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The only clear thing is your bias. People on the left also blame Kochs for insane consipiracies and people on the right criticize Soros for the money he spends

The only clear thing is your bias. People on the left also blame Kochs for insane consipiracies and people on the right criticize Soros for the money he spends on politics. Which you get exposed to depends on your echo chamber. Echo chambers don't share the rational arguments of their opposition because nobody wants to think the outgroup has a point.

jimjansen1 8y ago
Equating Soros and the Kochs is literally insane. Edit: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-george-soros-caravan https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-george-... Please find me an example of Obama publicly endorsing a left wing conspiracy theory about the Koch brothers. I'll wait.
- root_axis 8y ago
  I agree, but you do a disservice to the argument when you make blanket conclusions without elaboration or evidence.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  Obama singled out the Kochs in 2015. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/08/26/war-words-obama-v-koch-brothers/32423959/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/08/26/war-... Pelosi and Reid attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs in 2014 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelosi-koch-movie-106735 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelo... Funny how we forget. I don't deny Trump is the loudest, he is Trump after all. But I could pull up Maddow, Moyers, etc episodes about the Kochs that are similar to how Tucker, Hannity etc have treated Soros. Trump has also attacked the Kochs (as has Tucker, Brietbart, etc,) fwiw. The Kochs are for DACA, for example. The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. And because of that they are boogeymen to each side; since somehow each side thinks they (Soros & the Kochs) have some huge influenced...and having worked in DC circles myself and having various friends that have worked on the Hill...that's just totally false. They all WISH they had that power, and honestly if they did the world would probably be a lot simpler. Real politics is a lot more like Veep than it is House of Cards. That's not as thrilling as people want, but it's the truth.
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    > The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. It's one thing for Obama allege the Koch brothers are spending millions to advance an agenda in Congress. It's quite another for Trump to allege George Soros is funding a migrant caravan containing elements of terrorists, gang members, smallpox, and leprosy to invade the US southern border. That's why I'm saying its a false equivalence.
    - partiallypro 8y ago
      I never said those were equivalent. But in terms of being boogeymen, they are. Read any article about the Kochs from the left, and you'd think they were planning the 4th Reich. And the fact that this belief is extremely popular on the left, and that very mainstream outlets perpetuate this shows how widespread it is. In fact many in this VERY thread are claiming that the Kochs are actually evil people, something you'd see scrawled in the comment section of Breitbart but in regards to Soros...and we're on Hacker News, a place of generally intellectual people.
ModernMech 8y ago
I'm always willing to hear outside opinions. I try to consume a variety of news sources. The reason I can so easily cite insanity coming from the right is because a man was moved to kill almost a dozen people just two weeks ago because of his ideas about Soros funding a caravan. That's not really something I picked up "in my echo chamber". Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity?
- southphillyman 8y ago
  >Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity? Unfortunately their go to right now, and probably for the next x number of years, is the guy who shot up the Republican baseball game. No doubt there are extremists on both sides, one side just seems to have way more
- jayess 8y ago
  Man shooting up a baseball game of Republican congressmen while screaming "this is for healthcare!"
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    I'm not saying the there aren't nuts on both sides. Of course there are. This was about conspiracy theories. That some people in government are trying to take away healthcare isn't a conspiracy. That the Koch brothers are funding politicians who are trying to take away healthcare isn't insane. That George Soros is funding a migrant caravan of invaders is a conspiracy theory. This theory was amplified by both the President and Fox News, so it's hard to claim it's not even a mainstream theory.
- tropo 8y ago
  I don't know why you'd characterize that shooter as "the right". He really hated Trump. He was a socialist. There are a lot of these cases, where a violent person is unjustly tagged as "the right". When someone can't be crammed into that mold, they are dropped from the news. A prime example is the youtube office shooter, who was a female muslim immigrant. As soon as the demographics became clear, the news dropped the story like a hot potato.

jimjansen1 8y ago

Equating Soros and the Kochs is literally insane. Edit: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-george-soros-caravan https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-george-... Please find me an example of Obama publicly endorsing a left wing conspiracy theory about the Koch brothers. I'll wait.

root_axis 8y ago
I agree, but you do a disservice to the argument when you make blanket conclusions without elaboration or evidence.
partiallypro 8y ago
Obama singled out the Kochs in 2015. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/08/26/war-words-obama-v-koch-brothers/32423959/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/08/26/war-... Pelosi and Reid attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs in 2014 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelosi-koch-movie-106735 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelo... Funny how we forget. I don't deny Trump is the loudest, he is Trump after all. But I could pull up Maddow, Moyers, etc episodes about the Kochs that are similar to how Tucker, Hannity etc have treated Soros. Trump has also attacked the Kochs (as has Tucker, Brietbart, etc,) fwiw. The Kochs are for DACA, for example. The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. And because of that they are boogeymen to each side; since somehow each side thinks they (Soros & the Kochs) have some huge influenced...and having worked in DC circles myself and having various friends that have worked on the Hill...that's just totally false. They all WISH they had that power, and honestly if they did the world would probably be a lot simpler. Real politics is a lot more like Veep than it is House of Cards. That's not as thrilling as people want, but it's the truth.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  > The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. It's one thing for Obama allege the Koch brothers are spending millions to advance an agenda in Congress. It's quite another for Trump to allege George Soros is funding a migrant caravan containing elements of terrorists, gang members, smallpox, and leprosy to invade the US southern border. That's why I'm saying its a false equivalence.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    I never said those were equivalent. But in terms of being boogeymen, they are. Read any article about the Kochs from the left, and you'd think they were planning the 4th Reich. And the fact that this belief is extremely popular on the left, and that very mainstream outlets perpetuate this shows how widespread it is. In fact many in this VERY thread are claiming that the Kochs are actually evil people, something you'd see scrawled in the comment section of Breitbart but in regards to Soros...and we're on Hacker News, a place of generally intellectual people.

ModernMech 8y ago

I'm always willing to hear outside opinions. I try to consume a variety of news sources. The reason I can so easily cite insanity coming from the right is because a man was moved to kill almost a dozen people just two weeks ago because of his ideas about Soros funding a caravan. That's not really something I picked up "in my echo chamber". Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity?

southphillyman 8y ago
>Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity? Unfortunately their go to right now, and probably for the next x number of years, is the guy who shot up the Republican baseball game. No doubt there are extremists on both sides, one side just seems to have way more
jayess 8y ago
Man shooting up a baseball game of Republican congressmen while screaming "this is for healthcare!"
- ModernMech 8y ago
  I'm not saying the there aren't nuts on both sides. Of course there are. This was about conspiracy theories. That some people in government are trying to take away healthcare isn't a conspiracy. That the Koch brothers are funding politicians who are trying to take away healthcare isn't insane. That George Soros is funding a migrant caravan of invaders is a conspiracy theory. This theory was amplified by both the President and Fox News, so it's hard to claim it's not even a mainstream theory.
tropo 8y ago
I don't know why you'd characterize that shooter as "the right". He really hated Trump. He was a socialist. There are a lot of these cases, where a violent person is unjustly tagged as "the right". When someone can't be crammed into that mold, they are dropped from the news. A prime example is the youtube office shooter, who was a female muslim immigrant. As soon as the demographics became clear, the news dropped the story like a hot potato.