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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

wsj.com

351–360 of 483 posts

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#351
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's 85, his brother died recently, and he's very likely concerned about "legacy". According to Greenpeace, these assholes have poured $145,555,197 into groups that worked counter to climate policy changes being enacted (from 1997 to 2018). _Partisanship_ should be the least of his worries - he'll be remembered as a key figure who spurred inaction at the exact time that we should have been taking drastic action.

It's very sad to see people so attached to their egos and external image. Instead of genuinely caring for what will the lives of others be like in the future, they only care about how they will read his name when he is not there. How petty is that, how meaningless? What meaning carries the pronunciation of a name in isolation? Humanity will only progress once we deeply realize the reality of other minds, that we are…

> What meaning carries the pronunciation of a name in isolation?

   ...And on the pedestal, these words appear:
   "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
   Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
   Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
   Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
   The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Shelley published Ozymandias more than 200 years ago. Humans are what they are.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#353
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am highly skeptical of them. It was not my intent to defend them. I do not consider nuclear energy a viable alternative to the hydrocarbon economy. I have considered it and I have dismissed it. You will not change my mind unless you can produce it off planet. I have dismissed it as a non-viable option (apparently the "non-viable" part is inconceivable to you.) This dismissal is not tied to my need to coddle and pro…

Apparently you are the arbiter of Energy production. I am sorry for questioning your wisdom /sarcasm.

Well done.. missing the point entirely. Quite an art.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? The US, in general, does not have any non-conservative judiciary. Stare decisis by itself ensures that there is a strong conservative streak in the available pool of jurists. So yes, the Supreme court…

> Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? Are any of them arguing for an ethnostate? For shipping non-whites "back to where they came from"? For re-establishing anti-miscegenation laws? Your perspective is absurd. Of course the court has a l…

Concentration camps and prison slavery not right wing enough for you? Just because it's commonplace here doesn't mean it's not extremely right wing. I don't think we need to get to full scale ethnic cleansing to be considered right wing. Voter disenfranchisement alone is something you rarely see outside of full on authoritarian dictatorships.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#355
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real talk: Doses of radioactive elements from high atmosphere Nuclear weapons testing persist in trace amounts in all living things on Earth today. Dispersal of radioactive elements would be faster and point source radioactivity thereby reduced by that due to the nature of the medium into which it was released and the very short duration of the release. Fukushima because it lacks these characteristics. Blow up all th…

You're just not counting all of the worldwide idiopathic cancer events. It's an easy fallacy to undercount one thing because it's effects are not localized.

I don't generally think we should be splitting atoms on the surface of the planet. It has lots of dirty side effects that far outlast our capacity to grapple with the consequences. Humans on the whole are not prepared at this point to think in terms of decades, let alone plan for events that have consequences counted in Milennia.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I'm being overly cynical - but isn't this just a tactic to consolidate the gains he managed to win by discouraging the other side from using his methods? Similar to how challengers decry bureaucracy, but once they become incumbents, wield it as a cudgel to swat down upstarts.

We saw this in the Portland mayoral race. The only on-ballot challenger to the incumbent used political tactics that overcame what would normally be exclusionary credentials. It was so successful, I was taken aback by it. At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my ba…

> At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric.

> The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my base" and that they would not govern in the way they had campaigned.

Now I'm currently, what sort of power do you hold that would cause a politician to speak to you in private and not try and pass the same indirection and lies they would most constituents?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#357
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait for actions instead of reporting whatever they self-proclaim? But that would take longer and lose the “newsworthiness”.

I think you're being overly harsh on the Wall Street Journal. The headline is "Charles Koch _Says_ His Partisanship Was a Mistake". There's a valid discussion to be had about whether Charles Koch is full of crap, but I don't think it's wrong for newspapers to report on what people with power say.

I think it's wrong for a newspaper to uncritically report what someone said in cases where a falsehood would serve that person's interests.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the Democrats not condemning mob violence until it started to hurt them in the polls.

How much of that was spin and framing against the Democrats or did anyone seriously believe that they were in favour of mob violence? New rule: if you don't condemn child rape every Monday morning then until you do it is assumed that you are in favour. Tiny furors like the "who's wearing an American flag lapel pin" are is too often motivated by political opportunity rather than any real question of where the parties…

> And yes, Democrats do it to Republicans as well, just generally not as frequently.

Ha, the difference is not nearly so stark as you'd think.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#359
post #312
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. They whipped the mob into a frenzy with lies and bullshit so they could use its power to get what they wanted. Then they lost control of it. It is the loss of control they regret, not whipping it up in the first place.

I would love to see a poll where this comment gets presented without context and people have to decide what group it is describing.

The web of deceit surrounding the Republican Party at this point is undeniable unless you have chosen to abandon reality entirely at the point it chafes your opinion.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#360
post #3

Too little, too late.

I'm a registered Democrat and I voted for Biden, but the way the left seems to be incapable of considering the option of forgiving someone is very unattractive to me.

Some nice words he probably doesn't mean at the end of his life do nothing to repair the irreversible damage he has done to the environment. Nothing he ever says can wash the blood off the hands of a man who dedicated his life to preventing gun control, supporting the Iraq War and profiting from the military industrial complex. The only justice possible for a ghoul like Koch is the forfeiture of his assets and the blade of a guillotine.

Charles Koch deserves to die and I will celebrate when he does. I hope future generations will piss on his grave.

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