WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

It takes 30 seconds on an internet forum to find dozens of libertarians openly calling for an end of democracy. Then you get extreme libertarian media figures like Adam Kokesh calling for a 50 state armed march "final revolution" on all of our state capitals. Even if he is just the crazy fringe, invading our statehouses and murdering all of our elected representatives is not even on the fringe agenda for liberals and conservatives.

Basically the libertarians are trying to do the same thing as Republicans and Democrats but not as successfully yet.

It takes 30 seconds on the internet to find dozens of people who eat human feces (or so I hear...). So what? I'm pretty sure there are fringe groups from all parties, although maybe not as outspoken.

I don't see anything on your link that says he plans to murder all our elected representatives. Please copy paste that part. I assume your referring to the idea that he is open to the idea of a violent revolution. I would ask you:

1. Do you think that the taxation and other abuses leading up to the American Revolution were more or less serious than what we face today?
2. Is there ever a point at which you would support a violent revolution in the USA?
3. You do realize that all our existing laws are essentially reinforced with violence? You don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. You resist going to jail, you get murdered.

Just to be clear: I am not supporting a violent revolution. I just think we accept way too much insanity when it comes from the government. You don't call Obama a fringe extremist, but if Kokesh said that he should be able to kill an American citizen with a missile from the sky if he decided they were a terrorist, you'd certainly find that extreme.

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I agree, government is being used more and more for furthering specific business interests rather than furthering the common good.

The banking sector is not the only one that was deregulated, however.

Telephones, airlines, cable TV, radio, newspapers; the list goes on and on.

That's why I noted the ultimate problem is the people in government who are increasingly obviously failing in their fiduciary duty. The AMA's ability to pass laws favoring Big Pharma is a function of our elected representatives and their (lack of) willingness to fight for the common good - as much as this same (lack of) willingness manifests itself in TBTF bailouts.

I agree very much with the top statement and think it's a huge problem. However, it's not fair to blame libertarianism (as a philosophy) for selective regulation intended to benefit special interests. If a libertarian says there should be no taxes on food and the government passes a law that exempts only corn from taxation (to benefit the corn lobby) this is not an example of libertarianism getting its way to a small degree. It's just corruption. Privatizing gains and socializing losses (banking sector...) is not capitalism or libertarianism. It's just corruption.

This is a problem I deal with explaining my position on lots of issues. Immigration for example: generally speaking libertarians are "pro-immigration" in my experience. However, it's a problem when immigrants are able to take advantage of social programs that are not consistent with libertarian ideals. I'm certainly opposed to letting anyone in the world come to America and immediately start getting welfare, food stamps and medicaid. But that doesn't mean I'm opposed to immigration in a general sense.

Sometimes compromise is a good thing. Other times it is just a half measure that fails worse than either extreme.

[Forrest]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

The problem I have with this sentiment is that many of the abuses which have transpired in the past decades can be directly traced to deregulation - and precisely under the banner of less government.

Thus having a government which desires to deregulate even further - I can't say it fills me with any degree of confidence that things will improve.

Deregulation is not the be all and end all of Libertarianism. Smaller government is a good thing, because the citizens are supposed to monitor themselves, not be watched by a paid hall monitor.

Regulations do nothing when no one follows the law because they do not think that regulations count anymore, except for the other guy.

Libertarianism is about getting back to self reliance, and eliminating the mommy government.

Regulations/Laws are always necessary, and yet, we've got ton's of them now, and very few are enforced unless it is to give money to the government.

Honesty and self-reliance is the clarion call for Libertarians, not anarchy. And as a Liberal Constitutionalist, I believe in law...I just want it enforced, and I want a small amount of law, so it can be enforced.

Having a government that enforced honesty, in their own speech, and actions, would help a great deal, and regulations made that are TO BE ENFORCED will never be excessive, since the legislators would need to fund the enforcement of the regulation, rather than make regulations because they want to control everything, but only enforce them when it is to the legislators benefit.

Our current level of regulation is not enforceable, because there are too many regulations, many of which contradict each other, and few of them are regularly enforced. Instead, the regulators always assume that dishonesty in meant, yet never actually plan to enforce the regulations unless it suits them. The regulations are made for control, manipulation, and punishment, not for protection against lying and thieving.

No Libertarian is against laws to ensure honesty and right dealing. Those that are against laws BECAUSE they are laws are Anarchists...Not Libertarians.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Basically the libertarians are trying to do the same thing as Republicans and Democrats but not as successfully yet.

It takes 30 seconds on the internet to find dozens of people who eat human feces (or so I hear...). So what? I'm pretty sure there are fringe groups from all parties, although maybe not as outspoken.

I don't see anything on your link that says he plans to murder all our elected representatives. Please copy paste that part. I assume your referring to the idea that he is open to the idea of a violent revolution. I would ask you:

1. Do you think that the taxation and other abuses leading up to the American Revolution were more or less serious than what we face today?
2. Is there ever a point at which you would support a violent revolution in the USA?
3. You do realize that all our existing laws are essentially reinforced with violence? You don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. You resist going to jail, you get murdered.

Just to be clear: I am not supporting a violent revolution. I just think we accept way too much insanity when it comes from the government. You don't call Obama a fringe extremist, but if Kokesh said that he should be able to kill an American citizen with a missile from the sky if he decided they were a terrorist, you'd certainly find that extreme.

I consider myself a student of history. As such, I don't believe anarchy is a true option. Either the people have democratic power, or they fall at the mercy of the whims of a dictator or strongman.

The audacity of an individual to believe that he or she may ignore the will of the majority of the people and violently depose duly elected representatives because they do not agree with a given set of values is the pinnacle of autocratic thinking.

And this is just what extreme libertarians do. Groups of armed revolutionaries marching into all 50 state capitals would be nothing more than a vulgar display of power. I have little doubt that triggers would be pulled. Velvet revolutions do not begin with assault rifles.

To answer your questions:

1. The battle cry of the revolution was: "No taxation without representation!" The battle cry was not: "No taxation, ever, for whatever reason!" Murdering representatives is absolutely not something the founders would endorse. In fact, some of the very first laws they enacted were against treason and sedition.

2. Not while there are free and fair elections.

3. Things are what they are. Taxes are taxes. They are not violence. This is just more extremist libertarian propaganda. A rock is a rock. Water is water. Taxes are taxes. And violence is violence. I am not aware of a single incident where the IRS murdered anybody for owing taxes. Besides which, the sixteenth amendment is part of the constitution. You don't get to personally pick the amendments you like and you don't like. People democratically decide these things. Dreaming of forcing one's personal will on the majority of the people through guns and violence is reminiscent of the power-grab dreams of tin-pot dictators.

You are equating soldiers with murderers. I don't think that's right at all. There is a difference, both in the law, and in how the majority of people see things.

But I suppose my main point here is that extremist libertarians are anti-democratic. They believe that they know the right way to do things, and that they may force this way of thinking onto the rest of us despite the outcomes of democratic elections.

There are many policies of the Obama administration I adamantly disagree with, and that I get angry over. There were many policies of the Bush administration that I adamantly disagreed with, and that I got angry over. But the people decided. And I would never advocate murdering elected representatives or staging a dictatorial putsch to undo the outcomes of fair elections and re-write the constitution. And I believe this no matter how much I disagree with whomever may be in power at the time.

Maybe I'm old fashioned. I suppose it is unfashionable today to love and defend democracy. But I still do. I still think it's the best form of government people have thus far devised. And I still fear any political philosophy or movement that has no love or respect for it. Neither Drones, nor wars, nor Snowden, nor taxes, nor bankers, nor anything else will shake my faith in democracy and make me turn to extremist philosophies.

I do not believe I have the power to interpret the constitution over the Supreme Court. Nor do I believe I am more qualified to do so than they. I do not believe I have the power to depose representatives elected by the majority of their constituent districts, nor do I believe that anyone else has such a right or power. And I believe that neither the people nor the government of the United States should have to abide anti-democratic revolutionary political movements without fighting back.

For me, the democratic republic is the most important institution. I have an instinctual hostility towards philosophies that wish to squelch the fire of democracy from this world. And I don't much care how well-intentioned these philosophies may be. Because history has shown that whenever an autocratic movement destroys democracy for any reason, be it "the greater good" or "the people's good" or "the individuals good" or "the markets' good" more horrible atrocities follow both in number and magnitude than any of the complaints you levy against the United States.

No matter how much fault one may find with democracy, I know it is far better than the alternative.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Thanks for posting this DC. something to think about. There will always be government, either it is a legitimate, elected one or the war lord in samolia, or the bully on the grade school playground. I think the pendulum in this epoch has swung to too much toward big .gov and is still swining in that direction. I do feel my personal liberties
are being infringed upon, and I have no voice, except maybe at the local level. State and Fed politics are hand maidens of the moneied interests.



I don't feel I have consenting powers any more.

The democratic theory of consent in our republic grants consent when a majority or plurality of voters select a given candidate. If someone here has a better idea of how to govern than through voting and representation, I'm all ears. But I am afraid there is only one alternative, and that is losing the right to vote an the right to representation. There is too much money in politics. There are too many monied interests. Campaign finance laws are in shambles.

But these are things we can and should fix with the pen, rather than the sword. Save the sword for those who would take your liberty to vote or right to representation away.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

dcarrigg, do you consider an UberLibertarian dystopia as the next iteration of FIRE interests, or something completely different? Are the oligarchs from Goldman Sachs, JPM, etc. behind this? Or is this agenda being pushed by of a new crop of robber barons?

There are some libertarians in the FIRE sector. But generally FIRE is smarter than to play on the fringe and try to stage a coup. So they are the primary donors to both the Republican and the Democratic parties. And you are making a good point there.

But the funders of the Libertarian movement are sometimes FIRE. Sockbroker Richard Gilder is a good example. Better known are the brothers Koch who inherited one of the world's largest private oil companies, Tech giants Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos, etc.

I'd rather out-of-state billionaires (and everyone else for that matter) stay the hell out of politics that don't concern them in general, regardless of which policies they support. I just get more afraid when they start funding anti-democratic movements, is all.

So I suppose I want to be clear here. It's not individual policies that I am opposing here. It is an extremist philosophy against democracy that I am scared of. And I get scared when the 9-figure-boys fund it. After all, 9-11 was a wake-up call to me about the damage that one rogue billionaire with an extremist philosophy can pull off. Imagine what 5 could do...

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I see the same things as you do, but to me this is simply emblematic of democracy: to wit, that the excesses of government due to political hegemony first demonstrated by Kennedy/Johnson, then replaced by Reagan/Bush, co-opted by Clinton, morphed by Cheney/W. Bush, and now Clinton+Bush combo that is Obama - which lead to huge economic rewards, it is then small wonder that there are other groups seeking the 'big prize' as well.

That's fair. Like I said, this is just the first time that a group which is openly hostile to democracy has made such inroads. I wouldn't be so alarmed if they were just another policy group without a political philosophy that rejects the very existence of the United States. That much feels qualitatively new to me.

[vt]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Free markets are not the enemy; crony capitalism and crony socialism are.

We need to get the special interests out of the political process. Simply ban all lobbying and force those who run for office to use limited public funds.
We need statesmen and stateswomen, not politicians.

Socialism and big government are not the answer. Ask Eastern Europeans. The Western Europe experiment with cradle to grave doesn't work too well either.
A intelligently regulated free market will produce far more equality of wealth, and more government revenue than any other system.

The FIRE economy needs to be drastically downsized and EJ's TECI grown as part of the solution. The health care and education segments need to be opened to competition and innovation.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Free markets are not the enemy; crony capitalism and crony socialism are.

My only point was that enemies of democracy are the enemy. I don't care if someone wants to destroy democracy because of markets or cronyism or human equality. Anyone who wants to destroy democracy is the enemy.

We need to get the special interest out of the political process. Simply ban all lobbying a force those who run for office to use limited public funds.
We need statesmen and stateswomen, not politicians.

I'm fine with these ideas. These are good things to discuss.

Socialism and big government are not the answer. Ask Eastern Europeans. The Western Europe experiment with cradle to grave doesn't work to well either.
A intelligently regulated free market will produce far more equality of wealth and more government revenue than any other system.

I'm not sure how you're defining socialism and big government here. But I don't think markets were ever designed to create equality of wealth, nor will they ever do so. That's why everything is tempered through democratic institutions. I like that you added intelligently regulated. There are areas in which the market seems to work really well. Consumer goods is a brilliant example. Then there are areas where I am not so sure. Healthcare is an example (what wouldn't you pay to live?)

The FIRE economy needs to be drastically downsized and EJ's TECI grown as part of the solution.

I'm in general agreement here.

The health care and education segments need to be opened to competition and innovation.

I think this is a very bad move. The profit motive doesn't seem to work well in healthcare. There is not much market choice and competition when the consumer is unconscious in the back of an ambulance. Education needs to be free and open to all children. Otherwise, there is no equality of opportunity. Simply letting poor children go without a K-12 education to enrich some shareholder is a bad idea. Sticking them in for-profit charters that enrich some stuffed suit thousands of miles away in a Manhattan high-rise is a bad idea too. There's some room for innovation. And there is all the room in the world for private schools to offer different things. But I think that taking away universal public education, or giving all of that tax money to an absentee, rentier, for-profit charlatan, will probably not turn out well.

I think we have to reduce the economic rents in society. Not multiply them. More insurance companies, more drug companies, more for-profit hospitals, more for-profit hospital cleaning companies, more for profit nursing staffing services, etc. will not reduce costs. Things were cheaper back before, when a hospital was run as one unit rather than Portuguese Man-o-war with 30 co-existing for-profit companies (one for the cleaners, one for the cooks, one for the aides, one for the pharmacy, one for the RNs, 10 for the doctors, 1 for the hospital, 1 for the real estate on which the hospital sits, and 1 for heating and cooling systems) each with an overpaid CEO that sucks money out of an opaque pricing scheme filtered through the I in FIRE...

But we can go on and on forever about education and healthcare. And that's a fair debate to have. And we can disagree. So long as the conversation is rational and democratic, we are doing the right thing by having it.

[lektrode]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

My only point was that enemies of democracy are the enemy. I don't care if someone wants to destroy democracy because of markets or cronyism or human equality. Anyone who wants to destroy democracy is the enemy.....
....
But we can go on and on forever about education and healthcare. And that's a fair debate to have. And we can disagree. So long as the conversation is rational and democratic, we are doing the right thing by having it.

truly inspiring words have seldom been typed, dc.

and while its very difficult for anyone to dispute most/all of this, i will say that we have let the political class get away with essentially murder - for at least since the 1960's - when a little skirmish called vietnam along with a naive concept known as 'the great society' - coupled with an executive order that allowed the unionization of the fed gov workforce (and we wont even get into repeal of glass-steagall) was able to both nearly bankrupt the country, but also set directly set the course to where we are now.

and then allowed the extremist and very VOCAL minority-industrial complex to jam whatevah razor-thin sliver of the electorate happened to be 'activated' this/that month to hijack the political discussion - and this is what has caused MOST, if not all of the problems we are facing today.

had the political class (and the monied interests that put them in office) NOT been able to slice n dice us up into various 'disadvantaged minorities' - since WE ARE ALL MINORITIES now - again mostly thanks to the various industrial-complexes that feed at the beltway hogtrough - we might even be able to solve the 'social issues' - but nooooo, its much better for the politcal class to have us all at each others throats - and all of it at the command/control of the lamestream media machine that gets enriched to the tune of HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS by the profits they make off every election.

so the first thing i would do is: eliminate all the media profits from electioneering - force the broadcasters to offer FREE TIME to all candidates for office - and LIMIT THE CAMPAIGN SEASON TO 60 DAYS PRIOR TO ELECTIONS

i have a few other ideas on how to stop(fix) the BS (that has come to be) known as 'elections' that most cant even be bothered to pay any attention to anymore - and the evidence of this is the election of 2008, where the 'winner' was put into the whitehouse by the most ill-informed and UN-informed group of spoiled rotten children in history - that would be the generation who gets its 'news' from mtv and the comedy channel.

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

That's fair. Like I said, this is just the first time that a group which is openly hostile to democracy has made such inroads. I wouldn't be so alarmed if they were just another policy group without a political philosophy that rejects the very existence of the United States. That much feels qualitatively new to me.

So relevant to the original topic: Do you believe that Jeff Bezos is openly hostile to democracy? I know very little about him, but I've never seen that even remotely suggested.

[dcarrigg]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

So relevant to the original topic: Do you believe that Jeff Bezos is openly hostile to democracy? I know very little about him, but I've never seen that even remotely suggested.

I believe that a concerted and coordinated effort by the primary donators to the Reason Foundation to purchase major metro news outlets is underway. And I believe that there are several folks at the Reason Foundation who are openly hostile to democracy. That's all I was saying. My guess is that most of the hardcore types at Reason and Cato either have or would publish that they are hostile to democracy if given a chance. They certainly heap praise upon lots of public intellectuals who were openly hostile to democracy.

Look. In general, this is not too much different than when the reformed trotskyists at the Heritage Foundation made their power play after the Project for a New American Century. Except there is one big difference. Nobody at Heritage was antithetical to democracy (even if some of them had been in the past). It does make things different, and darker I think, when democracy itself is the enemy of a philosophy, and people publish as much.

I mean, once you get guys like Lew Rockwell, who was employed for years by Ron Paul, publishing stuff like this, it's obvious that they hate Democracy.

I mean, read this quote he wrote just last year:

Democracy is the opposite of freedom, almost inherent to the democratic process is that it tends towards less liberty instead of more, and democracy is not something to be fixed. Democracy is inherently broken, just like socialism. The only way to fix it is to break it up. You couldn't fix socialism by replacing Lenin for Trotsky or the Russians for Cubans. And you can't fix democracy by legally restricting payments to presidential candidates, by barring felons from voting, changing the voting age, or replacing Bush Jr. with Obama, et cetera.

This is a man who wants to destroy democracy. And he's a big thinker in the libertarian movement - along with Rothbard and the rest of the Mises men.

And Rothbard and Rockwell and the Charles Koch Foundation were all kicking around together in the late 70s when the Charles Koch Foundation was renamed to the Cato Institute. Rothbard was so extreme that in his mind, children were not people, but rather property that might be bought and sold on open, unregulated markets like sides of beef. Meanwhile, David Koch was busy trudging up the hedge fund guys and spinning up the Reason Foundation, whose primary donor is none other than the David Koch Foundation. And now the three top donors, David included, are looking to buy up major newspapers all over the country. And this after they have spent 30 years writing anti-democratic diatribes and funding political machinations. I'd doubt they're just buying this stuff up for a larf.

These people are out there. When people become property and democracy becomes evil, your philosophy has jumped the shark. I fear the damage they could do, bullhorn in hand, if they wished. After all, they would not be the first enemies of democracy to try to grab power through democratic means. That's a pattern old as history itself.

[c1ue]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

I agree very much with the top statement and think it's a huge problem. However, it's not fair to blame libertarianism (as a philosophy) for selective regulation intended to benefit special interests. If a libertarian says there should be no taxes on food and the government passes a law that exempts only corn from taxation (to benefit the corn lobby) this is not an example of libertarianism getting its way to a small degree. It's just corruption. Privatizing gains and socializing losses (banking sector...) is not capitalism or libertarianism. It's just corruption.

Perhaps you can clarify for me then - in your opinion as a libertarian, do you consider Bezos, Thiel, Koch, and the like representative of mainstream libertarian philosophy?

If not, then what would you term them - as they are the very public face of libertarianism now, at least as defined as money spent to promote a message.

Libertarianism is about getting back to self reliance, and eliminating the mommy government.

That's nice, but I'm asking for specific libertarian positions on banking, on finance, on consumer protection, on airlines, on telephony: should there be more or less regulation than exists today in these areas?

Self reliance doesn't apply in any of these areas - as far as I understand it.

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Maybe I'm old fashioned. I suppose it is unfashionable today to love and defend democracy.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I was led to believe the US was founded on the idea of people having inalienable rights.

Given your reverence for the rule of law created by the majority, is it safe to say that you always obey the law? You've never smoked marijuana or a Cuban cigar?

Various forms of laws against sodomy and homosexuality have existed in our country. Some of them punished by death. You think it's wrong to use violence to oppose such laws? That a man should tolerate being executed for being gay because that's what the majority voted for and because prior to being hanged he also had the right to vote? I realize these are extreme examples, but they are real. Only ten years ago in Idaho, sodomy could carry a life sentence.

I support some form of democracy as the best (but still flawed) system that I know of. However, I don't think that democratically made laws that violate my rights are valid regardless of how many people support them. If caring more about my rights as a human than the democratic process makes me an extremist...so be it.

[DSpencer]

Re: WaPo to be sold to Bezos. Now we know why Sir Warren stepped down from the board

Perhaps you can clarify for me then - in your opinion as a libertarian, do you consider Bezos, Thiel, Koch, and the like representative of mainstream libertarian philosophy?

If not, then what would you term them - as they are the very public face of libertarianism now, at least as defined as money spent to promote a message.

Not really, but mostly because I don't know enough about them to have a firm opinion. I've never read anything by any of them about their political views.
I wouldn't even know Bezos was considered libertarian other than his wikipedia page says that.
The Kochs are certainly affiliated with financially backing libertarian ideas but I know almost nothing about their personal views and many libertarians (I think mostly the rockwell/mises group) view them very negatively. They seem more like republicans pretending to be libertarians. They backed Mitt Romney for president which doesn't do much for anyone's libertarian credentials in my book.
I like what I know about Thiel but my knowledge of his politics is limited. He supported Ron Paul so I guess you can assume he shares a fair number of his views.

Edit: to answer the second part. Again, I don't know enough to term them but like I said: if you hold fundraisers for Mitt Romney...I don't think you are going to be considered libertarian by the people who are actually voting libertarian.