26 Apr 2022 8:54 am
Cannonpointer » 26 Apr 2022, 8:25 am » wrote: ↑In the immediate circumstance, I have no argument against your position. I'm asking about Musk's role in our society in a larger context, and I am arguing that he is a mightly leaky vessel for the right to be loading with the precious cargo of its aspirations for a more just society. He's a money boy - part of the problem, not part of the solution.Neo » 26 Apr 2022, 6:45 am » wrote: ↑ He's obviously not anti large government but he has a history of being pro speech. Even speech that might hurt a feeling or two. I don't see him as a savior for the first ammendment but perhaps he can reverse the direction Twitter has taken over the past 6 years.
It seems to me that today's conservative is quickly evolving to be a post-Reagan conservative. This notion that one fellow has a "right" to hundreds of billions because he "earned" them seems to be waning in the conservative world view. At least, I hope it is. At some point, people need to grow up and acknowledge that no one person is providing more value than the country of Lichtenstein or the country of Bulgaria - not in the world of ratonal adults.
There are 211 countries on the planet. Only the top 11 produce in the trillions. All of the rest, save Turks and Caicos, produce in the billions (they produce in the hundreds of millions). The top 53 produce above 200 billion. That means that Elon Musk's net worth is above the annual production of 158 nation states. Arguably, quite a number more. I am only placing his net worth at 200 billion - and as I understand it, the number is considerably higher. So the question arises: I this incredible (pre-Reagan unthinkable) disparity a product of a just system, or the product of pillage? And if it is the product of pillage, is Elon Musk not then by definition a pillager? And if he is a pillager, how, then, ought we to look at him as a friend of the working man - a person whose interests converge with those of working families?
The Democrats represented working families under FDR - right through to Clinton. Then they found their "third way." And they abandoned their base, becoming friends of wall street. They scooched the Republicans and shared a bench for a bit. And now, the Republicans have been scooched mightily - to the point that democrats are getting a great deal more wall street money than Republicans. And so it behooves the Republican party to make a choice. It is my hope that the Republican party will follow the lead of folks like DeSantis and Perry, and begin responding to the needs and interests of working families - the abandoned base of the Democrat party. And to do that effectively, they need to be internally consistent in their thinking - not serving two masters. I believe that the Elon Musk phenomenon is the very embodiment of the psychological predicment in which the Republican party finds itself. And you can see the schizophrenia of today's Republican writ large in this issue. Musk is "our" Soros - so he's a good guy. Soros is "their" Musk - so he's a bad guy.
Musk and Soros are two of a kind - that is my argument in a nutshell. Neither is a friend of working families.
...