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A Look at the Koch Brothers Dark-Money Network
An anonymous reader writes "The California attorney general and the state's top election watchdog named the 'Koch brothers network' of donors and dark-money nonprofits as the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California. State officials unmasked the Kochs' network as part of a settlement deal that ends a nearly year-long investigation into the source of the secret donations that flowed in California last fall."
from TFA: there was a philanthropist involved in this. We should string up all of the philanthropists!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Actually politics is one of the most 'nerdist' topics. Nerds tend to obsess over topics most would rather ignore.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
For one thing, the Koch brothers actually exist while this "gang of socialists" does not.
the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California
The Koch's have been shafting the political process for years, nobody cared before. What is this? Some sort of fo-public Koch exposure? We all know that the Koch's will remain hidden until the heat dies off then they'll come and fuck something else up.
Recall Plato's admonishment.
'Nuff said.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
Well, I guess we know who the conservatives are on Slashdot, now. It amazing to see how much they complain when criticism is aimed at rich people who are swaying elections in directions that they appreciate.
Assuming you know as much about bridges as you do about socialists, I'm sure it's actually a boat you're talking about.
No thanks, they tend to be money pits.
Yes it does.
Powerful people are using the Citizens United case to funnel large amounts of money into local elections to F up the society that we are trying to build. One where technology is used for good and lets us work less, while living better lives. Not one where two people who control the big companies that people buy a lot of stuff from get to dictate what the public thinks about climate change, upper class taxes, voting rights, and other issues that they can buy people off on.
Koch bros does it, soros does it, both the neocons and liberal progressives do it, it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state, the only ones really losing is the middle class which shrinks every year while the ghettos keep getting bigger, in another decade the rest of the USA will look like Detroit
Maybe the people need to do their own sort of justice on these people. If our government isn't going to effective, then isn't it up to us to put a stop to people like that? And by stop, I mean, put them to death. Extremist view, ya, but honestly, I'm getting sick of the bullshit in this country. It's getting time to make the governments and corporations fear the people again, instead of us fearing them.
Also, thanks for the new word, kleptocractic. Describes what our corporate politicians are exactly.
Be seeing you...
The "Koch link" seems to be that one of the guys running one of the foundations was described by Politico as a "Koch operative". The other Koch link was that there was an E-mail asking one of the Koch brothers for contributions to help get a proposition passed that would have limited the ability of unions to raise private money for political purposes. Consistent with his libertarian views, he says he does not support such restrictions and did not support the proposition directly or indirectly.
Can someone explain to me how this turns into a "Koch brother network"? I mean, perhaps the Koch brothers are more deeply involved in this, but nothing in the MJ article or the settlement seems to provide any evidence for any significant involvement by them.
Why would a centre right president have a gang of socialists?
There are very few socialists in the USA. The politics are so distorted that some people assume that "liberal" means left wing. It doesn't. It means politically right in the middle.
If right in the middle is way to your left, where does that mean you are?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
George Soros makes his money from currency arbitrage. You think he's above attempting to influence the factors that affect the relative value of currency?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If right in the middle is way to your left, where does that mean you are?
Hopefully a padded cell.
Once again there are no criminal prosecutions of the rich and powerful who choose to deliberately violate the law. A one million dollar fine is nothing to these people, they will recover from that minor "inconvenience" in less than a month. When are the American people going to get fed up with these shenanigans enough to start throwing these people in prison? That's the only thing that will make others think twice about doing the same thing again next year.
So California can only throw them in prison for a year. Make it general population and not one of those country club prisons for the rich and actually fine them the double-the-amount part. A thirty million dollar fine might take them more than a few weeks to recover from.
Damned iOS autocorrect. Sorosis = Soros.
I take it then that: is = 1.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I dunno. Nerds like complicated machines. This story happens to be one constructed out of legal entities. The machine too complicated for the average attention span, so somebody who has a mentality that isn't daunted by a simple activity diagram ought to be paying attention.
Maybe "News for Nerds" doesn't must mean "Nerdy Stuff". Maybe it could also mean "News for Nerds to Pay Attention To".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We could probably balance the budget in no time!
It is amazing how an article like this gets so many responses that say it should not be posted yet Slashdot has so much pseudo libertarian crap posted that it sounds like a Ron Paul commercial. I doubt that two thirds of these people them have any real idea of what libertarianism is. The worst part is that these so called libertarians are being manipulated by people that are no more libertarian than Wilhelm Keppler or Orval Faubus.
Good, we need an article about how Bloomberg and another billionaire tried to derail the grassroots effort to recall those two Colorado anti-gun rights state senators.
Koch bros does it, soros does it, both the neocons and liberal progressives do it,
What is "it"?
Let me summarize why the article is news. According to the California AG's office, the Koch brothers have set up a fraudulent scheme that allows them and their allies to illegally deduct money spent on political projects from their taxes.
I sympathize with your strong feelings about the excessive influence of money in democracy, but the story is about more than billionaires spending their money on politics. It's about the Koch brothers allegedly committing fraud while they do that.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you want an understanding of what "socialist" means in American political discourse (I'm guessing you're from the old country, given your sig and your spelling conventions), then search sometime for "AM talk radio" and listen in for a few hours. "Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US, not because I support their politics (full disclosure: I'm decidedly to the right and reckon Edmund Burke one of your finest political writers) but because I appreciate their clarity.
The ACA was little more than mandating the purchase of a corporate product, centralizing its sales, and offering subsidies to folks with lower income who don't qualify for the medicare expansion (which is to say, indirectly subsidizing the insurance companies). What we have here are the problems of capitalism combined with the problems of central planning in one system.
Socialists offer a real alternative to this system, and an alternative which is rooted in specific moral principles. I do not agree with all those principles (but chiefly I have a different view of human nature, which is why I'm a conservative) but I can at least come to an understanding with a socialist based upon what principles we share. Our current political landscape seems to be dominated instead by centrist politicians whose chief principles consist in ensuring reelection by satisfying corporate donors. If we had real socialists, at least we could have a real conversation. Since the liberals in this country co-opted the right's plan and passed the ACA, the right has been devoid of any real ideas. The most interesting ideas I've seen on the right have come from distributists, but such get no play in our current political environment.
Please, stop this madness, and stick to clicking on stories that interest you.
This comment of "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS TOPIC" does not belong on this site.
Also, vote in the fucking firehose and stop complaining.
The thing is, all of those seem kinda true, but fall apart when you examine them closely:
1. George Soros doesn't attempt to hide what he does with his money. David and Charles Koch do.
2. I don't think you know what "kleptocratic" and "fascist" really mean:
- In a kleptocracy, the primary purpose of government is personally enriching the officials in it. The US doesn't really operate that way: The politicians get paid well and get paid off, but they aren't really getting all that rich themselves (by the standards of rich people), they're more carrying water for billionaires like Soros, Koch, and Koch, which makes the US more of a plutocracy than a kleptocracy. By contrast, a kleptocrat like Jean-Claude Duvalier snagged something like $500 million, making (for example) Bill Clinton's $80 million in book sales and speaking fees look like peanuts by comparison.
- If the US were really full-blown fascist, you'd see a much larger percentage of economic activity geared towards funding a war of conquest somewhere, mass executions of citizens without trial, open and legalized discrimination in the streets, and people shipped off to labor camps based solely on their parentage. We've had some of that at various points in our history, but there's a lot of steps between modern American and Mussolini's Italy that simply aren't happening right now.
3. The ones really losing are not the middle class, they're the people in those ghettos already who have no good way out. You mention Detroit: As bad as it would be if you were used to living in a nice suburb and then ended up in something kind of like Detroit, how much worse would it suck if you were born and raised in Detroit and never acquired the net worth or job skills to be able to viably move somewhere else. Another factor in all this, that I'm not positive the upper class really understands: If the middle class goes completely under, it takes the upper class with them, because the upper class's investment income depends ultimately on the consumer spending of everyone else.
I am officially gone from
pointing out corruption between the government and the monied elite is like pointing out turds in a septic tank full of turds, while the article is specific about one incident, i was pointing out a systemic problem within the big picture
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
" lets not forget that a lot of what the ACLU does would be banned had citizens united gone the other way."
How the fuck do you figure that?
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
"Please, stop this madness, and stick to real news for nerds.
This story does not belong on this site."
Yeah like the hard right and corporate world were FOR social security, perhaps if nerd wannabe's like yourself were not so fucking historically illiterate you'd understand the danger of extremist capitalist ideology to the stability of societies historically speaking. Hard left ideologies like communism didn't appear in a vaccum, they were birthed by the extreme exploitation of real people by the types of extreme right wing ideologues that are now rampaging across the US. Despite what capitalism's ignorant cheerleaders tell you, it took two world wars and the cold war to get a 'middle class' not capitalism. People had to bleed in the streets to fight for better wages you just assume fall out of the sky from right wing econ 101. Americans are just so historically illiterate it's shocking.
No, it doesn't. You sound like you're regurgitating something you were spoon fed in college. I don't care what it meant at one point. I do care what it means today.
"Liberal" means lose, freely, without limitation, etc. "Conservative", means limited, restrained, cautious, etc. A true liberal sees no need to be hampered by bad decisions made in the past. Progress can be made, things can be fixed. A true conservative, on the other hand, sees no need to fix things that aren't broken. Why experiment if something is working? You might break it.
Most of us are not one, nor the other. We're a bit of both, some more to one side or the other.
Here's the important bit that you need to wrap your head around: Liberal and Conservative aren't points on the political spectrum. They're directions. (Most people overlook this, including most professors.)
The common usage of these terms has varied wildly over the years. The fundamental definition of the words hasn't changed, but the tyrants, liars, and impostors over the years have all used them to prop up their own brand of crazy. Today, those words depend almost entirely on which country you're in. In the US, they mean "acceptable to Democrats" and "acceptable to Republicans". No, those aren't the actual definitions of those words, but no other country in the world uses strictly correct definitions for them either. Remember, they're directions, not destinations. (pointing towards change, and away from change)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
the topic adequacy police has spoken
we have to move on now
delete your comments and find a new topic
if the anonymous coward disapproves again, you need to abandon that thread too
i'm sorry folks, but the anonymous topic adequacy police is in charge here, we all know that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That depends on your perspective. From what I've observed, slashdot is very often pro AGW, anti-GMO, pro labor union, and "probama". You tend to notice those articles you disagree with more than the ones you agree with, and it's had articles pointing in favor of both sides of all of the above issues.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
So two billionaires should be able to effectively have more free speech than hundreds of thousands of union members?
As any good Marxist will tell you, unions will not get you to socialism (unless they rather suddenly go revolutionary). They will get you to neoliberalism. The problem is that their interests are tied to those of their industrialist employers. They want a bigger slice of the pie but, ultimately, they also want to maintain the system that keeps them fed.
Unions take a rather conservative (in the looser sense of the term) approach to the labor issue. They're content to have the capitalist own the capital. They only ask that labor get a more equitable share of the revenue. This is not the case with a genuine socialist.
Point taken. I guess this sums it up (from the horses mouth): https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-and-citizens-united
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
That is the most twisted pile of crap i've heard in years.
Sounds like a bad case of cognitive dissonance to me.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Actually, the majority political position on this site is center left.. neocon/pro religion perspectives are almost unheard of, and there is a slightly larger libertarian contingent. It makes sense as the majority of nerds posting here grow up with silly utopian stuff like star trek, then go off to ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy.
What we have here are the problems of capitalism combined with the problems of central planning in one system.
Yay!, Someone who actually understands something about the ACA. Don't forget that insurance companies have to actually spend most of their money on medical treatment, or give their customers a rebate. Hopefully that will bend the cost-curve. (Debatable if that has already happened.) The rest of the world has a much cheaper system, and adding government isn't always the solution, but the USA seems to suffer from an incompetent piece-meal approach, and _could_ do with some clarity. Personally I think most of the regulations should be gutted, but this should be done incrementally to minimise the impact and mitigate mistakes. (Many regulations are extremely important.) This would require co-operation between the GOP and the Dems, and that is a little too much to hope from the party of victimhood.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
How the bullshit flows so freely. Instead of condemning the temptress, people have to learn how to resist. Fuck the money. It is a non-issue. It is the voters who sell their votes for the bling and the false promises, hoping for a piece of the pie. They are the only ones to blame. They are the ones who reward corruption.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state
I see this as an intellectually lazy point of view. As someone with some academic understanding of the political system, and following politics and society for decades, all I can say is that I disagree. Citizens United certainly made things much worse, but we are far from kleptocracy. (The GOP information machine is rather kleptocratic as David Frum pointed out, but that's not the entire system.)
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Haha, that defeatist attitude is exactly what will let the Koch brothers walk all over you.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
That Chinese or Indian citizen has something that the citizen of Detroit does not. A decent start in life as a middle class citizen of their own country, with the education that goes with it and from there grows hopes and aspirations.
Disregard that. I suck Koch.
--Ethanol-fueled
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Are those the same universities that produced the last four US Nobel Laureates in Physics?
I've been to Boulder Colorado. I'm pretty sure most of the folks there are suffering from Hypoxia.
That will be right after they review George Soros, Move On, etc.
No brain, no pain.
ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy
I was going to parody this comrade, but I couldn't think of any way to make it funnier.
Actually politics is one of the most 'nerdist' topics. Nerds tend to obsess over topics most would rather ignore.
Agreed. This article should not be here, not because it is political, but because it is garbage. The author claims there is a "Koch Brothers Network" right in the title, but has no evidence that the Koch brothers are involved, other than the fact that they were asked to donated (and apparently declined). It is absurd to claim the Kochs somehow control or own a political network that has no links to them, even as a donor. Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly". Since donating is perfectly legal, but issuing false corporate statements is not, why would they make a denial if it wasn't true? This article is just unsupported conjecture, and even if the insinuations were true, the activities would be perfectly legal. Political stories on Slashdot are okay with me, but garbage journalism is not.
Argument from authority, in this case an irrelevant one. Knowledge in physics does not give credence to a political philosophy. ..and in case you didn't notice, the nobels are mostly handed out for pro-left political 'victories' these days. Obama comes to mind. His 'accomplishment'? Being not-bush. In 2009, he had only been in office a little more than a year or so. Then there were the three women who were awarded it for....being women and politically active in a pro-left fashion. Oh, and here's another one. The IAEA in 2005.. you know, the organization that systematically covered up the true extent of the damage caused by chernobyl to appease the politicians in both east and west? The nobel is just a blue ribbon panel that rewards proper leftist thought and action taken by people known to promote that agenda. Whatever the intents of the originators, that's what it's become.
I don't trust the rigor of the nobel any more than awards handed out by the heritage foundation or any other politically motivated institution. It's just like getting a gold star for being the teacher's pet in 1st grade. Universities would do well to avoid such biases in their campus culture...at least in staff and faculty.
is assuming the politicians are the ruling class. Make no mistake, the ultra-rich are the rulers. The folks in the House/Senate are, like you said, water carriers. But the actual, practical effect is that the Koch bros. and their ilk call the shots. So from a practical standpoint we have a Kleptocracy.
,it doesn't really matter what happens. This is why the economy keeps getting worse for Labor but the stock market keeps hitting record highs.
The middle class are still losing. We all are. I've always hated this logic: Things are continuously getting worse, but since they could get even worser it's all OK. It doesn't change the fact that the middle class is going away...
Also, the point of the upper class Kleptocracy is to take everything. If they have everything
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Nobody does it more than Fox not-News corp. In fact in reality they outspend everyone else by ten to one. They provide free airtime for the craziest right views that other political groups would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy.
As for your child molester theory, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If any teacher was proven guilty of child molestation in a court of law they would be in prison and really rather easy to fire. So what you are saying is news organisation particularly Fox not-News ramping up the fear factor spreads guilty upon accusation news far and wide and do everything possible to support any attack against teachers as long as they are unionised teacher and no private for profit, I don't know, what are they really going to call those unqualified, minimum wage, trainers.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
See Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer to get a truer sense of the depth and breadth of the machinations.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
To us, that is socialist.
Reminds me of another line:
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean'
Others prefer to use a defined definition, as provided for example by Merriam and Webster:
socialism
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Please describe which Obama policies meet one or more of those definitions.
Mmm... how do you square that understanding with the $500 million in rebates that US families just got due to insurers not meeting the MLR guidelines? AFAIK, not-for-profit medical insurers don't have to worry (since they already met the MLR guidelines), but about 20% of insurers _do_. Hence half a billion in rebates due to the provision.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You have news about Soros violating contribution disclosure laws? Please share and cite it.
It is absurd to claim the Kochs somehow control or own a political network that has no links to them, even as a donor.
[Emphasis mine.] Absurd? No. Irrelevant? Yes. From the article:
As part of the deal, two Arizona-based nonprofits, the Koch-linked Center to Protect Patients Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, admitted violating [California] state election law.
And yet you claim:
Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly".
That does not appear to square with the facts.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly".
That does not appear to square with the facts.
What facts? Are you claiming to have evidence that Koch Industries' statement isn't true? The author of TFA didn't seem to have any. Other than insinuation and conjecture, and describing organizations as "Koch-linked" (whatever that means), there is nothing in the article. It doesn't even make sense. Political donations are legal, and the Kochs are open about their political views, so why would they hide their involvement even it they were involved?
it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state
No, it's another example of why we need an amendment nullifying Citizens United. Money influencing politics is always bad, no matter who is doing it. Let's focus on the real problem here - this is something that we can solve. Throwing up your hands and saying, "It's all fucked." is not constructive.
It would be amusing if not tragic that Unions decry others' political contributions and want to make them illegal while committing vast treasure to the same arena, often against the wishes of many members forced to contribute via dues and assessments.
Sort of like the same place from which American libertarianism comes. You know the never-never land where the magic "free market" is never manipulated by greedy corporations and everyone lives by "enlightened self-interest." That way everyone lives in peace and harmony. (That is if you have several billion dollars.) Libertarianism - sociopathy massaged into a political philosophy.
Left as an exercise to the reader: figuring out the distinction between what is stated by the entity know as "Koch Industries" and what is actually done by the Koch brothers.
From your link to the LA Times: In a statement, a spokeswoman for Koch Industries said the Koch brothers were not involved in either of the campaigns supported by the $11 million from the Arizona group. So Koch Industries has made an explicit statement that neither they, nor the Koch brothers were involved, either directly or indirectly, in funding the campaigns. Contributing to the campaigns is not illegal. Lying about is illegal. So why would they lie? And if there was any actual evidence that they contributed (as the author of TFA insinuates, but does not provide), they why aren't they being charged with a crime? Perhaps the author thought that putting "Koch Brothers" in the headline would generate more hits?
In that LA Times link, immediately after the part you quoted: "We have not contributed to any group with the intent of helping Proposition 32 or defeating Proposition 30 in California," Melissa Cohlmia said. (emphasis added). But if the money they gave went that way, I'm sure they didn't complain.
Look, this is called 'dark money' for a reason. The direct links have been deliberately scrubbed, but they are there. And the Koch brothers are keeping quiet about their involvement because the campaigns are more effective without their names attached.
I'm not too sure why you're getting so animated about the issue.
This may not mesh with what libertarianism is in actuality, but my view on it has always been this:
Do what you want as long as you dont' step on anyone's autonomy to do what they want.
Which in that sense I agree with...to me economically exploiting people until they have no choice to do x or y action is stepping on their autonomy. So the standard slashdot argument against it wouldn't apply. Since libertarianism is basically defined as a philosophy advocating minimal state intervention my definition would seem to apply.
A lot of people have perverted that, but I personally, feel at it's core that's what it is. At the very least this is what *I* advocate.
Every side points to the others and labels them 'extreme.' It's called an ad hominem attack
No, no it's not.
Required reading for internet skeptics
You have Soros, on the left with his money, and the Koch brothers, on the right with their money, and "we the people" in the middle getting screwed from both ends.
Lets see. The Koch Brothers. Charles and David Koch each have personal assets of $36 billion each, in addition they each own 42% of Koch Industries that does $100 billion of business each year. A petrochemical company is valued at about three times annual revenue, so 42% of $300 billion is $126 billion that each of them owns*. Plus their $36 billion each in holding outside Koch Industries and each of them is worth $162 billion, or $324 billion for the set.
George Soros, is worth $20 billion, a 16-1 one disadvantage in wealth. Also note that he is the only liberal billionaire that the right-wingers seem able to find, whereas on the right the list goes on forever (Sheldon Adelman, Pete Peterson, etc.. etc.) . And finally it helps to do a little reality checking to find out how much Soros has actually contributed over time to liberal causes. The total amount seems to be about $30 million, mostly spent during the early Bush years.
Sorry, despite the fevered efforts by the right to try to whip Soros up into a bogeyman, his contributions to political causes over time are tiny compared to the money machine that the Kochs and company have built up over the years, and keeps running with billions in annual funding without pause.
You are getting screwed from only one end, the corporatist end. And it is rich men on the right who are successfully buying our political system so that the screwing will continue.
*Odd, isn't it, that Forbes doesn't count business ownership in its calculation of wealth. You may object "But that's not real wealth, they can't spend it", which is nonsense. They could borrow against it for cash whenever they chose, or put their ownership on the market and cash out. They can tap that money whenever they like.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
If you want an understanding of what "socialist" means in American political discourse (I'm guessing you're from the old country, given your sig and your spelling conventions), then search sometime for "AM talk radio" and listen in for a few hours. "Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US...
Right. The current President of France is from the Socialist Party, which is one of the two big parties in France. France has universal socialized medical care - everyone legally resident in France is covered. France has free abortion on demand. France has a 35 hour work week and 5 weeks of vacation a year, enforced by law. Productivity per hour worked is one of the highest in the world, above US levels. The median wage per hour worked is one of the highest in Europe. France has energy independence, with 80% of electricity coming from nuclear power. Most education through college is Government-funded. Current tuition at French universities is about 200EUR/year.
France is a "social democracy". The French government doesn't own most businesses. Most employment is private. There's a lot of regulation, some of it petty, some of it historical going back to Napoleon. It's more annoying than serious.
That's what socialism looks like.
Totally off topic, but can't resist.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who use firearms in defense every year. Mass shootings are used to whip up hysteria, while the defensive use of firearms in deadly situations is conveniently ignored.
I think a lot of people would argue that the vast majority of "defensive use of firearms in deadly situations" would not even be necessary in a country where it is even slightly difficult to get your hands on automatic firearms.
Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence, and the US numbers start to look a whole lot like those of other industrialized nations.
No, actually it doesn't. Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence and you're still left with outrageous numbers of cases of "defensive use of firearms" (which you mentioned in the first paragraph but had forgotten in the second?). Cases which in most other countries would wind up a fistfight or not even that.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
I'll define crazy for you, in this context: encouraging millions of people to act against their own self-interest on the basis of fact-free drivel. That's what Fox does. It is considerably worse than what CNN or MSNBC does because it is so determinedly fact-free, and it causes millions of people to suffer real economic harm.
As for this arse-twattery about feminism doing stuff to men in 'family courts': it will be reasonable for men to complain about this kind of injustice at the point when women are not raped, beaten and abused in their millions in the US by men. I say this as a man. The vast majority of gender-based inequity in US society flows one way, and it ain't against women.
Amazing that some of you think that way. You see a firearm as a penis replacement. I suppose that some gun owners are insecure, and also view their weapons as a macho appendage. Strange stuff happens. But, you. What about you? Why do YOU see a firearm as a penis? What is it about a firearm that makes you think penises? Are you insecure? Do you have penis envy? Are you jealous of anyone who can handle a weapon, without fear? Oh - are you AFRAID of penises?
I wish that we could get some qualified psychoanalysts to figure out what is happening inside a liberal's mind, when he sees penises being carried around in public.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
So, let me get it straight: you support criminals undermining your democracy by shady bribes, because at least they're not the (politically) wrong type of criminals?
... crazy talk. Why not send them all to jail for trying to undermine democracy, or at least vote for a political party that wants to deflate the influence of money on American politics, so that it's one person one vote and not Terry Pratchett's version of the Golden Rule.
That's
AMERICA: THE BEST GOVERNMENT MONEY CAN BUY
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Before we can make the world we want, we need to be honest with ourselves about the world (and people) as it is (they are)
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy