Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The Left Arms of the Kochtopus

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So far the reaction to the New Yorker article on the Koch Brothers has focused on right arms of the Kochtopus.  Welcome attention has been drawn to their semi-covert “independent think tanks” and their right wing agendas, such as the capitalism of Americans for Prosperity, the anti-environmentalism of the Cato Institute, and the anti-Obama anti-socialist fervor of the Tea Parties.

But the Kochtopus has left arms too.  Just as they have injected Libertarianism (or anarcho-capitalism) into the Republican party, they have injected the very same Libertarianism into the Democratic party as well, often with the same front groups, and often with different ones.  The Cato Institute and Reason Magazine are both strong and influential advocates of gay marriage, stem cell research, reproductive freedom, secularism, and other causes that people probably didn’t realize had anything to do with right wing capitalism.

They are masters of infiltrating movements and turning them into Libertarian movements, even groups that might be at odds about important issues find their messages bent into mere fundraising calls, and their efforts reduced to increasing libertarian influence in both parties.  The left needs to reject Libertarian spies just as much as the right.  

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    • Libertarians also push for things that are typically considered “left” causes, like gay marriage, stem cell research, secularism, transgender rights, feminism, etc.  They hijack causes and insert themselves into the leadership positions so that their talking points and arguments displace the original goals and drive out the original leaders.  The rank and file members don’t even realize this usurpation has occurred, but start parroting the arguments anyway.

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      p>Here is Kos on Libertarian Dems, from 2006:

      Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn’t believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

      In other words, government can protect our liberties from those who would infringe upon them — corporations and other individuals.

      So in practical terms, what does a Libertarian Dem look like? A Libertarian Dem rejects government efforts to intrude in our bedrooms and churches. A Libertarian Dem rejects government “Big Brother” efforts, such as the NSA spying of tens of millions of Americans. A Libertarian Dem rejects efforts to strip away rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights — from the First Amendment to the 10th. And yes, that includes the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms.

      The key here isn’t universal liberty from government intrusion, but policies that maximize individual freedom, and who can protect those individual freedoms best from those who would infringe.

      I am very much a Libertarian Dem, and this is exactly what my next book will be about. It’s progressivism for a new century. And that’s what this new breed of Democrat is building in the Mountain West and Virginia and Ohio.

      • The Tea Party advances because it is right about some things, not because of the Koch brothers. The movement is already terrifying the Republican party which has lost several high-level officeholders to primary challenges. The Republican Party is almost wholly in service to the financial elite and is not in favor of this. I’m sure they’re as freaked out about the “Kochtopus” as you are.

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        p>As for “Libertarian Democrats”:
        Democrats have been leaving the New Deal model for decades because it has no relevance. During WW2 and perhaps the cold war it was allowable for the economy to be directed by government appointees. But when the worldwide threat eases, people naturally expect some return to normalcy, both on the military side and the domestic side.

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        • We face a much greater threat than any war in global warming, and we need government action and lots of personal action, but the Libertarians are thwarting responsible action by getting both parties locked up on other issues, all to keep their selfish liberty to do whatever they want without any taxes or laws to slow them down.  The last ten years all the Democrats have cared about is gay rights and the other issues Kos mentions above as a Libertarian Dem, even as he pays lip service to environmental issues to keep his foot in the Democratic door.  Maybe he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, but he’s got to ditch Libertarianism and fully commit to public responsibility.

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          p>The Tea Party, and Libertarianism, is not right about anything, but the Koch brothers have managed to get lots of people to think it is by righteously appealing to people’s selfish interests as if they were doing God’s work by pursuing absolute liberty.  Sorry Glenn Beck, but one of the first things God did was give us rules about what to eat and what not to eat, and then later on more commandments and punishments.  God’s not a believer in human liberty.  Maybe that’s not in Glenn Beck’s version of the Bible.

          • Look at the slaughter that resulted from nationalistic controls in the name of communism or anti-communism. You’re giving the green light to every anti-democratic impulse in the name of saving the planet… the record of your kind of government action is not good and likely to kill many more people plants and animals than global warming ever would.  

            • What is “my kind of government action?”  Higher gas taxes and changing education priorities to farming programs and prohibiting IVF and reducing medical research and taxing internet sales and charging more for more bandwidth use and taxing video games and movies and television advertising and concerts.  That’s going to result in slaughter?  No, I think if anything causes slaughter, it’s the 2nd Amendment Libertarian dweebs who will try to use their guns to keep their SUVs filled up without having to pay taxes.  Hopefully the police will be able to handle them without too much collateral damage.

  2. Now I have the Reality-Based Commentary to prove it.

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    p>Any progressive bloggers around here we need to purge?  There are a few bluemass gay marriage supporters (no doubt in the pay of the evil kochtopus).

    • No you see, my point is that Libertarianism isn’t just a subset of the “right”, there are Libertarians on the left also.  The libertarians on the left are not puppets of the right, they are libertarians, or really, puppets of libertarians.

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      p>See, Libertarianism transcends the left-right split.  After 1980, they have abandoned the third party strategy and decided to infiltrate both parties, and have successfully gotten them (not) working in concert for their own benefit, in order to have no laws or rules that affect them.  

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      p>It’s not a political stance about how best to govern or organize society fairly, it’s just a childish demand for total freedom for whatever they want to do, with minimal taxes just to pay for the roads and maybe police and fire trucks to protect them, and maybe a few other things are ok, like protecting their favorite fishing stream or their grandmother’s medical expenses.  And so when the demand is for something the left supports and the right opposes, then it’s Left Libertarianism, like Mr. Kos.

      • Have distinct libertarian elements, which predate (and have nothing to do with) the political donations of the Koch brothers.

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        p>The reason for this is simple and doesn’t require Genn Beck’s blackboard to explain.  Our country has a “leave me alone” libertarian attitude with roots that run deep.  Good luck pulling them out.

        • They put hundreds of millions of dollars into libertarian organizations for a reason, Couves.  They wanted to increase the libertarian influence on politics and culture.  They did it not just on the right but also on the left.  (Diary point)

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          p>You’re obviously a libertarian yourself, and don’t want to accept the reality that you’ve been brainwashed and manipulated to have a righteous confidence that libertarianism is virtuous and good and what the country needs for all that ails it.  It isn’t, libertarianism needs to be rejected by both parties as fast as they can, and libertarians need to shake the brainwashing out of their heads.

          • I am a libertarian.  And yes, it’s true, we replicate by brainwashing.  Jefferson did it to Madison.  Voltaire did it to Jefferson (with some help from Montesque).  It just goes on and on and on…

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            p>The web has only expanded our reach… into your BRAIN!

  3. is actively undermining science with his funding of denial of global warming and its causes (his fossil fuel business).

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    p>This is trouble with Don’t Get Cute’s idea:
    when libertarians promote gay marriage, nobody gets hurt.
    when libertarians deny science, nature gets polluted.

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    p>The difference is harm.

    • It would seem so, but what if people did get hurt by gay marriage?  Libertarians would still be in favor of it, because they’re libertarians and put individual rights above oblique possible harms.  If they would put the environment or social harm above any liberty, then they aren’t libertarians.  Hence, I think that people that support gay marriage from a libertarian perspective are rendered unable to speak against polluters and consumers and over-consumption, because the libertarianism seeps into their overall worldview, as is the intention.  Libertarians use people’s tolerance and support of oppressed gay people to spread the seed of libertarianism so that they become libertarians on all issues, because people like to believe they have a consistent worldview or follow a principle.

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      p>There are other reasons people support gay marriage besides libertarianism, but mainly those people have been manipulated to support it by libertarians, and it is easy because it is harder to show any harm and easy to intimidate people.  A non-libertarian supporter of gay marriage would be more inclined to consider social and environmental harms and be willing to oppose gay marriage.

      • They simply think that harm to other human beings should not be a reason for them to limit their actions.

        For example, at the same time that David Koch has been casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a “known carcinogen” in humans.

        Scientists have long known that formaldehyde causes cancer in rats, and several major scientific studies have concluded that formaldehyde causes cancer in human beings-including one published last year by the National Cancer Institute, on whose advisory board Koch sits. The study tracked twenty-five thousand patients for an average of forty years; subjects exposed to higher amounts of formaldehyde had significantly higher rates of leukemia. These results helped lead an expert panel within the National Institutes of Health to conclude that formaldehyde should be categorized as a known carcinogen, and be strictly controlled by the government. Corporations have resisted regulations on formaldehyde for decades, however, and Koch Industries has been a large funder of members of Congress who have stymied the E.P.A., requiring it to defer new regulations until more studies are completed.

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        p>Read more

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