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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

> When you press people (like in person, not on the internet) why they think he's the devil incarnate, you usually get some really wild ad hominem not rooted in reality or a realization that they don't really know why they hate him so much other than he's a benefactor of their political opposition and they were told to.

Sure, but we could probably say the same of the Koch brothers. They both occupy similar positions of power and influence on opposite sides of the fence, and suffer similar attacks.

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The Kochs are widely misunderstood. They are typically seen as effectively a free-money-pit for generic Republican views that promote Capitalist exploitation, laying waste to the environment, and destroying any real grassroots movement to bring democratic power to the people.

From my understanding, the reality is more like: The Kochs are typical dogmatic Libertarians who aren't anti-environment but have this simplistic economic model in their heads that insists that regulations are nearly always counterproductive. They don't support just any conservative view. They have good intentions and aren't about pursuing their own selfish power. They want to empower others. It's just that they are misled by their simplistic dogma (which certainly has a lot of actually fine ideas, but it's the holding them as a dogmatic set in the stereotypical Libertarian way that they go wrong). So, their opposition to mass incarceration and to regressive Nationalism… those things all fit their particular dogma that is simply not a plain polar opposite of progressive ideas but is more orthogonal in many ways.

Sure. And similar, if in opposition, arguments could be made (and likely are), with regard to Soros. Some on the right probably view Soros as a socialist/capitalist that wants to control through party power or the manipulation of causes to his own end. The reality is likely much more similar to how you outlined the Koch motivations above.

Good intentions? Any time I read something like this: https://www.thenation.com/article/big-brothers-thought-contr... my doubts about them increase.

I think they're true believers, which does not justify the evil they do, but I expect they would view this as a situation where the ends justify the means - or a situation where they are educating the uneducated.

But did anyone ever point at any actual evil that they do? They seem to be rather liberal/progressive on social issues, and quite moderately conservative on economic ones, which doesn't seem too bad.

Using their power to acquire more power in a system that is not designed to deal with this level of corruption is evil in itself. Why do they think they're god's mouthpiece? Why do their economic ideas seem to benefit them so greatly at the expense of others?

They've also paid over $733 mil in fines for environmental violations, and they're putting money into lobbying for stripping regulations. Whether you want to call this evil, I don't really care, but it's terrible for humanity and the world, and they should be stopped.

The whole complaint in that article seems to be that Koch Industries endorsed a candidate in a letter to their employees.

Reading the article, there were a few points where I felt like I was reading a propoganda piece, which made the complaints about the Koch's newsletter being right-wing propoganda feel superficial and politically motivated, if not outright hypocritical.

Frankly, it's a great example of the sort of thing kbenson and spinchange were talking about above [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16341358

Half of the science-heave PBS shows that are such a favorite of the SV crowd wouldn't be possible without Koch donations.

So even if the Kochs really do end up killing all of the polar bears, it'll be well documented on TV.

Up vote for "science-heave", did you say that on purpose?

"What happens when one scientist goes head to head with EXTREME SHARK ATTACKS!!!11???" heave

Am I the only one who thinks pop-science shows have gone down hill a bit since reality tv came in to fashion? When I was younger Nova seemed like a dignified scholarly affair, but these days it seems like something always has to be exploding or attacking. Maybe it's just nostalgia...

The Kochs also exert editorial control over PBS content when they don't like what's reported.

[citation needed]

I highly recommend the two part Freakonomics episode "Why Hate the Koch Brothers?" which includes lengthy interviews with Charles Koch. He seemed to me a well meaning but somewhat naive libertarian.

I've never seen people claim the Koch's literally aided and abetted the Nazis (this is something that's actually claimed about Soros in spite of fleeing Europe with his parents as an adolescent). There's a hatred and fear of Soros that surpasses his political activities. He's pretty active with bonafide "do gooder" stuff and it's equated with Pizzagate-style conspiracies and worse that you don't see on the opposite side of the fence. What I'm saying is, it isn't strictly political and it's certainly not equivocal.

It's anti-Semitism. The one thing you can say for the ignorant throughout history is that they are both consistent and enthusiastic about their awful beliefs.

"stuff and it's equated with Pizzagate-style conspiracies and worse that you don't see on the opposite side of the fence."

"Koch brothers".

There is nothing one side's fever swamp does that the other can't match, which is why wise people attempting to discern truths ignore both, but most especially, ignore the one on the "other side".

Except the left/liberal side (as defined in US terms) mostly rejects the extremes.

The right/conservatives have turned a blind eye toward (and in some cases wholly embraced) their "fever swamp".

The truth is not in the middle.

The whole "Koch brothers are teh devil!" seems to be quite an extreme position, if one bothers to read what Koch brothers actually promote.

That's not true. I see moderate right wingers like Jordan Peterson criticising highly fevered left wingers who are clearly extremists. The right that I see is reasonable and the left they talk about is extreme. I suspect it's the same for you but in reverse. You can't judge the whole side by what their enemies mock them for.

I'm a right winger but I still believe in evolution and I don't have a portrait of Hitler on my wall.

This is where that aiding the Nazis claim originated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Id0-Lsyr0

The Kochs did literally aid and abet the Nazis:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/us/politics/father-of-koc...

Along with a significant portion of other U.S. industry, including IBM, AT&T, Coca Cola, Ford, GM, and more.

This isn't the quality of reference I'd generally provide, but it's a quick find and seems generally accurate in the basics:

http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_nastybiz.html

And:

https://listverse.com/2013/10/24/10-big-business-nazi-profit...

(Several of the listed companies are in fact German, which isn't surprising. There are several American firms as well, including Kodak and Standard Oil.)

Washington Post on Ford and GM:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/n...

The IBM case is exceedingly well documented:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/black-ibm.html

Getting back to the Kochs and various Nazi, anti-semitic, and Holocaust-denial elements:

Reason Magazine, almost wholly backed by the Koch Brothers, ran a Holocaust-denial special issue, and doubled down on it when called out:

https://pando.com/2014/07/24/as-reasons-editor-defends-its-r...

Regnery Press, strongly associated with Chicago School economists (it published Milton Friedman, George Stigler, F.A. Hayek, and others), and long a standard of the conservative Right and Libertarian movements, is strongly associated with the alt-right:

Regnery has become major figure in the white nationalist movement, having founded the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist “think tank,” and the Charles Martel Society, which publishes The Occidental Quarterly, a racist, anti-Semitic and pseudo-scholarly “journal.”

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/indi...

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