The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

I don't think we need to accept the _entire_ agenda of the Koch brothers in order to appreciate that sometimes they're doing the right thing.

Like the police, who, due to smart phones, are finally being held accountable for the brutality they've been getting away with for decades?

Or maybe you mean civil asset forfeiture, which the police use to steal money from people accused of criminal activity, with no effective mechanism for non-rich people to get it back?

Or maybe the current public school system, which encourages mediocrity and is remarkably ineffective for poor students?

Or maybe you mean the current welfare system, which has the long-term effect of keeping entire populations in destitute poverty even across generational lines?

Or maybe you mean gun control legislation intended to target black populations?

Or maybe you mean the PATRIOT act, which I'm sure has been very helpful in "protecting the poor" (and the rich! Great!) from the apparently ever-present and very serious threat of terrorism?

Because the Koch brothers and the Cato institute have done a great deal of work to improve all of these things.

> re-create feudal Europe

Feudal Europe wasn't libertarian at all. Feudal lords had legal privileges that everyone else didn't. Libertarians believe in a legal system that doesn't afford special privileges to anyone, and they generally believe in government functions like a public police force (although typically a very reserved one compared to present day military-style police forces/SWAT/DEA/etc.).

Such a system wouldn't even be sustainable with current levels of technology. Guerrilla warfare is now too effective compared to the kind of military forces a feudal lord could muster up, and global food production is so high that feudal lords can no longer use food production as a metaphorical (or literal, I suppose) carrot.

Consider the work of the Libertarian Party to, for example, free people to braid hair without requiring a year of training to get a license.

Or consider that big corporations love regulations as a way to put barriers in the way of competitors. That's the whole point of the economic idea of "rent seeking", and what public choice economists are talking about when they refer to "regulatory capture".

Or for another example, consider that the despite pandering by politicians, economists pretty consistently agree that the minimum wage causes unemployment - the only controversy is by how much. And the origins of the minimum wage came during Jim Crow, when it was first conceived as a way to price minorities out of the job market.

So it's silly to say that libertarian's opposition to government regulation is obfuscation to cover screwing the little guy.

Because I have a hard time reconciling your strawman description with http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/13/koch-bros-t... as just one example. Or http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/08/15/clemenc... or http://cjonline.com/news/2015-10-15/forfeiture-reform-aligns... for that matter. Those are not rich people problems they're trying to address there... In fact, I would argue that in the area of criminal justice they are _precisely_ trying to do more to protect the poor from the wealthy.

Now I agree that on some issues they do want to remove government functions that I would prefer remained in place. But that's not the sum total of what they're doing, and while I disagree with them rather strongly on a lot of their views and preferred policies I agree with them quite strongly on some others. As does the ACLU, and our current president, for that matter.

In order to fully understand politicized writing—its assumptions, its impacts, its expectations and its motivations—it can often be necessary to have that context. Writing that isn't even consciously propaganda can often be heavily influenced by jargon and premises that are not apparent to the reader, but being familiar with the ideological background can help clear up that cloud.