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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.
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.
> 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.
versus "government, please steal that guy's money and give it to me"
It's people like you who enable that mayhem.
The idea that small government is a substitute for good governance is a koch dream. Small government means less oversight. So your dollars go to companies like Shell who destroy ecologies and societies.
Things like regulatory capture happen because people don't pay enough attention to their government, not because it is too big. Money chases power wherever it is. At least with government the money has to put in some work to get what it wants instead of getting it served up on a platter.
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.
http://insideevs.com/uaw-looks...
CEO Elon Musk says Tesla is union neutral, so that’s the automaker’s stance.
Then there's the whole "government run amok" thing... where it should really say "state government run amok." The protectionist policies adopted haven't been federal, they've been state level. Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey have outright bans; Georgia and Colorado have severe restrictions on selling; and Ohio and New York have legislation pending. Musk has said, if the states keep fucking with him, he will use the federal courts to deal with the issue.... so again, the problem isn't the federal government, it's the states.
With Uber, again the problem isn't unions, and it's not the federal government.. it's city governments.
Perhaps this should be a case study on smaller governments causing more problems than they should, and those that promote "small government" lying and trying to blame "big government" and unions.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
...longer, better patents and copyrights, more EULAs.
This is really what we need, aspiring politicians appealing to plutocrats.
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
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You mean give away to people currently down on their luck, or unable to find a job right now? Something that can happen to any one of us, and is a nail in the side of the economy, which needs a maximum amount of workers?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
We took a leading role in Iraq. Would have been better if we didn't.
The idea that economic policy and social policy are tied at the hip in the two mainstream parties is ridiculous. Someone who supports conservative economic policy but liberal social policies, in any other country, has a mainstream party to get behind. In the US, they're essentially an outcast who has to decide which is more important to them, their personal values or what they think is the best direction for the economy, because voting for third parties is viewed as a lost vote.
Politics in the US needs drastic reform away from the two party system.
How does Rand Paul have a liberal social policy? He's perfectly happy with letting states bar gays from marrying, eliminating abortion and birth control, making it difficult for minorities to vote, and allowing businesses to discriminate.
What part of that is liberal social policy?
Where the hell are people getting their news on Rand Paul?
"That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves."
And given the overwhelming historical association between "liber"tarian ideology and slavery, it's probably more accurate to just call it according to its real preoccupation: Moneytarianism.
No doubt such a viewpoint would find a receptive audience in some of the shallower minds and uglier spirits of Silicon Valley.
But the philosophical core of the region and the tech industry remains fundamentally progressive. That's why it remains the king despite decades of conservative "small government" states desperately trying and failing to replicate it on any remotely competitive scale.
You cannot get welfare if you are in that situation... But keep on thinking that.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
It is not stolen, without that money it would be very much harder for you to do your labor. What with no roads,reliable electric grid, phone service.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I think its due to the nature of the voting system (winner take all, even if you don't poll a majority). But it also seems to be endemic to many democracies, they tend to gravitate to two party systems. The UK has Labor and the Conservatives, the Germans have Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.
But even in countries with larger third parties, they're seldom major parts of government. I think the current coalition government in the UK is one of the few times the Liberal Democrats have been in government. In Germany the FDP has mostly been a kingmaker rather than a majority party capable of forming its own government.
We just started using ranked choice voting for elections in Minneapolis, which in theory eliminates the "lost vote" problem by allowing you to make third parties your first choice but still vote "defensively" by making some other candidate a secondary choice.
So far it doesn't seem to have led to a lot of radical change in outcomes other than making the election results take a couple of extra days due to the calculations involved when there's a dozen candidates.
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.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Pretty much the most insightful post on this topic as of yet.
Objectivitism (i.e. Aynd Rand) is basically a pipe dream similar to Communism. Human nature dictates that those with power will always try to exploit the weak. The basic tenants of good government is to balance this equation in favor of the common good.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
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.
I just find it fascinating that left leaning people always proclaim how they are such fans of diversity and inclusion, yet revile any thoughts that might stand in opposition to their own.
God forbid people be open minded towards new ideas, or even old ones.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Not really. They concentrate and consume a disproportionately large percentage of the resources while producing similar amounts of work as everyone else. At my company I see people who make 10 times more then I do, and 10 times less. We do similar amounts of work with similar amounts of training and experience, but I derive a lot more income then some and a lot less then others, and that income comes from a pool of profits that everyone contributes to. But the idea that the person making 10,100, or 1000 times more is providing that much more benefit is laughable.
If we took the top 1% or 0.1% of this countries' earners and made them vanish, the impact on the economy would be minimal to positive.
The free market is imaginary. Show me one. Anywhere on earth. Anywhere. Find me a free market, a market unfiddled by a large organization (government or private, doesn't matter).
The free market is like a frictionless wheel. It's useful to explain some concepts, but it's NOT REAL.
No, the government cannot come bulldoze your house on a whim. Calm down. It COULD use emminent domain, possibly... But then, the bank could decide to mess up some paperwork and forclose on your house despite your ability to pay. Frankly, both of these have happened. They're also RARE AS SHIT and cause a shit storm in the news when they DO happen.
Power is always going to exist. I can run a campaign against my government. I can do lots of things to stop my governemnt. I can't do shit against a bank except ask politely.....
And Seriously? The US Armed forces? Stop hyperbolizing... Both the bank and the governemnt will just call the cops. You're not cool enough to call in the military.
And do you enjoy living off a max of something like 30% of your income from when you are employed in some states? UI, which is an insurance program has a limited time length. The way you can extend it is in a time of high unemployment or by going to school.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Which is why the libertarian dream is to derive all the benefits of living in a country where public money is invested in the future while avoiding any of the responsibility or cost themselves. Silicon valley would be NOTHING if not for public investment to build off of.
Because today's Libertarians really aren't very good Libertarians.
Bill Maher of all people, put it best : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Selfish pricks are what now define Libertarianism.
The new libertarian is quite happy to do whatever they see fit to benefit themselves. Enlightened self interest my ass. More like pathological greed, but with their truisms trotted out whenever cornered about their lack of the "enlightened" part of that equation.
In other words, today's Libertarians are mostly just Republicans with a tiny bit of liberal around inconsequential edges.
Because today's Libertarians are perfectly happy to gut the system in pursuit of their personal wealth. That their greed ends up putting more people on the public dole, as people working for minimum wage are not capable of surviving without it, is of no consequence to them.
This country is now in the wealth extraction phase of it's existence. Where the wealth came from is of no concern to those who are gleefully gutting us.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That's an interesting alternate history you've concocted there. So robber-barons, child labor, rampant pollution, and killing workers the attempted to stand up for themselves is you idea of the best the United States ever was?
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.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
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.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
That's an interesting alternate history you've concocted there. So robber-barons, child labor, rampant pollution, and killing workers the attempted to stand up for themselves is you idea of the best the United States ever was?
What! You left out the best part: slavery!
Err, rather, the contracted sale of persons into a mutually beneficial arrangement where their owner obtains the benefit of their labor, and the worker obtains the benefit of not having to worry about feeding or clothing themselves, or having to repair the bars on their windows when they wear out.
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.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Oh, right, the old argument that "if you're truly open and interested in diversity, you'll let me shit all over openness and diversity, including your own, and you will be happy about it."
Here's the dirty little secret that you're trying hide with that platitude: some ideas are objectively terrible, lead to social disaster, and go against everything the Enlightenment and the revolutions of the 18th century fought for. As a result, the people who espouse those terrible ideas should be called out and ostracized. And while you're right that no party has a monopoly on good ideas, there's only one party that is actively promoting anti-science ideas, segregation, and a general Galt's Gulch approach to society. As soon as the republicans stop being loony, I'll vote for them again.
In the meantime, stop shitting in my cereal and telling me that it is chocolate.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I think this here sums up libertarianism nicely, as well as how anyone who isn't a true believer can expect to be treated should they ever win. Most might not be so blunt about it, but it's the idea behind all the sweet words about liberty.
[...]
And it's interesting to note that this is pretty much exactly what Nazis themselves, or hard-line communists, or really any totalitarians spouted.
You're doing the exact same thing.