Dermot Cole: What follows is the attack that Fairbanks State Farm Insurance agent Dick Randolph wrote about my twin brother and me, which the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner chose to publish today.

Dick’s insults don’t bother me. They encourage me.

I’m reminded that he attacked former Gov. Wally Hickel and attempted to con people into thinking that Hickel’s “owner state” philosophy was straight out of Karl Marx.

“History is replete with examples of either collapsed collectivist systems or the evolution of those systems into a hierarchy of the very few, very well politically connected, very wealthy people who control the much poorer masses with government handouts, like most of Alaska’s economy,” Dick claimed many years ago.

Dick is confused about a lot of things. For instance, he not only takes aim at the Cole Brothers, he also uses this piece to attack socialist “Barry” Sanders.

I don’t care what Dick says. During his years with the Detroit Lions, Barry was the best running back in the NFL. Dick’s wrong about Sanders and the Cole Brothers.

More importantly, he is wrong about the Alaska Constitution. He has always been wrong about the Constitution.

“I always thought the state Constitution is awful,” Dick said in a 2014 interview with the Daily News-Miner. “We have the only socialist economic system that is constitutionally mandated. All subsurface wealth is mandated to be owned by the state, so we can’t have a private economy.”

Dick, who was a co-chairman of the Dunleavy campaign, is the brains behind the amendments that Dunleavy is demanding for the Alaska Constitution or else. The Randolph amendments don’t belong in the Alaska Constitution.

By Dick Randolph

Every time I hear or see in print an attack on Charles and David Koch, I have to bite my tongue and count to 10 to avoid irresponsibly responding. Because of my leadership role in the national Libertarian Party, I got to know both of them very well. I was a member of the Libertarian Party’s national board of directors for several years in the late 1970s and 1980s, as was Charles Koch. His brother David was also active in Libertarian politics and was the party’s vice presidential candidate in 1980.

The association and friendship developed between us led to David spending a few days with me at my Lake Clark cabin in the mid-1980s. Through these associations, I got to know and respect each of them a great deal, contrary to the very negative picture painted by the far-left socialist pundits such as Dermot and Terrence Cole, Barry Sanders and others of their ilk.

The Koch brothers are very patriotic, successful Americans functioning in the traditional American free market system, which was established when the Founders created the federalist constitutional Republic of the United States of America. That system, of course, went on to create the most vibrant economic system and free social structure for individuals in the history of mankind.

One of the many differences between the Kochs and the Coles is in their contribution, or lack thereof, to society and the betterment of mankind.

The Kochs have created millions of good-paying jobs across the United States and around the world, including Alaska. They took over the North Pole refinery at a time when it was in trouble and stuck with it much longer than prudent economics would have dictated. Many people criticize them for closing that facility, but, trust me, they stuck with it much longer than any other company would have and also dealt with the environmental issues, much of which was not of their making. They also invest in untold numbers of philanthropic activities around the world, relieving much hardship and suffering for countless individuals. They use their private wealth, which they created, to do much good. They are far more heroes than villains.

The Coles, on the other hand, have used their abilities and positions over the years to advance the radical socialist ideas that not only don’t work, but that also have over the generations and around the world created unimaginable and unnecessary suffering, misery and death, unthinkable prior to the advent of the various collectivist-isms that have afflicted mankind since Karl Marx.

(I refer you to the Charlie Dexter column in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner of March 17 for an explanation as to why they don’t work.) Socialism does not work. Examples in my lifetime are the USSR, China, Vietnam and Korea. Closer to our neighborhood and in generational context, Cuba and Venezuela.

The Cole brothers have long criticized my efforts to correct the unfortunate aspects of our state Constitution, which requires a socialistic economic system in Alaska. No other state in the nation is so organized. Our Constitution “rulebook” was significantly influenced back in the 1950s by the National Municipal League, which is housed in New York City and controlled by radical left-wing lawyers. They created what they referred to as a model constitution in an effort to force states to accept Franklin Roosevelt’s socialistic New Deal.

Alaska was just attempting to get statehood and was convinced to accept much of the provisions in this model constitution and terms such as the “common good,” “collective ownership,” “common use,” etc. Nowhere do the terms “free enterprise,” “individual freedom” or “private property” appear. In fact, the Alaska Constitution diverges so radically from the principles and values expressed in the U.S. Constitution that a fair case can be made that it is, in and of itself, unconstitutional.

The Coles defend these collectivist views and attack anyone who expresses traditional American values of self-reliance, free will, free markets and private property. As for myself, I will take the Koch brothers in my foxhole any day over the Cole brothers in this philosophical war of ideas.

The old adage that you can judge more about people by who their adversaries are fits this situation perfectly. I, and I expect the governor, are quite proud of the fact that the Coles and their socialistic fellow travelers have chosen us as their adversaries. I personally would not want it otherwise.