Charles G. Koch who may be called the nemesis of Barack
Obama has made his case in an article that came under the title: “I'm Fighting
to Restore a Free Society” and the subtitle: “Instead of welcoming free debate,
collectivists engage in character assassination.” It was published in the Wall
Street Journal on April 3, 2014.
When you read the article you cannot help but conclude that
Charles Koch is a good man in the same way that Barack Obama is a good man.
Both want what is good for America ,
and both work diligently to make life better for the people they serve. Charles
Koch serves a little more than 200,000 people directly and indirectly; Barack
Obama serves a little more than 300 million people, but the effort and dedication
are the same in both cases.
So the question: Why does Koch sound angry with Barack
Obama, or at least with his team? We get an early hint as to what the answer
may be from the title and subtitle of the article. He says he is fighting for a
free society which is an indication that he believes the current administration
has taken freedom away from society. He also says that some people are engaging
in character assassination. It is obvious he means his character is being
assassinated by what he calls the collectivists; and that they are doing so
instead of welcoming free debate.
This last part is crucial because it saves us having to
spend time and energy trying to figure out who started the skirmish that is now
engaging both camps. In fact, Mr. Koch has just admitted that his underlings
must have started the skirmish, must have considered what they did to be
legitimate debate, but that the Obama camp saw things differently and responded
by unwelcoming the Koch opening salvo. Obviously the tit-for-tat did not begin
at the highest level but a lower one, and grew to drag the top men into the
mudslinging contest.
When you get past the title and subtitle of the article, you
realize that much of what the Koch camp has been putting out was derived from
the philosophy of Charles Koch himself. He has been at it for 50 years, he
says, (almost as long as Obama has lived,) and has engaged in the political
process for a decade, longer than Obama has been President. Thus, his feelings
with regard to the direction that America has taken did not begin
with the current administration. The thing, however, is that the appellation
“collectivism” was never used before the advent of Obama. In fact, it was used
at the start of the healthcare debate – and with it came another appellation:
“Obama the Socialist.”
To my knowledge, it was this appellation that caused the
Obama camp to react harshly, and to push back against the Koch camp. After
that, the escalation on both sides took a life of its own. And from the looks
of it, Mr. Koch is not prepared to de-escalate at this time – as shown by his
rhetoric concerning the personal freedom of Americans being infringed upon by
the government. And the health-care debacle (as he calls it) is the evidence he
dangles to illustrate his point.
That healthcare project being at the core of the war of
words between the two camps, we must ask ourselves if what has come to be
called ObamaCare is truly a collectivist notion, and if it makes Obama a
Socialist as he was called by the Koch camp. Well, everyone is entitled to his
opinion like says the man himself, but once you have called the Obama system a
collectivist socialist system, you must accept that the whole Western World is
a collectivist Socialist World because nowhere in the Western World is there a
country without universal healthcare; least of all here in Canada where the
system has been in place for half a century, and is working extremely well.
Let's now look at something that seems to make Charles Koch
proud: “About one-third of our U.S.-based employees are union members.” Do you
know what union members do? They engage in collective bargaining. Do you know
what they obtain in the end? They obtain a collective contract. Yes, these
people bargain with the administration, and sign contracts that bind both the
union and the company.