BEWARE
THE LIBERAL-CORPORATE
COMPLEX!
Every time you
hear a "liberal"*
propose a law so asinine it
would cripple many small and
medium-sized businesses,
not to mention mom-and-pop
startups, ask yourself:
-
whether or
not the end result
eliminates competition for
well-heeled giant
corporations (who are the
only ones who can finally
afford
most of this
tomfoolery),
-
whether it
could ever force you or your
friends or family
members (or your kids'
employers!) to go to work
for a giant corporation
at a point in time when you
or they would really rather
start
a new business or grow
an old one beyond any
definition of "exempted
smallness",
-
AND whether
any of these ideas such as
paternal leave,
breast-feeding rooms,
wheelchair ramps, or
whatever might actually have
been deliberately invented
in the halls of a conniving
giant corporation
in the first place, smug in
their confidence that
economically-illiterate
do-gooders would take over
their advocacy, doing the
work of crippling
their competition for them
from then on...
-
OR (as is
often the case) whether
these ideas are dreamt
up by congressional
candidates desperate for
campaign contributions, who
"sell"
them to the
corporate targets of their
choice.
FACT: In many election
years, Fortune 500 contributions to
the campaigns of Democrats outweigh
Fortune 500 contributions to the
campaigns
of Republicans AND Libertarians COMBINED.
Corporate
contributions
to non-profit "leftist"
organizations are sometimes
more
than TRIPLE their contributions to
non-profit free-market
organizations.
...and now you can figure
out why...
FACT:
Even in the best of times,
60% to 80% of new small businesses
fail, often leaving behind ruined
credit
ratings, broken dreams, and
sometimes, broken homes (Even the
"liberal"
George McGovern was aghast at the
multiple impediments which taxes
and
regulations presented to his
operating the Stratford Inn, which
he bought--and
eventually declared bankruptcy
on--after his retirement from
politics.1).
The vast majority of those which
manage to stay in business are
marginal
at best. The people who start them
are the people who try the
hardest,
work the longest hours, take the
scariest risks, and are often
doomed to
suffer in silence. If anyone
deserves any public
"compassion,"
they
do, yet they are universally
ignored during debates over public
policy,
especially by the popular news
media. So even though every new
regulation
and every new tax may force
thousands, or even tens of
thousands, of these
borderline businesses under, the
fashion of the day is not to care
about
them,
but about whomever the media is
willing to fret about.
"Politicians, Like Bombers,
Seldom See Their Victims..."
-- Dr. Donald Boudreaux, in his
article, "Losing
Touch"
*
"Liberal?" Doublespeak!! Incredibly,
bizarrely,
spectacularly twisted doublespeak.
The classical meaning of
"liberal" was "live-and-let-live."
Today, however, that meaning can
be
ascribed only to libertarian
ideas instead. Because nowadays
the simple-minded knee-jerk
reactionary "pass a law!"
big-government
control freaks have taken
over the term "liberal" to refer
to themselves,
abetted by the enthusiastic
compliance of the
philosophically
illiterate, extremely
short-sighted news media.
And
even formerly true-blue civil
libertarians of the "liberal"
persuasion
have found themselves in bed with,
and even supporting, what in fact
are
the brethren of their former sworn
enemies, the Nazis and other
fascists.
Take a serious look at their
campus thought-police and other
self-righteous,
nosy, pushy busybodies. See their
mean-spirited insistence on
"political
correctness," and their apparent
obliviousness to the fact that
such concepts
were born in Stalin's Russia,
Mao's China and Pol Pot's
Cambodia. Talk
about Orwellian "doublespeak,"
this version takes the cake. For a
more
on the history of "liberal" and
other terms, look
HERE.
"Give a good man great powers,
and crooks grab his job.":
Even
if you believe Bill Clinton meant
well, his Executive
Order No. 13083 and other
directives have helped pave the
way for any
real despot to impose a
dictatorship of widespread
viciousness. (Come
to think of it, Paul Begala, while
employed as Clinton's advisor, was
quoted
as saying "Stroke
of
the pen, law of the land:
kinda cool," and
absolutely
no one in the major media made a
stink about this explicit
expression of
admiration for dictatorship,
perhaps because it reflects their
sentiments
and agendas.) The United
States was supposed to have a
limited government
originally, because the founders
knew power attracts demagogues and
despots
as surely as horse manure attracts
horseflies. They never had the
illusion
that only saints would be drawn to
public service, as many people
(and
most journalists) today seem to,
despite the
horrifically
graphic lessons of the 20th
century. So now when you
combine
Clinton and Gore's dictates with all
the
National ID cards, registries
and databases which the
multinational
corporations, the huge federal
bureaucracies, and other global
power freaks
are pushing, you have all the
ingredients of a dictatorship. Any
demagogue
could use them along with their
favorite fear-mongers' tactic of
engineering
several frightening "terrorist
attacks". Then the
first
thing that would happen
afterwards is that everyone seen
as an "enemy,"
or even just a detractor, of the
despot and his gang would be
hunted down,
imprisoned, or worse. Don't tell
me you haven't noticed how
government
executive departments misuse
F.B.I. files and sic the I.R.S.
and other
agencies on anyone seen as a
personal threat to a powerful
politician.
Yes, right here in the good ol'
U.S.of A. And yes it can
and DOES
happen here. With over 2 million
people in prison already, and more
than
half of those for victimless
"crimes," you must take pause
and realize most people with power
are nowhere near benevolent
--
no, not "even today."
Study well, my friend, how
evil
principles are turned into
bloody reality, and now how
it looks from afar.
Do see: Big
Burden, Little Burden, Corporations
Which
Feed the Fangs That Bite Them,
Corporations
Give
More Than FOUR TIMES as much
to Big-Government advocates as
they do
to Pro-Liberty advocates,
and especially, MOM
&
POP VS. THE DREAMBUSTERS
1
"MAR
1 - 1990 - Former
senator George S.
McGovern, of South
Dakota, who is
struggling
for the first time as a
small business owner,
expresses regret at the
myriad
of economically
intrusive legislation he
sponsored and helped
pass
while he was in
congress: 'I wish
I'd done this before
I'd run for President.
It would've given me
insight into the
anxiety any
independent business
man or farmer must
have…now I've got to
pay the bank every
month…I've got
to pay the state of
Connecticut taxes….It
gives you a whole new
perspective
on what other people
worry about.' "
Sources:
Paula Spann, "McGovern's
Latest Campaign: Filling
Rooms at the Inn,"
Los
Angeles Times,
3-2-90, page E7.
Newsmakers, Los
Angeles Times,
2-15-91, page E1.
Brien Bartels,
"Reflections-The
Metamorphosis of George
McGovern,"
Liberty,
July 1998: page 15.
-- A special thanks
to Tom
Caldwell, whose
tireless research turned
up the exact quotes |
"If businesses can use
government to rig the
system to suppress
competition,
they will." -- John
Stossel, in Give
Me a Break |
"Major U.S. corporations
give more than $2 to
left-of-center
organizations
and activities each year
for every $ they give to
right-of-center groups."
-- Dr. Marvin
Olasky |
"Politicians,
Like Bombers, Seldom
See Their Victims..."
-- Donald Boudreaux,
Chairman, George Mason
University Department of
Economics |
"[George Stigler]
showed, for instance, that
regulators often become
dominated by those that
are supposed to be
regulated - so called
'regulatory
capture.' " -- from the
Nobel Museum's
classifications of Nobel
Prizes
in microeconomics here.
2 |
What a recent SEC
chairman "did to the
little guys was serious.
James Steinkirchner,
cochairman of the
National Small Public
Company Leadership
Council, agrees. 'He
focused on eliminating [!!!]
small companies and
favoring big companies,'
" -- from THIS
article |
"In fact, the big
corporations who
understand the regulatory
game can
actually benefit from it.
They can lobby for
expensive regulations only
the largest corporations
can afford, effectively
keeping upstarts and
competitors
at bay." -- Radley Balko,
HERE |
"In a free market,
consumer sovereignty and
competition tend to create
instability when sellers
learn to game the system
too well... In
a technocratic system, it
is more difficult for
consumers to exercise
countervailing
power. Innovative
competitors are often
precluded by
regulation.
Suppliers tend to apply
concentrated lobbying
power to protect their
interests,
while the diffuse
interests of the consumer
are poorly represented in
the
political process. ...
Centralized, regulated
systems look good on
paper,
and they may be effective
as they start.
However, market systems
learn faster, because
competitive innovation
prevents a market from
getting
captured by the incumbents
who have learned how to
game the system." --
Arnold Kling, HERE |
"'For every $1.00 major
corporations gave to
conservative and
free-market
groups, they gave $4.61 to
organizations seeking more
government,' according
to a
study
by the Capital Research
Center, a Washington
think tank." -- Thomas
Sowell, HERE |
"In the 2004
presidential election
campaign 92% of
contributions of
$1 million or more went to
Democrats. Pro-Democratic
527s, meanwhile, spent
more than twice as much as
their GOP counterparts."
--
Jacob Laksin,
referring to the
statistics in Byron York's
new book,
The
Vast Left Wing
Conspiracy.
||
WHICH is the party of
the rich? See
THIS. |
"While it would be silly
and ungracious to insist
that intelligent
deliberation on public
issues is nowhere found in
modern communities, it
would be naive to imagine
that wise deliberation can
survive the constant
pounding from
self-interested political
behavior. Benevolence in
public
institutions has a short
half-life no matter how
noble its original
intentions."
and "Once [a] program is
in place, its day-to-day
administration falls
into the hands of a
professional cadre
besieged by powerful
interest groups
whose influence grows as
public interest wanes. . .
. A slow process of
disintegration and
reconfiguration sets in,
transforming and expanding
a program from within." --
Richard A. Epstein, Principles
for
a Free Society |
"Try walking the halls
of Congress. It's
Abercrombie & Fitch
meets
the Hair Club for Men.
Lots of really
photogenic young people
kissing
up to lots of insufferable
blowhards. Separated by
one or two generations,
most of these players have
only one real thing in
common: They have never
been weaned from the
public teat. The closest
they've ever come to
meeting
a payroll is when they
come together to spend
everyone else's payroll
taxes."
-- Michelle Malkin, here. |
Sneering
Arrogance Dept.,
Super
Control-Freaks'
Section
"Let
them eat
cake"
"The ['Hillary Care'] plan
prescribed some eye
popping maximum fines:$5,000
for
refusing to join the
government mandated
health plan; $5,000
for failing
to pay premiums on
time; 15
years in prison for
doctors
who received
‘anything of value’
in exchange for
helping patients
short
circuit bureaucracy;
$10,000 a day for
faulty physician
paperwork; and
$50,000 for
unauthorized
patient treatment.
When
told the plan could
bankrupt small businesses,
Mrs. Clinton said, 'I
can’t
be responsible for every
under-capitalized small
business in
America.'"
-- Tony Snow reporting on
Hillary's health
care plan, to which Zoh
Hieronimus
added, "Perhaps
Hillary’s legacy
will be that
she made fascism
seem lady-like." |
"Clinton realized that
America could not
economically afford the
Protocol
Gore negotiated. The
Clinton-Gore's Energy
Department found Kyoto
would
lead to $400 billion a
year in lost output. ...
Gore tries to throw Enron
on the back of the current
administration. But it was
Enron Board Chairman
Kenneth Lay who sold
Clinton-Gore on Kyoto's
cap and trade
system.
Gore, Clinton, and
Treasury Secretary Robert
Rubin met with Lay on Aug.
7, 1997 to go over goals
and procedures for the
Kyoto session. ... The
corporate smoking memo
here was not that from an
ExxonMobil adviser to
oppose Dr. Watson, but the
Enron internal memo saying
Kyoto 'would do more
to promote Enron's
business than almost any
other regulatory
initiative'."
-- Ken Adelman HERE.
"Being a
politician means never
having to say you're
sorry.
You don't have to say, 'I
never should have voted to
subsidize that ridiculous
Enron project in
India.' ... After
all, they're greedy
businessmen
and you're a selfless
public servant."-- Harry
Browne
"It
is hard to imagine a more
stupid or more dangerous
way of making decisions
than by putting those
decisions in the
hands
of people who pay no price
for being wrong." --
Thomas Sowell
Enron, of
course, is exactly the
kind of corporation which
could not exist in pure
capitalism. As a
creature, in effect, of
politicians, it was
deliberately converted
from a small pipeline
company
into an international
conglomerate by conniving
scoundrels who designed
it from the beginning to
use the power of their
politician-friends to give
it government contracts,
subsidies, monopoly
powers, and favorable
regulations
to force prospective
customers to do business
with them, essentially at
gunpoint. Obviously,
this is is fascism,
not capitalism, and what
you get more and more of
when you work to transform
what was once the rule of
clear-cut law into the
rule of men (especially
agenda-driving,
nuance-inventing judges
and lawyers).
"[There is
a] strong correlation
between market freedom
and lower government
corruption -- not terribly
surprising, since the
effect
of increasing regulatory
power is to shift
'cheating' from the
private
to the public sphere." --
Julian
Sanchez |
"Take a look at how the
multi-billion dollar
pharmaceutical companies
have totally snookered the
politically-correct media
and liberal establishments
into fighting a 'War on
Smoking' for them.
After all, absolutely
none
of their anxiety drugs can
quell anxiety or panic
attacks anywhere near
as cheaply, quickly
or thoroughly as a
cigarette can." -- Bert
Rand |
"Ultimately, however, as
the Austrian economist
Joseph Schumpeter pointed
out, a powerful
bureaucratic class is in
the same relation to
commerce
as was the scorpion in
Aesop to the dog on whose
back he crossed the river.
They will destroy commerce
and establish socialism,
even if it kills them,
because that is their
nature." -- John
Derbyshire |
TO
CONTINUE, SEE: THE
REGULATORY-INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX HERE.
|