Rand Paul and Silicon Valley's Shifting Political Climate 533
SonicSpike sends this story from NY Magazine:
Rand Paul appears to be making a full-court press for the affections of Silicon Valley, and there are some signs that his efforts are paying off. At last week's Sun Valley conference, Paul had one-on-one meetings with Thiel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ... Next weekend, Paul will get to make his case yet again as the keynote speaker at Reboot, a San Francisco conference put on by a group called Lincoln Labs, which self-defines as "techies and politicos who believe in promoting liberty with technology." He'll likely say a version of what he's said before: that Silicon Valley's innovative potential can be best unlocked in an environment with minimal government intrusion in the forms of surveillance, corporate taxes, and regulation. “I see almost unlimited potential for us in Silicon Valley,” Paul has said, with "us" meaning libertarians.
Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
Re:Silicon Valley is officially old (Score:5, Funny)
Which is why the libertarian dream is to derive all the benefits of living in a country where public money is invested in the future while avoiding any of the responsibility or cost themselves. Silicon valley would be NOTHING if not for public investment to build off of.
Because today's Libertarians really aren't very good Libertarians.
Bill Maher of all people, put it best : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Selfish pricks are what now define Libertarianism.
The new libertarian is quite happy to do whatever they see fit to benefit themselves. Enlightened self interest my ass. More like pathological greed, but with their truisms trotted out whenever cornered about their lack of the "enlightened" part of that equation.
In other words, today's Libertarians are mostly just Republicans with a tiny bit of liberal around inconsequential edges.
Because today's Libertarians are perfectly happy to gut the system in pursuit of their personal wealth. That their greed ends up putting more people on the public dole, as people working for minimum wage are not capable of surviving without it, is of no consequence to them.
This country is now in the wealth extraction phase of it's existence. Where the wealth came from is of no concern to those who are gleefully gutting us.