Rand Paul and Silicon Valley's Shifting Political Climate

SonicSpike sends this story from NY Magazine: Rand Paul appears to be making a full-court press for the affections of Silicon Valley, and there are some signs that his efforts are paying off. At last week's Sun Valley conference, Paul had one-on-one meetings with Thiel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ... Next weekend, Paul will get to make his case yet again as the keynote speaker at Reboot, a San Francisco conference put on by a group called Lincoln Labs, which self-defines as "techies and politicos who believe in promoting liberty with technology." He'll likely say a version of what he's said before: that Silicon Valley's innovative potential can be best unlocked in an environment with minimal government intrusion in the forms of surveillance, corporate taxes, and regulation. “I see almost unlimited potential for us in Silicon Valley,” Paul has said, with "us" meaning libertarians.

Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.

Comments

More Like Subsidized

[Anonymous Coward]

> Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators

Every Tesla vehicle comes with a minimum of $7,500 subsidy from the federal government plus a bunch of state government subsidies like $2,500 and single-driver privileges in HOV lanes in California. They are the last company that should be laying claim to libertarian ideals.

Re:More Like Subsidized

[JesseMcDonald]

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." But men are definitely, definitely not angels. Libertarians think that if everybody else would just "wake up, sheeple!" they would be enlightened like them and of course would adhere to rules of common decency and fair play.

You're thinking of pacifists, or possibly communists. Libertarians are the realists in this scenario; we realize that humans are imperfect, and that, as a direct consequence of this, giving a select group of imperfect humans the practically unlimited power of government is not a recipe for a better world. ("Select" because, for the most part, they are self-selected as the most likely to abuse the position... one doesn't generally set out to become a politician out of the belief that people have the the right to live their lives peaceably without third-party interference.)

Libertarians are opposed to all abuses of power, not just those which originate from government. We oppose the government specifically because it embodies the systematic abuse of power, and, unlike other criminal organizations, maintains the pretense that its abuses are somehow "legitimate". That does not mean that we are OK with non-government entities violating others' rights, or think that in the absence of government everyone would "just get along". There will continue to be bad actors out there; we will still need to defend ourselves against them. But without government they at least won't have a ready-made system available to amplify their offenses and shield them from the consequences.

Re:Silicon Valley is officially old

[thaylin]

To be honest we still submit for a draft, it is selective service and it is compulsory for males. There is just not a draft to take use of it atm

Draper Labs and Lincoln Labs

[Anonymous Coward]

T-shirts that got their wearers in trouble at conference.

      Draper Labs: When you really want it there on time

Draper labs specializes in missile guidance systems, and the shirt had a picture of a launching missile. Some of their work as been space program supportive, but it would have been a lot cheaper without the military angle, and we'd have actually gotten to see the results in industry, not hidden away as Top Secret.

      Lincoln Labs: When you care enough to send the very best

Lincoln Labs helped design the H Bomb: the shirt had a picture of a mushroom cloud. Lincoln remains up to its armpits in Reagan era "Star Wars defense" projects, It's amazing the billions that can go into research for "defense" that is far more effective as treaty violating offensive weapons. If you don't believe me, read up on Peter Hagelstein, one of the core developers of the nuclear bomb triggered X-Ray laser technology, one of the only technologies out of that amazing technology pork barrel that actually looked like it might work.

If you went to delude a bunch of technically sharp, politically naive people into burning billions of dollars on bad national politics, it sounds like just the sort of place to start.

Re:This is the problem with having a two party sys

[Trepidity]

Someone who supports conservative economic policy but liberal social policies, in any other country, has a mainstream party to get behind.

In some kind of relative sense, yes, but there is no mainstream party in most of the west that supports policies like Rand Paul's. In most of Europe, the "economically conservative but socially liberal" parties have economic policies to he left of the Democrats, including support for national healthcare.

Re: Gots to find more ways to avoid taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea that libertarians would instantly reduce the government to nothing if they took power is laughable.

Why is it laughable? Republicans literally shut down the government twice now. Have you already forgotten Oct 1 through 17, 2013 when house republican majority refused to vote on a bipartisan bill because they didn't want to fund Obamacare?

It's not paranoia when that is indeed what happened.

Re:Silicon Valley is officially old

[CanHasDIY]

I want to add something else. The 1% is a myth.

No, it's a misnomer.

http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...

When people complain about "the 1 percent," they're actually complaining about the 0.1 percent.

Because the reality is yea, while you might be well-off enough to qualify as "part of the 1 percent," you're still a dirt-poor worthless piece of shit in the eyes of the 0.1% who really do own/run everything.