Charles Murray and the Right's Plan to Subvert Democracy

[applegrove]

Last edited Sat May 23, 2015, 11:53 PM - Edit history (1)

Charles Murray and the Right's Plan to Subvert Democracy

By Brian Beutler at the New Republic

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121824/charles-murrays-people-anti-democratic-manifesto

"SNIP.............


Early last week, a watchdog website hosted by People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, reacted with alarm to a political-legal strategy outlined in a new book by the conservative social theorist Charles Murray. Normally when liberals assail Murray it’s in connection with his infamous tome The Bell Curve, which made him synonymous with race science—specifically the presumption that I.Q. differences between whites and blacks can be partially attributed to genetics.

Twenty years later, Murray has moved on to a more direct form of conservative activism, and taken a critical look at the mixed record of various expensive right-wing efforts to roll back the New Deal consensus. As you might expect from someone as deterministic as the author of The Bell Curve, Murray has concluded that the conservative movement’s shortcomings must be explained via reference to its political DNA and the political DNA of its competitors. But rather than reason much as he did two decades ago that these shortcomings reflect the intrinsic weakness of his ideology, he has concluded instead that the system is rigged against it. Appealing as populist libertarian ideas are to him and his cohort, or as they should be in the abstract, they simply can’t compete in a democratic environment with downwardly distributive progressivism. For the right to gain advantage, it will have to change terrain.

In his latest book, as PFAW explains, Murray hopes “to have one or a few anti-government billionaires kick in to create ‘The Madison Fund,’ a legal group that would flood the government with lawsuits challenging the enforcement of regulations they deem unnecessary.”

This is an apt description of Murray’s strategy, but the strategy itself happens to be the least revealing or alarming in his book. By The People is not first and foremost a book about billionaires subverting federal regulations, or beleaguered citizens seeking redress with the help of libertarian philanthropists.



..............SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. To get one 'by the people' indeed.

[haikugal]

2. I'll go to the link and read some more..know your enemy

However, isn't this what they've been doing for over a decade? Or did I miss something?

Thanks!

[applegrove]

3. I agree it all seems familiar. However Jeb did mention Murray

Last edited Sun May 24, 2015, 01:58 AM - Edit history (1)

a few weeks ago. Maybe they are trying to justify the movement before an uptick in suits happens. The project For The New American Century went public with their plans (I think so that nobody could accuse them legally to being a conspiracy). Who knows.

[okaawhatever]

4. K & R nt

[grasswire]

5. Remember, Jeb Bush is influenced by Murray.

He recently said so.