Karin Price Mueller is an advice reporter for NJ.com. Her specialty is personal money and consumer issues. I have generally found her columns to be interesting, informative, and fair.
But some years ago Mueller abandoned her objectivity in her New Jersey Star-Ledger column Five things that have changed for consumers under President Trump. Here is her introductory paragraphs:
Every president brings change. Laws change. Regulations change. The direction of the country changes.
That’s what happens.
But drop your political lens for a moment.
Think consumer protection. What happens if you’ve been wronged by a business? What if laws and regulations don’t protect you and your wallet?
That’s what consumer advocates say is happening under the Trump administration. They’re alarmed by a cavalcade of changes they say leave the little guy behind while Wall Street and big corporations gain advantage.
Apparently, we’re asked to “drop your political lens” so we can view this article through Mueller’s—and the Star-Ledger’s—political lens.
Throughout the entire article not one quote from the people who are instituting these regulatory relaxations. All you get are quotes from a cavalcade of “consumer protection” or “public interest”—that is, biased against business—activist groups.
I posted these comments (which are no longer published online):
This is political bias through and through. We’re getting an “analysis” of the deregulatory actions strictly from a statist “political lens.” If consumers need “protection” from business, what about protection from our “protectors”--that is, from politicians’ regulatory dictates? Where are the opposing arguments to the “expert” opinions expressed here? Where is the defense of freedom of consumer choice? Catchphrases like “predatory for-profit colleges” are indicative of propagandistic demagoguery, not fair reporting.
Are there no valid arguments in favor of the deregulatory actions singled out here? I think Mueller has undermined her credibility with this unbalanced column.
Related Reading:
Finally, Some Positive Recognition for the Statists' Favorite Whipping Boy, Wall Street
The ‘Wild West’ of Government Regulation Caused the 2008 Financial Meltdown
Where Does Valid Law End and Regulation Begin?
The Koch Brothers and the Nature of Government Regulation
"Regulating" Business - the Good and the Bad
Who to Trust More: The GOP Deregulationists or the Statists
6 comments:
Politics is the science, and I do mean science, of identifying and implementing individual rights. This, science of any kind, kicks leftist "politics" out the door. Leftism is not a science of anything. Leftism, and all the libraries about it, is nothing but an arbitrary demand for unlimited arbitrary physical power for any arbitrary purpose. So it won't listen to any counter arguments. Its own "arguments" are arbitrary noises about the arbitrary, meaning, about nothing.
Only politics, as just defined here, can have arguments, about how best to identify and implement individual rights. Leftism can't argue about that, or about anything, except maybe about destruction for the arbitrary. It's just noise and chicken scratching for crime (for the arbitrary). Any time they entertain counter arguments, it's just showtime for them if they think it's worth it.
We waste time, energy and face, to even try arguing with them or even thinking about it. We should just ignore them, but watch what they do or try to do when and if they get their hands on power meant for individual rights. We must keep them from power they don't have and get them off any and all power they do have. We must do this, short term and medium term, if there is to be any long term, during which we educate the culture, particularly the young.
This is where actual politics gets into damage control and repair. Any arguing we do must be among ourselves about how best to do this, getting the leftists out of there and keeping them out, and about how best to identify and implement individual rights. You don't argue with criminals. You apprehend, arrest, and BOOK'EM all the way.
But, all the same, like I've said elsewhere, it might be useful to feign a good faith discussion with leftists sometimes, to try to get their still pliable followers to switch sides, to get the fence sitters, and to maintain and entrench those who already adhere to individual rights and who, thus, can come to understand what politics actually is.
(It's good that the three comments above, two of which were verbatim copies of the first one, accidentally posted, and the third one, which shouldn't have been needed, were removed.)
Yes, indeed. Bad ideas can't be defeated by ignoring their believers. They must be confronted and contrasted with better ideas, if not to convince them but to inform the fence sitters and those open to rational counter-arguments.
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