I have a question regarding the environment and libertarians?

If the laws were good then a team of the most expensive lawyers wouldn't have such an effect.

 

I tend to agree with that. Clear and concise laws, understandable to all without need of teams of lawyers.

Has anyone read the 'Code of Federal Regulations' as applicable to the current year?

 

Oh, but the Liberal idea for the evoirment is MUCH better *Sarcasm*

You know? Geoengineering; spraying aluminum and chemicals into the air, and shooting giant mirrors into space to "Stop Global Warming." Seriously, that type of science is so nieve. and a HUGE waste of taxpayer money. If Liberals actually looked into most of the programs they "support" now (the EPA etc) they would realize quickly that the tax payer is getting robbed!

 

For an answer to your question, meet the poster children of Libertarianism: the Koch boys: Koch Pledge Tied to Congressional Climate Inaction

July 3, 2013
Author: Jane Mayer

When President Obama unveiled his program to tackle climate change last month, he deliberately sidestepped Congress as a hopeless bastion of obstruction, relying completely on changes that could be imposed by regulatory agencies. A two-year study by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, released today, illustrates what might be one of the reasons why he had to take this circuitous route. Fossil fuel magnates Charles and David Koch have, through Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group they back, succeeded in persuading many members of Congress to sign a little-known pledge in which they have promised to vote against legislation relating to climate change unless it is accompanied by an equivalent amount of tax cuts. Since most solutions to the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions require costs to the polluters and the public, the pledge essentially commits those who sign to it to vote against nearly any meaningful bill regarding global warning, and acts as yet another roadblock to action. The investigative study tracks the political influence wielded by the billionaire Koch brothers, who have harnessed part of the fortune generated by their company, Koch Industries, the second largest private corporation in the country, to further their conservative libertarian activism.

Charles Lewis, the Executive Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop explained that the I.R.W., a non-profit news organization attached to American University, spent two years focussing on Koch Industries because, "There is no other corporation in the U.S. today, in my view, that is as unabashedly, bare-knuckle aggressive across the board about its own self-interest, in the political process, in the nonprofit-policy-advocacy realm, even increasingly in academia and the broader public marketplace of ideas." Formerly head of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, Lewis has focussed for years on the way money affects American politics. "The Kochs' influence, without a doubt, is growing," he believes. A spokeswoman for the Kochs declined to comment. In its multi-part report, "The Koch Club," written by Lewis, Eric Holmberg, Alexia Campbell, and Lydia Beyoud, the Workshop found that between 2007 and 2011 the Kochs donated $41.2 million to ninety tax-exempt organizations promoting the ultra-libertarian policies that the brothers favor--policies that are often highly advantageous to their corporate interests. In addition, during this same period they gave $30.5 million to two hundred and twenty-one colleges and universities, often to fund academic programs advocating their worldview. Among the positions embraced by the Kochs are fewer government regulations on business, lower taxes, and skepticism about the causes and impact of climate change. Climate-change policy directly affects Koch Industries's bottom line. Koch Industries, according to Environmental Protection Agency statistics cited in the study, is a major source of carbon-dioxide emissions, the kind of pollution that most scientists believe causes global warming. In 2011, according to the E.P.A.'s greenhouse-gas-reporting database, the company, which has oil refineries in three states, emitted over twenty-four million tons of carbon dioxide, as much as is typically emitted by five million cars. Starting in 2008, a year after the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could regulate greenhouse gasses as a form of pollution, accelerating possible Congressional action on climate change, the Koch-funded nonprofit group, Americans for Prosperity, devised the "No Climate Tax" pledge. It has been, according to the study, a component of a remarkably successful campaign to prevent lawmakers from addressing climate change. Two successive efforts to control greenhouse-gas emissions by implementing cap-and-trade energy bills died in the Senate, the latter of which was specifically targeted by A.F.P.'s pledge. By now, four hundred and eleven current office holders nationwide have signed the pledge. Signatories include the entire Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, a third of the members of the House of Representatives as a whole, and a quarter of U.S. senators. The 2010 mid-term elections were a high watermark for the pledge. The Kochs, like many other conservative benefactors, gave generously to efforts to help shift the majority in the House of Representatives from Democratic to Republican. Koch Industries's political action committee spent $1.3 million on congressional campaigns that year. When Republicans did take control of the House, a huge block of climate-change opponents was empowered. Fully one hundred and fifty-six members of the House of Representatives that year had signed the "No Climate Tax Pledge." Of the eighty-five freshmen Republican congressmen elected to the House of Representatives in 2010, seventy-six had signed the No Climate Tax pledge. Fifty-seven of those received campaign contributions from Koch Industries's political action committee. The study notes that more than half of the House members who signed the pledge in the 112th Congress made statements doubting climate-change science, despite the fact that there is overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject. The study recounts that the Kochs have influenced the congressional climate-change debate in other ways, too, which include funding an array of nonprofit groups whose experts have testified in Congress questioning the cause, the severity, and the necessity of, acting on climate change. Since 2007, "Senior staff at more than a dozen Koch-funded nonprofit groups have made frequent trips to testify on Capitol Hill in favor of deregulation," of the environment and energy sector, the study says. The No Climate Tax pledge has made inroads at the state level, as well. In just the three states of Missouri, Michigan, and Kansas, where Koch Industries has its headquarters, forty-eight office holders have now signed the pledge. Nationwide, it has penetrated even the most local levels. Signatories now include the Oklahoma superintendent of schools, the Idaho Treasurer, and three justices of the peace in Arkansas. Lewis concludes that "One of the overarching themes from what we have found is that," when it comes to blocking action on climate change, "things obviously go better with Koch!"

 

^^^ That!

 

They might very well be, but we won't know until we try them.

 

If the koch bros were Libertarians then why don't they support Libertarian candidates?

They're not Libertarians they are profiteers. They support policies that will make them money, not policy that brings Liberty to the people. They spend billions on lobbying- which goes completely against the free market ideas of Libertarianism.

 

I've been doing a little more reading and I've found that they've also accepted Billions of Dollars in Government subsidiaries. Another thing thats not so Libertarian about them. They seem to be hypocrites who support the Libertarian policies that can make them money, as well as the big government policies that make them money. To call them the poster boys of Libertarians isn't a fair statement. They may claim to be something of the sort but actions speak louder than words

 

They do: http://www.followthemoney.org/datab...ibutor_details.phtml?u=1457&y=0&ince=0&incs=0

There's even a wiki on their political activities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers

I fail to see the difference.

(italic mine)

I believe you're referring to the façade.

Yes but a Libertarian holds individual liberty as its highest political end. If individual liberty is the highest political end, the Koch boys have put themselves pretty close to the pinnacle of libertarian "success."

 

Pretty sad to observe this once grand experiment of a 'melting pot' of a country where the ideals of freedom, liberty and justice for all has turned into a total and complete business where anyone and everyone with governmental influence can be and is, bought and sold like so many cattle. Ideals and ideas don't matter much any more. Right and wrong have gone by the wayside. What's good and decent for the majority of citizens is just a laughing matter in the halls of power and industry now. The business of america is business. It's the money. Always the money. It's the fault of all of US. We've allowed this country to become what it has become.

 

I went through the entire first page of this list, and randomly selected another 50 or so entries. I didn't see one Libertarian. I saw Republicans and a few Democrats. Seems to me that they're Republicrats, heavy on the Repub

 

How is that not living up to the Highest Libertarian Principle of "individual liberty?" Are the Koch boys not individually free?

As I see it, the Libertarian principle of "individual liberty" can be corrupted or hijacked to individual liberty for the few who can pay for it. Everyone else is left with empty jargon. So that we'll be left with two types of Libertarianism: Libertarianism for the masses which enslaves and Libertarianism for the few who can afford it which gives the few the kind of liberty libertarians talk about.

Question:
Is "Libertarian Liberty" based on individual freedom individually (on a case by case basis) or is "Libertarian Liberty" based on individual freedom collectively (granted to society as a whole)?

 

Is it any more unusual for Republicans to contribute to Republican candidates than for Democrats to contribute to Democrat candidates? And George Soros probably more than offsets what the Koch Bros. contribute to the opposition party.

Ron Paul and Gary Johnson stand out as Libertarians, as opposed to establishment Democrats and Republicans, in my opinion.

Freedom is not something granted by government, it is something which individuals exercise within the laws which we have collectively consented to. Governments responsibility is to redistribute our freedom but to protect our freedom from being infringed upon.

 

Oh, you're referring to the "Libertarian Party." Sorry about that. I was referring to candidates that promote Libertarian ideas. So I agree with you that the Koch boys don't support the Libertarian Party. They support mainly Republicans who promote (some) Libertarian ideas.

Libertarianism is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism. Libertarians advocate a society with a greatly reduced state or no state at all.

So the Koch boys are acting as the antonym to libertarianism while at the same time calling themselves Libertarians. Go figure…

 

TRUE freedom is held tightly by those with the most power/money and is usually begun and gained by those with the most efficient weapons,including propaganda. When weapons are no longer needed,then it follows that the citizens have been effectively conquered and marginalized and laws as written by the conquerers are then the method employed to keep them/us under control. Collectively consenting to the laws that govern us is a pipedream,IMO. Critical thinking,unfortumately, is very local in nature by current design. What's best for the few is not always best for the many. Until elections are definitively decided by ideas and not money from either/any direction---no democracy for us.

 

Hey man! Speak for yourself; we didn't ALL vote Obama twice.

 

Always do. I have no need to speak for anyone else. I did not vote,which means I voted by not voting.

 

I was just playing around. I actually agreed with what you said. But, this country has been on a downward spiral for a really long time; At least on a lighter note, a majority of Americans are officially awake and aware that the government is too big and intrusive, a that's a reason to be excited about our future!

Many people nationwide protested bad laws this July 4th, evidentally American citizens do want the protection of our Constitution.

http://rt.com/usa/nsa-protests-july-4-700/