the world proven. Which is silly because it's a question faith, of ultimate concerns, and there isn't any proving anything in a conversation of that type. So the criticism I'm making in this thread and the Math thread comes from my belief in a universal, in an Absolute. Basically that criticism is: Idol's (ideologies treated as Truth) are dangerous. Can one have a conversation on that topic with someone who denies the viability and legitimacy of looking at the world in that way. And that's how I got a red title.
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Apr 24, 2014 18:49
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BrandorKP posted:Dystram, I am not religious but I dig the way you think. I tend to make the same assertion, that human contrivances are not, in general, "real" or absolutes, but I do think art - human expression - is organic and "real," and that math is "real", and that science is our way of discovering what is "real", where as things like economics are not real and are just a way to academize and intellectualize and justify geopolitical decisions that reward some and destroy many, a grandiose co-pout, "I was just following orders" writ large.
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Apr 24, 2014 19:15
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Dystram posted:I am not religious but I dig the way you think. I tend to make the same assertion, that human contrivances are not, in general, "real" or absolutes, but I do think art - human expression - is organic and "real," and that math is "real", and that science is our way of discovering what is "real", where as things like economics are not real and are just a way to academize and intellectualize and justify geopolitical decisions that reward some and destroy many, a grandiose co-pout, "I was just following orders" writ large. Economics is kind of like the weather report. It's wrong often enough that we can't rely on it but right often enough that we can't ignore it.
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Apr 24, 2014 19:35
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Hey guys, there's a good chance theses two pieces of human filth will be dead within the next decade. Sure they'll have hosed us beyond practical repair and will have replacements but gently caress, at least they'll be loving DEAD and rotting in the same ground as all the poor people they doomed to suffer and die. So there's some form of justice there. Christ I hate these two men. Like, I hate them more than any other human beings on the planet. If there was any justice in the universe they'd be strung up as national traitors and their names would be right next to Benedict Arnold in the history books. Them dying won't really matter much. Their kids will keep right on doing what they did and so will many other oligarchs. Making this about individual people doesn't seem practical to me other than as a political boogyman.
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Apr 24, 2014 19:52
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More Koch news: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/koch-brothers-cliven-bundy_n_5213481.html?utm_hp_ref=politics They deleted all social media references to Cliven Bundy after he showed his racism. Harry Reid's staffers have been busy posting Koch stuff on his senate page for a while now. This posting started a while ago, I just haven't looked at any of it until now, some of it's good. http://www.reid.senate.gov/koch-facts#.U1sAsbQa2h8 and so has Bernie Sanders: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers From Senator Sanders post about David Koch's 1980 platform (I hadn't been able to find it): “We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.” I do a lot with 49 CFR which is the section of federal regulation dealing with transportation of hazardous materials. I don't think the average person gets how dangerous this "We should eliminate the DOT" talk is. This isn't air quality stuff, it isn't protecting tortoises stuff, it's how explosives are shipped stuff, it's which hazardous materials cannot be near other hazardous materials stuff. These are not regulations created by a bureaucrat to nudge the population in a certain way. DOT / Pipeline regulations are very bad poo poo happened where lots of people died, we cannot allow this to happen again type regulations. The recent "Freedom industries" incident just became far more worrying to me. I mean it was a bad thing before, but a "might be a beginning of how things are in the future" is far worse than isolated incident. Also not Kochs but: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/wayne-lapierre-nra-_n_5214959.html Head of the NRA, Wayne Lapierre: "Freedom has never needed our defense more than now. Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You feel it in your heart, you know it in your gut. Something has gone wrong. The core values we believe in, the things we care about most, are changing. Eroding. Our right to speak. Our right to gather. Our right to privacy. The freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families the way we see fit. Those aren't old values. They aren't new values. They are core freedoms, the core values that have always defined us as a nation. And we feel them -- we feel them -- slipping away." It's structured the same way. Freedom (defined only individually, and with the right to bear arms highest) as the Absolute must be defended. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 02:11
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Almost forgot this one: http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/04/25/14662/koch-brothers-major-corporations-sponsor-pension-reform-seminar-judges Seminar for judges on pension reform hosted by George Mason University. Here's the GMU page for the Symposium http://masonlec.org/events/event/195-judicial-symposium-economics-law-public-pension-reform If you work for the government, this is very bad for you. Basically they're all getting together to decide how best to gently caress your pension.
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Apr 26, 2014 02:24
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BrandorKP posted:Stuff that really didn't fit into the last post, the link to Lew Rockwell moved me onto things I hadn't seen before. All this is from the Rothbard side of Libertarianism so it's against he Kochs If you are going to engage with libertarianism beyond a surface level examination of their philosophy then yeah, it's definitely important to keep all of the relationships between the major players in mind. The libertarian community is small enough that it's not too hard to do. The Pauls are not so much on the Rothbard side as they are their own faction, maybe less now than in 2008. They are generally closer to the Rothbard devotees but not all relations between the Kochs and the Pauls are hostile; just most of them. Cato serves as a sort of neutral mixing ground from what I understand despite literally being the Koch Foundation. What you have to understand about Rothbard and his followers is that if libertarianism has an id, it's them. The Kochs are bad but an ultrawealthy Rothbard follower would be ten times worse.
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Apr 26, 2014 02:58
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I was really surprised by how nasty some of these differences are. I shouldn't have been.
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Apr 26, 2014 03:10
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BrandorKP posted:I do a lot with 49 CFR which is the section of federal regulation dealing with transportation of hazardous materials. I don't think the average person gets how dangerous this "We should eliminate the DOT" talk is. This isn't air quality stuff, it isn't protecting tortoises stuff, it's how explosives are shipped stuff, it's which hazardous materials cannot be near other hazardous materials stuff. These are not regulations created by a bureaucrat to nudge the population in a certain way. DOT / Pipeline regulations are very bad poo poo happened where lots of people died, we cannot allow this to happen again type regulations. Hah. This makes me think of Kingman, Arizona, where I lived for a while. Kingman is known for two things; a train car explosion in the 1970s, and being where Timothy McVeigh lived before the bombing. I am absolutely positive that this idea would be popular in Kingman.
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Apr 26, 2014 06:04
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BrandorKP posted:Almost forgot this one: So, is there some reason these assholes want to assault pensions? I mean, I know they're idiot villains but is there any logic here that I can grasp? Is it all just non-euclidean geometry and lovecraftian horror? I just spent about an hour after a poker game trying to explain to a guy from the boomer gen why a flat tax makes no sense and why progressive taxation is fair and what the gently caress proportions are and why social security is not, in fact, insolvent. Oh god why do I open my loving mouth... there is nothing to say that will reach these people... Dystram fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 07:26
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Dystram posted:So, is there some reason these assholes want to assault pensions? I mean, I know they're idiot villains but is there any logic here that I can grasp? Is it all just non-euclidean geometry and lovecraftian horror? They have to pay for pensions. That's it, really. They're giving somebody money and not getting more money back.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:11
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Actually, it's paying any compensation at all - they would be more-than-happy to bring back indentured servitude/debtors prisons, if they could.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:13
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