Comments on: The Wall Street Journal Confuses ALEC’s Crony Capitalism With Free-Markets

By: Four Reasons Why Conservatives Should Oppose Corporate Front Group ALEC | Republic Report

Thu, 10 May 2012 14:13:34 +0000

[...] government to tell you you cannot buy prescription drugs from Canada or any other country. But ALEC opposes drug re-importation, and backs up using the power of the federal government to erect a protectionist barrier that makes [...]

By: How ALEC Betrayed Conservative Republicans To Screw Over Mom And Pop Stores

How ALEC Betrayed Conservative Republicans To Screw Over Mom And Pop Stores — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:35:51 +0000

[...] group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) likes to claim that it’s about “free market” ideas. But if that were true, it wouldn’t be fighting against conservative lawmakers [...]

By: Four Reasons Why Conservatives Should Oppose Corporate Front Group ALEC

Four Reasons Why Conservatives Should Oppose Corporate Front Group ALEC — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:15:52 +0000

By: Colin Mohana

Colin Mohana — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:24:00 +0000

youve proven my point, this is really about getting price controls in the US, which is fine if thats your view, and there are many arguments for that view, but just say that. no need for the author to create some free market straw man, thats really just triteness masquerading as insight.

By: CatKinNY

CatKinNY — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:51:00 +0000

Perhaps you’re not aware that US citizens end up providing the lions share of profits for big pharma world wide, since we are the only major industrialized country that doesn’t have some price controls, not to mention being one of only two countries on earth that allows them to advertise on TV? The cost of drugs is a big driver in our out of control health care costs, which are simply unsustainable. Now that the pharmaceutical industry has become so thoroughtly financialized, they no longer, on aggragate, contribute to the common good, so fuck ‘em. I’m tired of subsidizing an industry that has sat on it’s hands while harmful bacteria have been busy evolving to become drug resistant superbugs because antibiotics are just not as profitable as those that treat chronic disease – even if they have to make up the disease, as they did with Restless Leg Syndrome. This is not a thought excercize about free markets, Colin; we don’t have free market capitalism in the US, we have crony capitalism. This is about the allocation of limited resources (the money of sick people) to do the most good; the way things are now, the profits of shareholders are at the top of the list, and that is both short and long term stupid.

By: Colin Mohana

Colin Mohana — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:49:00 +0000

@CatKinNY

Sure, but what you’d really be “trading” are price controls – its not that you want Canadian drugs, its that you want Canada’s government controlled prices.

I’m not sure anyone has made the argument that importing government price controls is “free market” but it is amusing. I’m also not sure you understand what “force” and “monopoly” mean, but hope you take the time to learn, because those are absolutely real concerns where they exist.

By: CatKinNY

CatKinNY — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:48:00 +0000

Wouldn’t it be a free trade position to allow me to buy my scripts from Canada or Europe where prices are lower, rather than forcing me to buy from a monopoly?

By: CatKinNY

CatKinNY — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:45:00 +0000

Blacks and Latinos are much less likely to own cars, and therefore less likely to have valid drivers licenses, the most common type of acceptable photo ID, than are white people. Ditto students, and the truly elderly (who let their drivers licenses expire when they stop driving). All of these groups vote reliably Democratic, so ALEC’s move to disenfranchise these people is an attempt to thwart Democrats. We don’t have a voter fraud problem in this country, unless you count the purging of voter lists by people like Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000, when thousands of registered voters in poor and minority communities were turned away from the polls on election day, or given provisional ballots that didn’t count. You’ve seen far more idiotic things in your 47 years; you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror every morning.

By: CatKinNY

CatKinNY — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:32:00 +0000

Boarding a plane is not a constitutionally protected ‘right’; voting is. As a resident of NYC, I can reliably inform you that no one flew a pair of voting booths into the WTC. And please list the 75 types of ID you are asked to produce by the government, and under what circumstances this request is made.

By: CatKinNY

CatKinNY — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:28:00 +0000

The irony is the WSJ whining about an attack ‘on free market policies’, when a bunch of large, free market companies dumped ALEC in response to negative reactions from consumers, whose purchasing power they valued more highly than the efforts of ALEC to push laws that let armed assholes shoot first and ask questions later, no matter the location. If that’s not the free market, I don’t know what is. It’s good to know that the NRA is not as popular in corporate board rooms as Ted Nugent would have us believe. 20 years from now, when the GOP is a regional party, we’ll actually be able to get some reasonable, sane gun control laws that prevent the mentally ill from buying assault weapons, loading them with 30 clip magazines and gunning down a bunch of strangers in a supermarket parking lot.