I have found the best two sequential sentences ever written by WSJ:
- Mr. Koch attended MIT, where he learned about the second law of thermodynamics, which holds that entropy virtually always increases in a closed system. That laid the cornerstone for his brand of heterodox libertarianism, which has placed him at odds with Mr. Trump.
You probably remember the first time you learned that mass is a form of energy, which bends spacetime, and you instantly became communist.
"Boy, did we screw up. What a mess!" I saw that quote all over, but couldn't find context. Amazon has a listing now, with "search inside" enabled. Here's the passage: The quick version is that partisan politics prevented us from achieving the thing that motivated us to get involved in politics in the first place—helping people by removing barriers. I was slow to react to this fact, letting us head down the wrong road for the better part of a decade. Boy, did we screw up. What a mess! Once this became clear, we changed our approach. Far from withdrawing from politics, we decided to get more involved. But instead of picking a team and figuring out who would work with us to get good policy passed, we decided to skip the first step and do a better job of the second. We now work with people on the red team, the blue team, or no team at all! We now go issue by issue and work with anyone, regardless of political party. In short, we abandoned partisanship and chose partnership instead. This simple distinction has made all the difference. It is key to transforming government, so it is key to helping every person rise. In matters of public policy, partnership is a better way.Meaningful achievements—policies that enable more people to flourish—become difficult and rare in this environment. Your team has an incentive to build barriers instead of knocking them down. The whole system pushes beneficial government out of reach.
I took kleinbl00's advice and followed the money.We now work with people on the red team, the blue team, or no team at all! We now go issue by issue and work with anyone, regardless of political party.
Man, your inbox is a black hole so, fine, I’ll just CC the world. [screenshot of my browser history] Elon Musk / Twitter koch lobbying - Google search Koch Industries Lobbying Profile (the link you replied with) Koch Federal Direct Lobbying Expenditures The Koch network is reorganizing under a new name and with new priorities Heh, I was just ahead of you, after the rocket didn’t launch.
Hubski seems annoyed that the guy has a position and is using his resources to try and advance it. Haven’t many mentioned donating perhaps a larger portion of their net worth to political causes?
Perhaps we should consider whether we actually support his position. WP reports on “a nonprofit arm that the Koch apparatus created three years ago to support community groups addressing maladies like poverty, addiction, recidivism, gang violence and homelessness.”
Hubski is especially concerned with a perceived hypocrisy of advocating smaller government while donating to government. That’s not my style, but I’m not sure how supporting small-gov pols over their rivals is especially contradictory.
Anyway, Hubski should look in the mirror.
Isn't this the height of hypocracy? The problems with fools like him is that they don't recognise that not every person can participate equally. A billionaire can influence politics a lot more than some fast food worker. Pretending that "one man one vote" is all that counts doesn't make it so. It's so absurd that I just can't actually believe that he genuinely believes this stuff. He can't possibly be so dumb to think that he DOESN'T wield undue influence.He rails against what he calls unnecessary licensing and government lobbying. (Koch Industries has spent more than $100 million in lobbying over the past decade, according to federal records kept by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group tracking money in U.S. politics.)
Mr. Koch disagrees and bristles at the notion that he wields too much influence. “When you look at countries that don’t let everyone participate, those in power stay in power unchallenged,” he says. “Instead of limiting certain people’s ability to engage, we should do all we can to empower more people to get engaged.”
Yeah. Another PR campaign. At least this one didn't hijack the white house... directly? Wealth inequality needs to be addressed. There isn't much of a coherent conversation about it at the national level here in the US. Weird! I think some disparity in wealth across society is natural, and even healthy. But that level is almost certainly wayyyyy lower than what we're at, right now. I think the libertarians have the biggest problem with assuring folks that the "free market only" model would do anything but perpetuate and perhaps increase the existing wealth gap. Heh, and if America were to, by law, order a wealth redistribution before calling for dissolution of government, that'd be a libertarian-sponsored legitimization of government. But yee, for sure, the current degree of wealth disparity definitely undermines the concept of "all people are equal", especially because wealth was more evenly distributed in America just a couple of generations ago. I can't speak to many other countries, I mostly know here (typical american).
Right, I forgot about the paywall. Thanks :). My actual feeling about the article is something like: "Hahahha. But, good! Even if I'd rather he spend his money paying more taxes, we still need this rhetoric from highly influencial people."
Yes, I would like to see more people say that partisanship is a mistake. Everyone seems disappointed by the home team, yet most cheer as loudly as ever.“We did not create the tea party. We shared their concern about unsustainable government spending, and we supported some tea-party groups on that issue,” Mr. Koch wrote in an email. “But it seems to me the tea party was largely unsuccessful long-term, given that we’re coming off a Republican administration with the largest government spending in history.”
One thing I've been wanting to point out (have I already in an email? dunno) is the relatively larger amount of political spectrum permitted by the left. The GOP has been transformed into the party of "whatever Trump says goes", ideological consistencies with recent history be damned (and here, Koch's got him). One of the reasons top GOP brass allowed all of this was because of how effective it made them politically, to unify behind one man. The left's ideological diversity simply does not allow for that, and they are weaker for it, despite ideological diversity being a healthy thing. But yeah, you libertarians were already pretty neglected, and then you get blamed by Trumpkins for voting Jorgenson. Come join me, on the dark side. Together, we can rule the galaxy.
Jorgensen said "I used to tell people the Libertarian Party is the best of both sides. We take the economic freedoms from the right and the social freedoms from the left. I can't even say that anymore because Republicans aren't acting like Republicans and Democrats aren't acting like Democrats." I agree the left offers more spectrum, having taken over most of the airwaves, media and academia. I am still partial to Caplan's Simplistic Theory of Left and Right, which says the right is defined by opposition to the left. Yudkowsky offers his take in a delightful parable.