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In Defense of Koch and Opportunity
Phil Brand, Capital Research Center’s former director of EducationWatch, has an op-ed in the Washington Examiner today defending the Kochs. The Kochs are libertarians who fund freedom-loving groups. The left has tried to paint them as villains because they believe in liberty.
Here’s the top of the piece (full article here):
When it becomes necessary to dissolve the ties that bind one people to another, wrote Thomas Jefferson, “a decent respect to the opinion of mankind” requires an explanation. His explanation was the Declaration of Independence. Sometimes events, however, compel solidarity rather than separation, among individuals as among nations. Such is the case with the recent New Yorker exposé (Jane Mayer, August 30) of the business and political activities of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
Mayer paints a sinister picture of the Kochs’ considerable political and charitable involvement. After finishing the lengthy article, one is left with the image of the “Kochtopus”—a term given by detractors to Koch and the organizations it funds— that consists of back room dealings and an unsavory nexus of greed, influence and self-interest. The author implies that their actions pervert the democratic process and stifle freedom of speech. While others are better situated to address the truth of these characterizations on the macro-level, I can speak to how they differ from my personal experience. […]
