Koch makes several dubious claims in
his Wall Street Journal Op-Ed.
Koch claims he has spent his life studying the principles that enable
people to improve their lives. This statement is demonstrably false.
Koch has spent his entire life running a multi-national corporation.
This occupation has left him little time for reflection.
Koch lists these principles as dignity,
respect, equality before the law, and personal freedom. These are not
the principles listed in our founding documents, where the authors
discuss life, liberty and the the pursuit of happiness. The
Constitution includes a bill of rights that nowhere mentions dignity
or respect. Those principles are too vague and ill-defined to serve
as the cornerstone of any philosophy. Dignity is an attribute of
authority. A judge has dignity, a king has dignity. Respect is a
two-edged sword: Respect is earned as well as granted.
Koch lists equality before the law as a
fundamental principle, but he has not spent his life donating to
legal services for the poor, to ensure that everyone is equal before
the law. He lists personal freedom as another fundamental principle,
but he runs an organization, a corporation, which tells each employee
exactly what he or she should do. Each corporate employee has a
written job description that describes exactly what the corporation
expects the employee to do for 40 hours a week. There's not much
personal freedom there.
Furthermore, the corporation has
unwritten rules that restrict personal freedom. The employees must
obey all the edicts imposed on them by the executives of the company.
They must never question authority, since insubordination is grounds
for immediate dismissal. In many ways, a corporation limits the
personal liberty of its employees, in the clothes they wear, in the
language they use, and in the opinions they must hold about the
company and its place in the world.
Koch apparently finds it acceptable to
control his employees in this way, but believes that the elected
government should never make any rules that affect its citizens. The
citizens of a country vote to choose the government and the laws they
wish to follow. The citizens of this country choose representatives
to make those laws and enforce them. Koch's corporation is a
dictatorship. One man makes all the decisions for everyone.
The worst thing that our current
government does, according to Koch, is tell people how to run their
lives. It does this because it does not trust them to run their own
lives, he says. It is Koch who does not trust the people, however. He
does not believe a government should rule with the consent of the
governed. According to him, no one should have to obey any law he or
she disagrees with. This is not a prescription for any real-world
government, and it is certainly not a description of how Koch runs
his company.
Koch's most egregious lie is when he
pretends that his company cares about the environment. The company
has won environmental awards, it is true, but these are awards for
such things as keeping their oil tankers from leaking. They are not
awards for fighting against global warming, because Koch does not
acknowledge that greenhouse gases are a problem that has anything to
do with him.
Koch is concerned about rearranging
deck furniture while the ship is sinking. His refineries only release
low levels of greenhouse gases, he says. His company has a fine
safety record. He argued for the demise of the ethanol tax credit.
But Koch industries is fighting to stop conversion of our energy grid
to renewable energy.
Koch has no sympathy for the plight of
people all over the world who find their homes threatened by rising
sea levels, or watch their crops wither in the ever-hotter sun.
Instead, he claims that he is not his brother's keeper. He takes no
responsibility for his own actions. He spends vast sums of money to
defeat politicians who might be tempted to listen to their
constituents and limit the influence of undemocratic corporations.
Charles Koch is the face of evil in our
world today.
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