Daniel Schulman wrote a biography that’s been given a lot of credit for humanizing the Koch brothers. The highlight is his argument that the Koch’s aren’t in it for the money, they are true ideological warriors for fundamental “Libertarian” ideals. Not sure why that should have me trusting them or their intentions.
Merging libertarianism with being nearly the richest and most politically engaged bullying master of the universe - seems profoundly incongruous. Bullying? Well over a billion dollars spend on power political strategy and political campaigns, campaigns that are founded on deception and lies. I’ll classify that as bullying.
Below is an excerpt from a Washington Post opinion piece on the book and links to three different YouTube events featuring author Daniel Schulman discussing his book to three very different groups of listeners.
Following that I include a few references towards defining what the elusive “libertarian ideal” is. Actually, to my eyes, that’s one of it’s biggest problems, it’s all idealized thinking. That's followed by a list of articles reporting on the Koch CATO connection.
Libertarians must ignore huge aspects of reality, be it about our geophysical Earth, or our modern complex crowded society.
Libertarianism seems akin to nostalgic thinking, where we idealize a time and place that never was and never could have been.
Libertarianism seems akin to nostalgic thinking, where we idealize a time and place that never was and never could have been.
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Review of Koch brothers biography, ‘Sons of Wichita,’ by Daniel Schulman
By Matea Gold | May 23, 2014
