The Koch Brothers and climate change

[an8150]

I must admit I don't get what you mean?

Or how about robertlouis' comment below? Okay, okay, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I chose the wrong bloody Nazi. But talk about missing the point!

[fivekatz]

I am not really sure how to take being called the wrong Nazi considering my jewish lineage but so be it.

I don' it as much I am missing the point as I have never considered the distinctions that you make. Whilst you see governments more evil actions as an indictment against government (wars etc) I see these things as the powerful influence that capital and the pursuit of capital produce.

Much of the free market thinking such as moral hazard simply is philosophical fantasy because when corporations extend their greed to the point of failure, those at the top whether it be the likes of Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling or John Thain/Dick Fuld, escape moral hazard with diminished but still massive wealth, while the masses suffer.

To have let moral hazard take its logical conclusion would be so catastrophic that it simply is unacceptable (hence the idea of too big to fail). If government has a problem is that it is too influenced by too few and those who hold the most capital.

Government itself is not bad, it is bad government that can do great harm, either but its action or for the most part since 1980 its inaction.

IMHO the great anti-Christ of the conservatives was FDR and what they never cottoned on to IMHO was that if not for FDR given the state of affairs in in 1930's the US was clearly going to either go the way of communism or fascism. Given the nature of the US and the control capital held in the US, the nazism you attributed to me was the most likely outcome.

Any government that can spend what we spend on defending our corporate interests through military spending certainly can do the same to defend its citizens from disease. And if in fact the 97% of climate scientists that aren't on Koch Brothers payroll are right, how do we convert our society from one that is so dependent on fossil fuel while we spend the next few years debating just what the melting polar caps and rising annual temps mean?

And even if the 97% were wrong, so what? New industries emerge and those in the fossil fuel business who are light of foot become players in the next generation of energy.

Whatever the SCOTUS has clearly confused free speech with unfettered, unexposed cash. Not surprising from the same group that failed to read half of the 27 words in the 2nd Amendment...

For the record I'd prefer to insulted by being called a communist to being called a Nazi.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=an8150;1269525]
Oh, do come along, Stavros, you and I debated this for page after page in that other thread! Accusing me of copping out is contrary to that history.
--Serious debates about politics have no end...

I suspect you'll find most libertarians/minarchists (why the scare quotes, btw?) have little time for either Rupert Murdoch or Microsoft. The former, especially, most of us regard as no more than a particularly well-connected crony capitalist. I realise that, like the Koch brothers, GWB and Berlusconi, he's one of those right-wing hate figures for you guys, which, as with the others, almost makes him attractive to me, but really, most libertarians I'm in contact with assume that these sorts of people would, in our ideal world, either have to find some other way of earning their billions, or they'd end up as road-sweepers. Either way, neither of those business empires are poster children for that which we advocate. As you would understand, if you understood.

I know, I know, nobody understands me...

We understand you, you just don't have much of an argument. Saying that tax-dodging Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch are not representative of capitalism is like being told by someone selling Workers Hammer on the high St on a Satuday morning that there was no socialism in the USSR...or Cuba... or China etc etc. You make the core point when you describe your vision as an 'ideal world' -one which you don't discuss much either, rather like a cadre from the SWP saying first lets have a worker's revolution, then we can discuss the socialist transition...I mean, Rupert Murdoch or Murray Rothbard, not much of a choice, is it?

[broncofan]

FiveKatz,
he didn't call you a Nazi. He compared Reinhard Heydrich to Leon Trotsky. Now he believes he chose the wrong Nazi to compare Trotsky to.

[an8150]

I am not really sure how to take being called the wrong Nazi considering my jewish lineage but so be it.

I don' it as much I am missing the point as I have never considered the distinctions that you make. Whilst you see governments more evil actions as an indictment against government (wars etc) I see these things as the powerful influence that capital and the pursuit of capital produce.

Much of the free market thinking such as moral hazard simply is philosophical fantasy because when corporations extend their greed to the point of failure, those at the top whether it be the likes of Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling or John Thain/Dick Fuld, escape moral hazard with diminished but still massive wealth, while the masses suffer.

To have let moral hazard take its logical conclusion would be so catastrophic that it simply is unacceptable (hence the idea of too big to fail). If government has a problem is that it is too influenced by too few and those who hold the most capital.

Government itself is not bad, it is bad government that can do great harm, either but its action or for the most part since 1980 its inaction.

IMHO the great anti-Christ of the conservatives was FDR and what they never cottoned on to IMHO was that if not for FDR given the state of affairs in in 1930's the US was clearly going to either go the way of communism or fascism. Given the nature of the US and the control capital held in the US, the nazism you attributed to me was the most likely outcome.

Any government that can spend what we spend on defending our corporate interests through military spending certainly can do the same to defend its citizens from disease. And if in fact the 97% of climate scientists that aren't on Koch Brothers payroll are right, how do we convert our society from one that is so dependent on fossil fuel while we spend the next few years debating just what the melting polar caps and rising annual temps mean?

And even if the 97% were wrong, so what? New industries emerge and those in the fossil fuel business who are light of foot become players in the next generation of energy.

Whatever the SCOTUS has clearly confused free speech with unfettered, unexposed cash. Not surprising from the same group that failed to read half of the 27 words in the 2nd Amendment...

For the record I'd prefer to insulted by being called a communist to being called a Nazi.

I'm not calling you a Nazi! Reynard Heydrich was a Nazi (with rumoured Jewish ancestry), as were Hess, Streicher and Rohm! Please tell me you knew that.

[an8150]

FiveKatz,
he didn't call you a Nazi. He compared Reinhard Heydrich to Leon Trotsky. Now he believes he chose the wrong Nazi to compare Trotsky to.

Thank you, broncofan, just saw your comment. Fired mine off without prior checks.

[an8150]

"For the record I'd prefer to insulted by being called a communist to being called a Nazi. "

And there, bless you, inadvertently, you've hit upon the point about Prospero's Trotsky avatar. Go on, see if you can work why...

[an8150]

[quote=Stavros;1269671]

Oh, do come along, Stavros, you and I debated this for page after page in that other thread! Accusing me of copping out is contrary to that history.
--Serious debates about politics have no end...

I suspect you'll find most libertarians/minarchists (why the scare quotes, btw?) have little time for either Rupert Murdoch or Microsoft. The former, especially, most of us regard as no more than a particularly well-connected crony capitalist. I realise that, like the Koch brothers, GWB and Berlusconi, he's one of those right-wing hate figures for you guys, which, as with the others, almost makes him attractive to me, but really, most libertarians I'm in contact with assume that these sorts of people would, in our ideal world, either have to find some other way of earning their billions, or they'd end up as road-sweepers. Either way, neither of those business empires are poster children for that which we advocate. As you would understand, if you understood.

I know, I know, nobody understands me...

We understand you, you just don't have much of an argument. Saying that tax-dodging Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch are not representative of capitalism is like being told by someone selling Workers Hammer on the high St on a Satuday morning that there was no socialism in the USSR...or Cuba... or China etc etc. You make the core point when you describe your vision as an 'ideal world' -one which you don't discuss much either, rather like a cadre from the SWP saying first lets have a worker's revolution, then we can discuss the socialist transition...I mean, Rupert Murdoch or Murray Rothbard, not much of a choice, is it?

Repeat after me: free market capitalism.

There, easy. Not capitalism. Or consumerism. Or whatever euphemism you lot are deploying this week. Free market capitalism.

[Prospero]

First principles an8150? C'mon then,enlighten us.

There are issues here far more worth talking about than silliness over avatars. I am sure you can find a freemarket objection to an easter island head if you choose to.

I think Stavros has effectively shown your ideas to be spurious, naive and - thankfully - unlikely ever to see any true realisation in the real world. Enjoy your idealism.

[Stavros]

[quote=an8150;1269719]

Repeat after me: free market capitalism.

There, easy. Not capitalism. Or consumerism. Or whatever euphemism you lot are deploying this week. Free market capitalism.

free market capitalism....free market capitalism...free market capitalism...however many times I repeat it, I feel nothing. Fivekatz pointed out how the barons who screwed up their own firms and trashed jobs and economic stability walked away with millions. Perhaps someone can confirm that if, at the other end of the ladder in free market capitalism, somebody is not participating in this wonderful world of free competition, say because they are illiterate, lost their arms and legs in a road accident or a war, have a drink problem, or didn't save enough for their retirement -that basically, they are useless and should be, as it were, 'dismissed'? It might not match the eugenic solution to impurity practised by the Nazi's, but somehow I feel that free market capitaism might be separating out winners and losers in not so different a way...what did Whitaker Chamber say was Ayn Rand's response to losers? To the gas chambers, go...