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

Re:More Like Subsidized

[serviscope_minor]

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.

What about the pollution caused by internal combustion engines? Just because the subsidy on their operation isn't on a ledger, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ultimately externalities have to be paid for.

The Valley trade: Less taxes, more H1Bs...

[swb]

...longer, better patents and copyrights, more EULAs.

This is really what we need, aspiring politicians appealing to plutocrats.

Re:Double standards

[MachineShedFred]

Here's something that will deflate your entire argument: most conservatives don't claim to be open and inclusive - you set up that straw man and knocked the hell out of it. Liberals do, and then bash anyone with different ideas or beliefs as neo-conservative warmongering science-denying ultra-fascist teahadists.

It's perfectly possible to be open to ideas from both sides of the spectrum. In fact, it's where the majority of the electorate is because no particular philosophy has a monopoly on good ideas. It's called being a moderate. You might have heard of it.

Re: Gots to find more ways to avoid taxes

[Curunir_wolf]

And the Republicans were perfectly happy choosing to shut down the government. It wasn't a threat. It was completely real. They shut down the government because they didn't want people to have healthcare.

That's funny, because during that time period, I got a ticket for speeding, a bill from the IRS, taxes were taken out of my pay check every week, and my neighbor's EBT card continued to work to buy groceries. The VA didn't kick my dad out of the hospital.

The country was stripped of its AAA credit rating, was one day away from a credit default,

There's a lot of misinformation here. Especially the "default" myth, when the treasury was taking in many times more money than required for debt service. But the ONE credit agency that lowered the US rating actually stated as the reason that there is too much debt and not enough political will do do anything to address it. Interesting, that was the very issue the shutdown was about. So the credit rating was lowered because the Republicans eventually capitulated, not because they "shut down" the government.