I find it odd to be supporting establishment libertarians in a struggle

Mar 07, 2012 10:18

But apparently the Koch Brothers have decided that the Cato Institute is displaying too many signs of intellectual integrity, and plan to put a stop to that nonsense right away. The libbies should have heeded the old saying about the Devil and long spoons before taking money from people who despise actual, y'know, libertarianism.
"Kochs vs. Cato, Read more... )

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nancylebov March 7 2012, 17:26:14 UTC
*sigh* Maybe the ACLU should be watching its back, too-- they've been taking money from the Koch brothers. On the other hand, it's a presumably a larger organization and harder to try to take over.

http://blanksslate.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-kochcato-fight.html

A good libertarian take on the subject, though you may have read it already-- it was linked from the New Yorker piece.

I wonder how this will play out if the Koch's succeed-- a new libertarian think tank gets started? And if they lose? Cato's reputation is improved, and possibly more of a split between libertarians and Republicans who want to think they're libertarians.

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orangemike March 7 2012, 18:50:16 UTC
Nancy, you've always been one of those folks whose existence led me not to completely despair of the libertarian movement in the U.S.. It does seem to me that most modern-day "libertarians" have been so terrified of their enemies on the left that they have pimped themselves out to their enemies on the right in return for funding; and the bill has just come due.

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starcat_jewel March 7 2012, 18:00:05 UTC
One of the commenters there sums it up nicely:

This is so deeply, darkly hilarious. There's a think tank dedicated to explaining why the wealthy should have absolute power, and why the rest of us are two-dollar whores -- with themselves as the exceptions of course. But then their owners explain that they are not, in fact, exceptions...

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orangemike March 7 2012, 18:46:35 UTC
I don't think that's quite accurate. The Catonians don't see anything wrong with being two-dollar whores; but they try to pretend that there's something enriching and liberating to the human spirit in allowing, indeed encouraging, people to whore themselves out to the rich, since only greed-driven transactions have value in the holy Free Market Economy. Then they are startled to discover that whores are often abused by the johns, especially the rich ones; and nobody comes to their defense unless it is profitable to do so.

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