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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#141

Post by Zigurd »

nickff wrote: post #108
Zigurd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Originalism" is not possible in practice because it would lead to absurd outcomes. It is reasonable to suspect that "originalism" is a construct in bad faith, to cover a preference for old bigotries and a less than coherent grab bag of right wing positions.

When we interpret contracts, we're practicing a sort of 'originalism', though usually on shorter timescales. Is contract interpretation right-wing?

So you would adhere to the original language of property covenants forbidding sale to black people because that was the clear intent of the authors of those covenants? Hey, sanctity of contract!

And do not tell me those contracts were considered illegal at the time they were written.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#142

Post by sroussey »

gamblor956 wrote: post #68
chub500 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a brief synopsis about how the federalist society is a conspiracy against democracy? I thought it was about originalism which seems to me to be pro-democracy by maintaining proper separation of powers etc.

See a transcript of Alito's speech this week. It's a hour of ranting against democracy. He didn't even hide the fact that he doesn't care that gay marriage or other issues were approved by voters; he would judicially end gay marriage in the name of "religious freedom." But this freedom only extends to particular forms of Christianity, as Alito is quite comfortable with restricting the religious practices of Muslims a…

The Christian Body Temple finds it to be religious persecution for their members (many doctors) to be forced to treat fat people. Will Alito also uphold that?

http://www.christianbodytemple.com/

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#143

Post by riazrizvi »

louwrentius wrote: post #19

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

The essence of economic conservatism is about preserving power for those already in power, reducing opportunity. Of course it’s dressed up as libertarian freedom but that’s just the doublespeak. For example, in a laissez-faire, libertarian education system, kids who are born into wealth get a great education, kids who are not start adulthood with lots of disadvantages, which obviously conserves the status quo, and starves an economy by reducing its potential intellectual capital without benefit to the system as a whole. American prosperity is a direct result of our unusual democratic institutions that push in the direction of economic opportunity, through laws that enforce a more even economic playing field relative to other economies around the world, but it is always being attacked by monopoly oriented interests, and the inherited wealth class. This is the primary political axis of Democrat vs Republican.

It's an argument especially relevant to the startup community because great startups disrupt the economic status quo. Take away the system that enables that and you are left with top-down/autocratic economic systems. They have their benefits, efficient use of resources, so long as it benefits the regime, but over time, since autocratic regimes are optimized to keep people in power, they can't innovate as well. The highest profile example recently, was Jack Ma's attempted IPO that got shut down because he offended Xi in a speech. Loyalty to the top trumps all.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#144

Post by Barrin92 »

chub500 wrote: post #39
Pirgo wrote: post #24

"Mr. Koch has written (with Brian Hooks) a new book, “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,”" Can it get any more cynical than this?

Forgive my asking - what's cynical about this title? Should we not believe in people? Is the world not top-down oriented? Sorry - just confused.

As the article points out the Koch's themselves, running a 100+ billion dollar empire, were quite happy buying themselves into the highest echelons of power, spreading their beliefs from the top down

Mr. Koch and his late brother David seeded the political landscape with conservative and libertarian ideas, then built an infrastructure to nurture them. Koch-aligned ventures fund more than 1,000 faculty members at more than 200 universities, helped bankroll think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, and supported the American Legislative Exchange Council (a nonpartisan organization of similarly minded state legislators) to write bills that were introduced and championed by Republican state lawmakers across the country.

You know what would really decentralise the country and create a bottom-up utopia? If no single entity had the resources the Kochs has. But in the world of the Kochs privately funded authoritarianism does not count.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#145

Post by nickff »

Zigurd wrote: post #141
nickff wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we interpret contracts, we're practicing a sort of 'originalism', though usually on shorter timescales. Is contract interpretation right-wing?

So you would adhere to the original language of property covenants forbidding sale to black people because that was the clear intent of the authors of those covenants? Hey, sanctity of contract! And do not tell me those contracts were considered illegal at the time they were written.

Contracts can be invalidated (post-hoc) by laws, and both (contracts and laws) can be invalidated by constitutions. Such provisions (in the USA) would have been rendered unenforceable by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#146

Post by Wowfunhappy »

jjeaff wrote: post #131
colinmhayes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but partisanship is getting much worse. The precedent has now been set to completely reject any nomination from the opposing party. That will lead to even more partisanship as nominating "moderates" no longer makes sense. We're in for a future of nothing but Alito's and Thomas's.

Partisanship in the nomination process, sure, but it remains to be seen if the more recent nominees will be impartial judges. After all, several court decisions have already not gone the way the gop wanted.

It does indeed remain to be seen—but those recent cases were completely ludicrous! That some semblance of logic remains does not help me sleep at night.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#147

Post by Animats »

alain94040 wrote: post #107
chub500 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe for the last 30 years or so (after the late Antonin Scalia) 'conservative' judge is almost synonymous with originalist. I think you may be falling victim to correlation is not causation? IE there are no liberal originalists by definition (above). If I'm wrong, could you give me an example of a liberal originalist? I would be very happy to be wrong about this. The correlation here is that conservative presid…

I'm not sure "originalist" means anything. The constitution, like all legal texts, contains contradictions between different principles. As logic students know, once you have contradictions in your principles, you can prove anything you want. The role of a judge is to sort through these contradictions to decide which principles are more important than others, even though they are all mentioned in the constitution. So…

It has meaning, but not what we see today. Interpreting the US Constitution as intended by its authors would probably have consequences like this:

- A much stronger view of the Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. That means no searches without a warrant, period. No general surveillance. No "drug exception". No "exigent circumstances" exception. Wiretapping, on a court order only. Which is where the US mostly was until the 1960s or so. This means going back to "We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up".

- Much more use of jury trials. Anything that involves even a day in jail, or a fine over $20 (might allow for inflation adjustment) means a jury trial. No treating six months in jail as a "petty offense". Longer sentences for demanding a jury trial would be considered a major Fifth Amendment violation. And no "civil forfeitures".

- Religion is just another business. No tax break, no restrictions on lobbying, no exemptions from other neutral laws.

- Corporations are not "persons". The history of how corporations got constitutional rights is strange and interesting. See Southern Pacific Railroad vs. County of Santa Clara (1886). Until then, corporations did not have constitutional rights; only their employees did.

That's originalism.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#148

Post by ceilingcorner »

anarazel wrote: post #2

Main Koch PAC: https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=... Total Independent Expenditures: $41,016,106 For Democrats: $92,936 Against Democrats: $8,887,525 For Republicans: $32,035,645 Against Republicans: $0 Koch industry donations: https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=Koch+Industr... Edit: Added link showing recent Koch Industry donations

That’s actually not very much compared to someone like Bloomberg.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#149

Post by TechBro8615 »

akudha wrote: post #90
jonstewart wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. To illustrate Samuel Alito just gave a keynote address to the Federalist Society a few days ago. The NY Times and NPR have recaps: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious... https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934666499/justice-alito-pande... You can watch the whole thing for yourself here: https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA The speech is an attack on science, expertise, and common sense. It’s a MAG…

I saw parts of the speech and it was crazy. This is why appointing judges for life makes zero sense to me. If I become a supreme court judge at 45 and live to 75, I have a full three decades to change the direction of the country forever. This is very very scary. There should be a term limit for everyone in government like presidents do - mayors, congressmen, senators, judges...

One advantage of lifetime appointments is avoiding the temptation for judges to become corrupted by promises of post-judicial careers.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#150

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

coffeefirst wrote: post #109
_23sd wrote: post #17

Hard to tell if this is Charles Koch actually deciding to become more of a philanthropist than a partisan in his old age, or just a veiled threat to the GOP that he's ready to jump ship in the event that the GOP remains the "party of Trump" after 2020. The latter isn't that wild an idea as the Democrats have slid into more Koch-friendly positions on virtually everything except deregulation over the past decade. They'…

I wouldn’t count on it meaning anything. He has a long history of being fairly reasonable in interviews even while he promotes radical ideologues.

It's important to understand this. His personal views slant strongly libertarian, but his political activism is almost entirely motivated by return on investment, not his ideology.
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