Hacker News Reader

Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, the Koch Brothers are evil. That George Soros, though, he's totally a force for good. The reality is that left and right all have their rich supporters, and only the truly blinkered would say one side is "evil" and the other is "good".

The Koch brothers donated hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research. Have you given as much?

View on HN

Themartorana never said that the left was good and the right was evil, and never said anything about George Soros. Even worse, you are engaging in a tu quoque fallacy to defend this perceived partisanship.

The Koch brothers spent $31 million in 2012 to lobby for their coal power interests [1], which is linked to higher rates of lung cancer for miners, people who live near mines [2], and people who live near coal power plants [3]. I consider their cancer research donations restitution.

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/oil-lobby-coal-...

[2]: http://www.scopemed.org/?mno=20068

[3]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19187950

I've yet to hear of any right-wingers criticise the Koch brothers. Perhaps Themarorana is a rogue libertarian that doesn't like them, but I'd consider that one of the least-likely possibilities.

I'd also say that promoting fossil fuels, which are responsible for most of the prosperity we have today, is a pretty low bar to have to cross in order to be considered "evil".

ISIS are evil. The Leader of North Korea is evil. The Koch Brothers (or George Soros)? Not so much

Reply on news.ycombinator.com