About this blog:

What if they held a class war and nobody noticed? For decades, liberals and progressives have been bashed for conducting a "class war" every time they suggest that it would be appropriate for the extremely wealthy to shoulder a bit more of the burden of paying for government. Meanwhile, a swarm of far-right think-tanks and political action committees have been working tirelessly to promote the idea that taxes on the wealthy should be lowered further from their historic lows, and that entitlement programs such as social security and medicare are too expensive to sustain (and in any case, immoral). The latest attempts to delegitimize public employee unions are the logical next step in what genuinely appears to be the systematic dismantlement of the middle class. This blog will highlight some of the more extreme examples of this activity that may not always show up in your news feeds.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Monsters In Our Midst

Bryan Caplan describes his rationale for cutting away at the welfare state.  This appears on the website Library of Economics and Liberty, funded by the Liberty Fund.

The Liberty Fund is a tax exempt foundation "...established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals."  Does this sound like the usual libertarian smokescreen?  Why yes, yes it does.  The Wikipedia entry for this foundation includes the following:  "In his book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore says that between 2002 and 2004 that 97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges were Republican administration appointees.  Gore suggests that such conferences and seminars are one of the reasons that judges who regularly attend such conferences 'are generally responsible for writing the most radical pro-corporate, antienvironmental, and activist decisions.'"

Caplan is a member of the Economics Department at George Mason University, home of such luminaries as Tyler Cowan, and point source for many of the vilest right-wing trial balloons to appear over the last few years.  Truly, this is a cesspit of sociopath assholes, and I imagine Caplan feels very much at home.