So what’s all this about “free markets”?
The conservative right, a minority in this country for years now, has long touted that we need “free markets”.
Never mind the financial meltdown that occurred due to lack of regulations on banks. Never mind the tops of West Virginian mountains that have been completely destroyed, polluting water and contaminating WV’s citizens, so that we can have cheaper energy. Did you know that nearly all of northern California, all the way down to San Francisco, used to be redwood forests? Now it’s a small state park they have to live in.
This is what free markets get us. Neither big business nor consumer choice can be counted on to just “do the right thing”. We need people who are wiser than the masses to lead us, otherwise anarchy would be a suitable solution to government. Which, obviously, it isn’t nor ever has been.
But if we do want to promote free markets, then why the hypocrisy from the rich elite right old white man minority who’s running the GOP?
Why is marijuana illegal? Or heroine and cocaine for that matter? Wouldn’t a “free market” just sort it out? Wouldn’t giving the voice to the people and business allow us to decide, through our own purchases, whether or not we wanted to buy and use this stuff?
What about the marriage license market? We’re losing millions of dollars a year by refusing to allow couples of dudes to go into their local municipalities’ offices and buy marriage licenses…and then millions more sucked out of the economy since by denying gays the right to marry, we’re also preventing over 50% of them from eventually getting a divorce and dumping tons of cash into lawyers.
RJ Reynolds, the guys behind Joe Camel, who was the impetus for major reform over how cigarettes could be sold back in the 1990s, are now pouring their billions into trying to get electronic cigarettes banned. Think about that, a company that sells a small paper tube full of tobacco that you’re supposed to burn and suck down your throat to ingest nicotine (and a shit ton of other bullshit that has nothing to do with tobacco or nicotine) is trying to get lawmakers to ban small paper tubes full of nicotine that you don’t burn and which have little else in them. They cite concerns over e-cig manufacturers selling their products in shopping malls because that’s where kids hang out…you slimy bastards.
Free markets will never work because big business is, by definition, only out to make a profit. You cannot be a giant corporation and not cut the types of corners that are good for your bottom line and bad for everyone else. There is no one looking out for the average citizen.
This isn’t news. It’s not “new” at all. It’s the way it’s been for all of time, and certainly for a long, long time in this country. But we’ve allowed it to run so rampant that basically, we’re being governed by a mafia. Big business is the muscle, they provide the protection for our constituents who are the wise guys, the top people pushing down the rules on everyone else as they see fit. Get cancer from burning plant material, but don’t use e-cigs to quit or curb your actual smoking. Go blind, crash your car, kill a family from drinking alcohol, but smoke a joint and sit around playing bad guitar all day? Jail time. Drill for oil in our national forests, destroying the ecosystem which we absolutely do need to survive in the longterm, no problem, just pay your taxes…or figure out loopholes to get around paying them. But want to wear rings and hold hands in public as two women in love who want to show that commitment via marriage? God will burn you eternally in hell, right?
I can’t help but think that this is not a “well, some conservatives, some Republicans are okay” as though we were speaking of them as though they were a race, a gender or something. Being a Republican is a choice and, in my mind, you are who you associate with. You can’t say, “I’m in the Ku Klux Klan but I don’t hate black people.” We’re talking about people who are choosing to join an organization who uses the fear of God and wealth of a small portion of man to crush the rest of us.
Up Next: Societal Pressure