Thoughts on the Wall Street Democrats:
…every time the president accuses Republicans of trying to “block progress” or of defying “common sense,” as he did that night, he is executing a dangerous tightrope walk. His party’s electoral fortunes depend on his making forceful calls for reform of our banking laws. His party’s fundraising fortunes depend on his ensuring that no serious reform—of the kind that endangers the big banks’ size and power—ever happens. That may be why the Democrats’ strategy of painting the Republicans as obstructionists on finance reform has gained little traction. By the same token, if Republicans ever did get serious about reforming the banks—and even about breaking up an industry that has turned into a Democratic war chest—they would put Democrats in mortal peril. There seems no chance of this. Obama’s taunts show a confidence, verging on certitude, that Republicans’ hypocrisy is as deep as his own.
Sounds like the Republicans suffer from false consciousness. I still think that low marginal rates are a good idea, though.
How can anyone resist the cash that these companies can give campaigns? That alone seems to be such a corrupting influence.
I still have trouble wrapping my brain around the concept that giving money equates to free speech. Wouldn’t you agree that speech (spoken, broadcast, or printed words) would not have the same corrupting influence that money has? Maybe someone on this forum can help me understand how cash contributions = free speech.
In order for your speech to be heard, it has to be disseminated, which requires money. I can write up a pamphlet, and print it out, and hand it out, or I can pay other people to hand it out to reach even more people. Or I can band with other like-minded people to purchase an ad in a newspaper or on television. All these things are speech, or freedom of speech is meaningless.
I would add that if we aren’t allowed to purchase ads, it privileges the owners of the media, who can broadcast whatever they want, without fear of contradiction. This was never what the Founders intended, no matter how much the idea appeals to the New York Times.
“I would add that if we aren’t allowed to purchase ads, it privileges the owners of the media, who can broadcast whatever they want, without fear of contradiction. This was never what the Founders intended, no matter how much the idea appeals to the New York Times.”
I don’t want to be a troll here, Rand, I really want to understand your position. What I hear from so many right-centric commentators is that the MSM is in the hands of leftists with some kind of social agenda, be it environmentalist, cultural, or whatever. Yet to my mind those agendas don’t square with the interests of business-minded entities like Wall Street. From my perspective Wall Street controls a lot of the political discourse in this country in the form of corporate ownership. Are the fundamental differences between progressives and libertarians really about who we assume controls the media message?
BTW, if a Republican did ever “get serious about reforming the banks”, I might actually vote for him/her.
The political inclination of media ownership isn’t the point. It’s the restriction of political speech to the owners/editors in the media that’s the point.
Dave, you claim to believe capitalists in boardrooms tell editors what to write or report; many “right-centric commentators,” as you call them, believe the capitalists only want to ensure cash flow and leave the editors to make the day-to-day decisions on running the newspaper but that the editors are left-centric.
How does either view justify leaving big media institutions alone on the political stage to identify issues and report where candidates stand on them? Neither way of looking at it leads to good government.
Of course, in the real world there is no such thing as good government, there is only government deprived of much of its power to be bad, by being kept small.