Let’s round them up and hang them at sunrise. It’s our only option at this point. We might allow them 24 hours to leave the country first, but if not, the future of civilization depends on shutting them down. Who could be so evil and effective?
Jews in Hitler’s Germany? No, not this time. The Koch Brothers! Much like the Jews who offered a perfect foil for Hitler’s insane rantings in which he blamed the problems of the whole of Germany on this small, successful minority, Harry Reid and the leftist elite are fond of blaming the Kochs for anything and everything wrong with the world.
There are four Koch brothers, but when the press and democrats get into a froth about the “Koch Brothers,” they mean Charles and David Koch, who run Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held corporations in the U.S. They suffer the twin evils of strenuously opposing leftist ideology at every turn, and actually doing something about it.
If they just suffered in silence as most of the captains of industry seem to do, no trouble would befall them. If they simply stood up and spoke against the left, they would likely be relatively untouched. But the Koch Brothers are serious and engaged, and that’s what makes them an evil to be stopped – or convenient whipping boys anytime leftists want to redirect attention from their own failures.
“The base of the Democratic party, which provides the lion’s share of campaign contributions and activist hours to the party’s cause in midterm elections, loathes the Kochs.” So says the WaPo. That’s where we learn how Senate candidate Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) is trying to ride the anti Koch train to victory this year, with nearly daily “anti-Koch missives from his campaign.” Since Jan. 1, the Braley for Senate campaign has sent at least 46 e-mails mentioning and decrying the Koch brothers. That works out to one e-mail every 2.4 days, and roughly half of the communications coming from the Braley campaign have included some mention of the Koch brothers. Painting the election as “Democrats vs the Kochs” has become the chosen vehicle to drive the passion — in terms of both money and volunteer hours — that Democrats badly need to hold the Senate in 2014.
The latest is from this week’s L.A. Times with its article headlined “Conservative heavyweights have solar industry in their sights”. Not “Businessman with oil interests oppose state subsidies for their competition,” which is exactly what the issue is. And certainly not, “Libertarians who oppose the drug war and support gay marriage oppose solar subsidy.” Those would hardly be demonizing enough, and would run the danger of depicting the Kochs as the Libertarians they are rather than the extreme, evil right-wing nut jobs the left portrays. In fact, David Koch is so animated by his beliefs about liberty that he ran against Reagan & Bush in 1980 on the Libertarian ticket.
Whole Foods’ CEO and founder John Mackey is also a libertarian, and likened Obamacare to socialism and fascism. He said “In fascism, the government doesn’t own the means of production, but they do control it — and that’s what’s happening with our health care programs and these reforms.” But he gets a pass from the left. Why? Well, it could be that his business is something the left loves, organic foods, but more likely, while he talks about his beliefs in smaller government, he doesn’t do much else. Mackey’s 2012 political donations were in the low five figures.
On the other hand, the Koch Brothers dedicate a significant portion of their sizeable fortune to influencing the debate. Their donations over the last 25 years have totaled somewhere between 20 million to infinity depending on whose numbers you believe. They don’t deal with organic produce either. No, their business is often literally dirty, and figuratively so if you’re a leftist. While varied, most of Koch industries is concerned with petrochemicals – their extraction, refinement, and production into fuel and goods. Not exactly warm and fuzzy stuff – but oh so necessary to fuel all of those plug-in cars we’re supposed to be using, and to fly Al Gore around the world to climate-change conferences.
The demonization of the Koch Brothers started in earnest with Jane Mayer’s 2010 New Yorker hit piece subtitled “The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.” After that it has been open season on hating the brothers, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose lengthy rantings against the Kochs on the Senate floor have become the stuff of legend, saying in February that they were “about as un-American as anyone I can imagine.”
Now, let’s stop for a moment and remember they have used their money – legally earned – to try and convince the public and elected officials that less government and fewer regulations are a better course for this country. That’s what makes them evil.
Curiously enough, Jane Mayer’s article that started it all wasn’t her first about a billionaire’s extreme spending on politics and the outsize influence it has bought. In 2004, also for the New Yorker, she wrote “The Money Man: Can George Soros’ millions insure the defeat of President Bush?” While Mayer has certainly been interested and skeptical of individual big money donations in politics no matter the source, the same cannot be said of Reid or the rest of the lefties jumping on the anti-Koch bandwagon. Soros may not have spent as much as the Koch’s, but he has spent tens of millions.
Despite the fact that he made his money through the most undiluted form of capitalism – predicting the near future price for certain countries’ money – Soros bankrolls almost exclusively anti-capitalist, leftist causes. That makes him not a rank hypocrite in the eyes of the left, but rather a noble defender of all that is good and holy, rather than “un-American.”
Forget the fact that the Kochs employ over 60,000 people, mostly in the U.S., since they are probably bad, evil, polluting people. The couple hundred that work for Soros Fund Management are surely doing more for the world than the Koch folks. The Kochs and Soros are duly entitled to their profits, but the ethics of the left, as applied here would seem to favor the Kochs’ high employment endeavors over the arbitrage profits of Soros. But never mind that.
Tom Steyer is another billionaire who has avoided being “un-American.” He also favors leftist causes and made his money by trading paper rather than making it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Reid to denounce Steyer’s pledge to spend $100 million on the 2014 elections. He favors more regulation and government, so he is on the side of the angels.
Pay attention next time you hear Harry Reid and his sycophants slam the Koch brothers – doubtless you won’t hear a substantive rebuke of the Kochs’ policy arguments. No, you’ll get a hate the rich denunciation of the totals spent – as if somehow spending many millions on advertising has moral relevance and is not equally applicable to Soros, Steyer and other leftist moneybags.
The simple reality about collectivists’ obsession with the Kochs is that they put their money where their mouths are, and it is scaring the daylights out of the left.
