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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

#371

Post by tasty_freeze »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #363
onelastjob wrote: post #362

The USA needs a law that limits individuals to only donating something like $5,000 per person to any political campaign entity such as PACs, Super PACs, and political campaigns. Companies should not be able to contribute anything, only citizens. CA Props should also have this limit. Otherwise, the USA will be defacto ruled by whichever entities are able to contribute the most to campaigns and advertising for politici…

Except that studies show that (at least above some relatively low threshold), money spent on a campaign doesn't correlate with election success. There's no point in throwing out the First Amendment (and possibly the most important aspect of it at that) for something that's not going to make any difference.

If I contribute $2000 to a party or a politician, and Charles Koch contributes $2M, which one of us is going to get the ear of our representative when we call?

In my case, some intern will dutifully take my call. In Charles Koch's case, he will have that congressperson's direct phone line. When he goes to Washington, they'll have a sit down meal together. Hell, if he wanted it, he could have asked for and received a cabinet position or an ambassadorship.

That isn't just free speech -- that is derailing democracy. By limiting contribution amounts, it will make the elected less beholden to big donors.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#372

Post by ericbarrett »

the_only_law wrote: post #356
bredren wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

I donated a three-figure amount to a US Senator’s re-election campaign, and received a personal thank-you phone call from them several months later. It was an open-ended conversation and I would have had the same opportunity OP described had I not been so flabbergasted.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#373

Post by 8note »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #297
harimau777 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the Libertarianism/free-market policies simply don't work. They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security and a reasonable quality of life. At some point, continuing to advocate those policies in the face of their outcomes becomes negligence at best.

The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social wel…

Distributing property to individuals is what gets that growth though, rather than property rights. Property rights are meaningless when only a couple people own most property.

Growth has stagnated because we've stopped taking land away from its owners to give it to new upstarts, and strong unions which redistributed power and thus wealth back to labour have been neutered by the rich.

A simple counter example: despite having very low taxes, Ireland is not an economic powerhouse; just a hideaway for money. Same thing with Delaware

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#374

Post by CryptoPunk »

jahewson wrote: post #321
CryptoPunk wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social wel…

Apples and oranges here, the US is not a developing nation. The single largest contributor to the decrease in global poverty you cite is a communist country.

The association between quality-of-life metrics, like wages, and per capita GDP, doesn't disappear when an economy becomes developed.

And China is a highly market-based country, which saw a massive decline in poverty after its pro-market reforms that ended many state subsidies and recognized private property rights, as the Atlantic article I provided above explains.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#375

Post by 8note »

in3d wrote: post #348
jahewson wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples and oranges here, the US is not a developing nation. The single largest contributor to the decrease in global poverty you cite is a communist country.

A communist nation that realized that the communist way of state ownership and central planning doesn't work and implemented private ownership and a market-based, capitalistic approach to their economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform

Cuba would be an example otherwise? Despite having the nearby superpower trying their hardest to destroy Cuba, their communist system continues to work fine

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#376

Post by idoh »

webmaven wrote: post #350
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In July 2015 Charles Koch and his brother were praised by President Obama and Anthony Van Jones for their bipartisan efforts to reform the criminal justice system.[67][68] For roughly a decade Koch has been advocating for several reforms within the prison system, including the reduction of recidivist criminals, easing the employment process for rehabilitated persons, and the defense of private property from asset fo…

Koch is an honest libertarian, so his Deregulate All The Things efforts are accompanied by things like this. But. If you look at where he's been putting his money into supporting candidates, they are overwhelmingly Republicans that align with the former to the exclusion of nearly everything else. It would have been very VERY easy for Koch to have got bipartisan support for serious criminal justice reform if he had wa…

Can you suggest some Democratic candidates that would appeal to a libertarian?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#377

Post by 8note »

bilbo0s wrote: post #341
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Liberals and conservatives will rarely condemn the violence of their pet terrorists. As far as violence is concerned, that's the problem with conservatives and liberals. They generally lend tacit support to violence against people they dislike. All with a wink, wink and a nudge, nudge. That's why we end up with dead police who walk into ambushes, dead black guys who make the mistake of relaxing in their own apartment…

Why do people in BLM protests keep getting arrested then?

And why did the FBI stop the kidnapping of a governor?

If this theory held true the republican federal government would be fine with right wing terrorists abducting democratic governors

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#378

Post by CryptoPunk »

8note wrote: post #375
in3d wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A communist nation that realized that the communist way of state ownership and central planning doesn't work and implemented private ownership and a market-based, capitalistic approach to their economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform

Cuba would be an example otherwise? Despite having the nearby superpower trying their hardest to destroy Cuba, their communist system continues to work fine

Cuba is an abysmal failure. People have their occupations set by the government, depend on meager monthly state rations, and have almost no disposal income for consumer purchases.

That's why people flee Cuba for the US and not the other way around.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#379

Post by webmaven »

awakeasleep wrote: post #279

The aged scorpion asked the frog for one final ride across the river What he's asking for here is for Democrats to accept his lack of opposition to social liberalism, and bend themselves even further towards his fiscal conservatism.

> What he's asking for here is for Democrats to accept his lack of opposition to social liberalism, and bend themselves even further towards his fiscal conservatism.

Yes, exactly. The thing is, as a putative libertarian he ought to have been supporting socially liberal policies (and candidates) all along.

Merely offering a 'lack of opposition' isn't really any change at all, as he's never opposed it.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#380

Post by CryptoPunk »

8note wrote: post #373
CryptoPunk wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social wel…

Distributing property to individuals is what gets that growth though, rather than property rights. Property rights are meaningless when only a couple people own most property. Growth has stagnated because we've stopped taking land away from its owners to give it to new upstarts, and strong unions which redistributed power and thus wealth back to labour have been neutered by the rich. A simple counter example: despite…

No, if mandated redistribution was what got growth, countries with more redistribution would have more rapid growth. The opposite is the case.

It is the profit-motivated investment that emerges when people are secure in their right to their private property that expands capital, and with it per capita productivity.

Increases in per capita productivity result in decreases in consumer prices, which translates to broad-based real wage increases as purchasing power increases. Through its effect on consumer prices, productivity growth distributes wealth more effectively than any other mechanism.

>>A simple counter example: despite having very low taxes, Ireland is not an economic powerhouse; just a hideaway for money.

Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Western Europe 40 years and has massively closed the gap with its peers since then.

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