http://reason.com/archives/2014/06/2...round-the-bendRalph Nader, the legendary anti-corporate crusader, is the father of many regulations and even more nonprofit advocacy groups. How odd that this liberal hero has authored a book that lavishes praise on right-wing stalwart Pat Buchanan and approvingly cites Grover Norquist, George F. Will, and the Cato Institute.
In Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State, Nader lays out an agenda to bring together conservatives, libertarians, and liberals in the battle against corporate welfare, rampant surveillance, and the military-industrial complex.
Auditing the Defense Department, curbing corporate welfare, reforming taxes, and breaking up "too big to fail" banks-all of these could certainly find cross-ideological agreement.
He wants to give taxpayers standing to sue in courts, "push community self-reliance," "defend and extend civil liberties," and rein in presidential war powers.
Unstoppable accurately diagnoses some of the venality of today's politics, including corruption on the right. Nader winningly groups problems under the labels of "corporatism" and "corporate/statism." He praises principled conservatives and libertarians, and points out how "conservatism" is often abused and twisted to serve the powerful. "The corporatist Republicans let the libertarians and conservatives have the paper platforms," but then they "throw out a welcome mat for Big Business lobbyists with their slush funds who are anything but libertarian or conservative in their demands."more (including criticism) at sourceThis sort of conservatism often trumps other conservative values, such as free markets, limited government, or the humility to eschew central planning. It's the kind of conservatism that championed, for example, the 2008 Wall Street bailouts. The financial industry's giant institutions were revered as accomplishments of capitalism and engines of growth, rather than being correctly pegged as government dependents.
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