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Property Rights and the Pollution Problem | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on February 27, 2021

One way around the difficulty is not to count trivial harms as violations of your rights. Mulkeen offers two objections to this solution. First, if doing something of value outweighs minor boundary crossings of your rights, doesn’t this lead to making rights less important than adding to social utility, just what those in favor of rights don’t want? They think rights are more important than social utility. She mentions the philosopher David Sobel, who has made a proposal of this kind:

https://mises.org/library/property-rights-and-pollution-problem

David Gordon

Murray Rothbard and other libertarians support self-ownership. Part of being a self-owner is that no one may physically harm your body without your consent, unless you first violate someone else’s rights. David Friedman raised a famous objection to this principle, and the problem has also been discussed by Walter Block. In his book The Machinery of Freedom, Friedman states the problem in this way: “The final question to be dealt with is how property rights should be defined—the question implicit in my discussion of trespass by single photons and single molecules of carbon dioxide.” If you say that transmitting photons onto someone’s property violates rights, doesn’t this make a wide variety of common actions, such as turning on the lights in your own house, violations of rights? Friedman’s account of the problem is about violations of property rights in land, but the problem obviously applies to trespass against people’s bodies as well.

The political philosopher Nicola Mulkeen doesn’t mention Friedman or Block, but she discusses the same issue in an excellent recent article, “Rescuing Self-Ownership: Tackling the Pollution Problem” (in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, vol. 22 [2019]) and I’d like to discuss a few points she raises.

One way around the difficulty is not to count trivial harms as violations of your rights. Mulkeen offers two objections to this solution. First, if doing something of value outweighs minor boundary crossings of your rights, doesn’t this lead to making rights less important than adding to social utility, just what those in favor of rights don’t want? They think rights are more important than social utility. She mentions the philosopher David Sobel, who has made a proposal of this kind:

His own view is that proponents of self-ownership must abandon the uniform stringency against infringements and permit encroachments of self-ownership for social gain. More specifically, he proposes that we sell different-sized infringements for different amounts of social welfare so that the lower the risk of an infringement an act causes, and the less harm it threatens, the cheaper it should be in terms of social good to make permissible…. He says “perhaps the fact that an infringement causes N amount of the relevant sort of infringement harm requires that the act produce at least 20N of social gain to be permissible.”

She objects that this would allow severe harms to a few people, so long as social gain was twenty times higher. Her objection is a good one, but it fails to meet a modification of Sobel’s proposal. To claim that you can commit a trivial infringement of rights if the gain is sufficient doesn’t entail that you can gravely injure someone’s rights so long as this condition is met. A modification of Sobel’s proposal that confines it to cases of trivial infringement is still in the running. (I don’t favor this proposal, but I’m not now giving my own view of the problem.)

This leads to her second objection. She imagines a case in which the government requires vitamins to be put in orders of coffee in a coffee bar. Suppose (I add this) the vitamins make no difference to the coffee’s taste. The government claims that this will have great health benefits. Doesn’t someone who hates the vitamins have a right to refuse them? To claim otherwise is to support paternalism, and this libertarians surely don’t want.

Self-ownership is appealing precisely because it expresses equal respect for all. It does not allow others to treat us paternalistically, nor does it allow our rights to be violated for the benefit of others or allow others to make fundamental decisions about our person.

This deals very well with the vitamin case, but it is irrelevant to cases where trivial rights violations aren’t undertaken for someone else’s benefit. The person who turns on the lights in his own house isn’t doing so to benefit the neighbors; he just wants his lights on. The modification I suggested to Sobel’s suggestion, i.e., that it should apply only to trivial boundary crossings, hasn’t been refuted.

An objection has probably already occurred to many readers, and this is one that Mulkeen deals with in her own proposal. I’ve been talking about “trivial” boundary crossings, but what if the person affected doesn’t consider the matter a trivial one? Suppose, e.g., that he dreads other people’s photons impinging on his body and demands an enormous amount of money as compensation if light rays from someone else’s lamp reach him. Or suppose he refuses compensation, and prohibits others from turning on lamps when he is around? What is the best response to situations like this?

Mulkeen’s answer depends on the fact that people need to engage in certain activities in order to survive. Beyond that, people need to have wide freedom of movement in order to lead a normal life. If restrictions imposed on your activities by the self-ownership rights other people have over their bodies become so great that people can’t survive or lead normal lives, then you shouldn’t be required to respect such limits. You have no reasonable alternative to survival or leading a normal life, and, according to her, you are morally responsible for doing something only if you have a reasonable alternative to doing it. The self-ownership rights of others can’t prevent you from breathing, even if air that you exhale will spread in their direction. As she puts it,

If we examine the living conditions in which we are born, we can note that our survival requires that we breathe, eat, drink and keep our body at a constant temperature. And the only way of doing these things involves using the world’s resources. We know that all of these actions produce pollutants. But, for us to abstain from these activities in their entirety would be fundamentally life-threatening. It is, for example, a fact that we cannot avoid breathing out carbon dioxide, nor can we avoid spreading germs: germs live in our food and water, and food that is not cooked or stored at a suitable temperature contains very harmful bacteria. We spread these germs when we breathe and talk, which might cause various degrees of harms to persons whom we expose. In these instances, we foreseeably cause incursions or pose a threat to others. But we are innocent of wrongdoing because we have no reasonable alternative available: it is beyond the bounds of possibility for us to live in a way that produces zero contamination.

If you have no reasonable alternative to doing what you did, you don’t have to compensate those whose boundaries you cross, or at least the compensation you owe is much reduced.

Mulkeen’s proposal is valuable, which isn’t to say that she is right. A great deal in her idea depends on what is regarded as a “normal” activity, and it would seem that answering this depends to a large extent on social convention, from which many libertarians recoil. But is there a reasonable alternative to it?

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

Author:

Contact David Gordon

David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Mises Review.

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The Dangers Lurking behind a Digital Euro | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on February 27, 2021

https://mises.org/wire/dangers-lurking-behind-digital-euro

Thorsten Polleit

Neosocialist China does it, Sweden does it, and many other states want to do it, too: to issue digitized central bank money for everyone. The European Central Bank (ECB) is also working on such a scheme. It wants to launch “digital euro central bank money” as soon as possible. Many economists praise the project as an “innovation,” as an important and indispensable step in an increasingly digitized world.

The ECB is also keen to make its intentions known, declaring that a digital euro will be accessible for everyone, robust, secure, efficient, and compliant with applicable law. However, it should be clear that the path to becoming a surveillance state regime will accelerate considerably if and when a digital euro is issued. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

A digital euro is not “better money” than the euro that is already in circulation today. The planned digital euro is fiat money, just as much as euro cash and euro bank balances represent fiat money: they are all created “out of nothing” by the ECB, which has the monopoly of euro production. Just as is the case with the existing euro, the quantity of digital euros can be increased at any time, it is backed by nothing, and the digital euro carries a 100 percent risk of devaluation. As noted earlier, a digital euro would be a fiat euro.

The digital euro can either be “account based”—you keep it in an account held with the ECB—or it can be “token based”—money users receive a “token” that can be transferred from smartphone to smartphone via an app. Hoping for “anonymity” in payment transactions would be futile in both cases, one has to fear.

A look at China probably shows where the journey is headed: the Chinese digital central bank money is supposed to have a “controlled anonymity.” In other words, “only” the People’s Bank of China—that is, the Chinese Communist Party—should have access to the payment transaction data.

The ECB says the digital euro is a “complement” to cash and bank balances. But that’s not convincing. Because those who pay in cash obviously find it convenient and want to ensure their anonymity. Otherwise, they would pay electronically, i.e., transfer balances through PayPal, Apple Pay, or debit or credit cards.

In this context, it should be noted that people don’t just hold cash for payment purposes. They also demand it to protect themselves against bank failures, for example, or they also hold cash to be liquid even in the event of power outages, to be independent of online banking.

That said, the suspicion that the ECB is more interested in taking cash out of circulation cannot be refuted easily. But if only electronic payments are possible, what little remains of “financial privacy” will be gone. The citizen becomes completely transparent, much to the liking of the state and its beneficiaries.

As soon as cash has been pushed back or stripped away entirely, monetary policymakers can implement an uninhibited negative interest rate policy to devalue debt. Customers can no longer get out of the “bank balance sheet”; the final escape door is then locked. 

It is unlikely that a digital euro will prevail naturally against cash. Rather, the ECB will have to make the use of cash unattractive: by raising the costs of cash by increasing fees at ATMs or through upper limits for cash payments, or through social stigmatization of cash (keywords: money laundering, terrorist financing, etc.).

The digital euro does not compete with crypto units such as bitcoin. After all, a digital euro is—as already mentioned—fiat money issued by the state, which is exactly what all those who are looking for better money do not want to hold.

Rather, the target group for the digital euro includes those who are basically content with the euro as it currently is and those who are worried about a potential banking crash. This group probably represents a fairly large number of people who come into question as a potential target clientele for the digital euro.

The plan is to allow for a 1:1 exchange of euro cash and commercial bank balances with digital euros. Economically speaking, this means that the ECB de facto insures the liabilities of the euro banks: the ECB transfers its creditworthiness, which is beyond any doubt stellar, to euro commercial banks.

With a 1:1 exchange option nobody has to worry about losing their money balances held at euro commercial banks, as the ECB has the monopoly of euro production. The ECB cannot go bankrupt; it can create euros at any time to settle its payment obligations, regardless of the amount.

That said, no one needs to worry that their balances held at a commercial bank could be lost if the bank goes bankrupt and the deposit protection fund fails. If a digital euro is publicly accepted, the scenario of euro commercial banks collapsing becomes unlikely; the euro money and credit system would be supported more than ever by the omnipotence of the ECB.

As is well known, in their Communist Manifesto (1848) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels named ten “measures” the implementation of which would lead to communism. The fifth measure reads as follows: “Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state by a national bank with state capital and exclusive monopoly.” The issuance of a digital euro and the resulting consequences are undoubtedly another crucial step in bringing the Marxists’ vision of their desired revolution to fruition. Author:

Thorsten Polleit

Dr. Thorsten Polleit is Chief Economist of Degussa and Honorary Professor at the University of Bayreuth. He also acts as an investment advisor.

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Minimum Wage, Maximum Discrimination | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on February 27, 2021

So does history. As Princeton’s Thomas Leonard has demonstrated in his book Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era, the early minimum wage advocates saw it as a prime tool to exercise “dominion and discrimination” over those they deemed ill-suited to reproduction. The minimum wage was well suited to perform the Progressives’ dirty work of discriminating against (what they considered) the least productive by making them unemployable.

It has been over a hundred years since the Progressive Era. But the laws of economics haven’t changed. The only question is: Have we? Author:

https://mises.org/wire/minimum-wage-maximum-discrimination

Caleb Fuller

Since the days of Adam Smith, economists have sought a set of social institutions which permit “neither dominion, nor discrimination,” to use Nobel Prize–winning economist James Buchanan’s phrase. In this, economists are joined by all people of goodwill—including those in the Biden administration, which has enshrined equity and inclusion as cornerstones of how they’ll govern.

What separates the economist from other social do-gooders, however, is an unflinching focus on the means used to achieve noble goals. It’s therefore with alarm that I consider the Biden administration’s dual focus on “diversity and equity” and its doubling down on the “fight for $15.” I’m alarmed because the minimum wage impedes our ability to foster a society genuinely built on “diversity and equity.”

Here’s the straight talk on the minimum wage that you probably didn’t learn in school: the minimum wage has been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of racists and bigots. Economists have illuminated the devastating effects of the minimum wage on minorities with empirical evidence and entire books on the subject, but to see one reason why the policy targets minorities, first consider a little basic economics.

Consider the demand side of the labor market. Firms will hire fewer workers if the government criminalizes voluntary agreements to work for less than $15 per hour. This is an uncontroversial point to make about virtually any other market. If the price of apples doubles, people buy fewer apples. They buy more oranges instead. Employers do the same thing. Under the minimum wage, they start buying more machinery, like the kiosks you see in Panera. The upshot: fewer jobs.

Now let’s consider the supply side of the labor market, where the higher minimum wage attracts new workers to the labor market—those, like college students, who might have sat on the sidelines otherwise. The upshot: more job seekers.

Fewer jobs plus more job seekers means that more people will be searching for jobs than there are jobs available—a labor surplus. In other words, the minimum wage creates a “buyer’s market” in labor, because it causes job seekers to line up in front of employers who have limited jobs to offer.

Suppose an employer receives a hundred applicants for a job opening. How does he choose whom to hire? Without the minimum wage, whoever wants the job most will outcompete other jobseekers by offering to work for less.

With a minimum wage, the employer can’t say: “Who will work for $14.95?” If he does, he’s a criminal; he literally violates the law. Since he can’t just pick the most eager job seekers, he needs some alternative way to select from his hundred applicants. When you have a surplus of labor in a market with a minimum wage, prices aren’t allowed to adjust, so the employer picks from that surplus based on personal preferences. These may include race, sex, gender, religion, or other personal characteristics that have little to do with productivity. In fact, in the past, it has included just that. Faced with more job seekers than there are jobs available, a bigoted employer bears little cost when he refuses to hire a member of a group he dislikes. He knows someone else in the applicant pool will be from his preferred group.

In a market without a minimum wage, when an employer turns down an applicant to satisfy his bigoted tastes, he doesn’t have ninety-nine other job seekers to choose from. There’s no labor surplus. If he chooses to indulge his bigoted tastes, the job remains unfilled for longer, which means less money for our racist employer. Consider that in the United States the African American teenage male unemployment rate was lower than the white teenage male unemployment rate through the late 1940s. The 1950s saw the single largest increase (in percentage terms) of the minimum wage. The reasoning I just gave explains why the African American teen joblessness rate then soared above that of whites. That gap remains to the present day. Like Adam Smith, James Buchanan, and the Biden administration, I too desire a society where the power of bad people to exercise “dominion or discrimination” is constrained, even eliminated. Presumably, my fellow Pennsylvanians do too. The fact that nearly two-thirds of them (and 89 percent of liberals) support a $15/hour minimum wage is therefore troubling. My fellow citizens should consider whether this policy facilitates or impedes the ability of bad men to do harm. Economics says it facilitates.

So does history. As Princeton’s Thomas Leonard has demonstrated in his book Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era, the early minimum wage advocates saw it as a prime tool to exercise “dominion and discrimination” over those they deemed ill-suited to reproduction. The minimum wage was well suited to perform the Progressives’ dirty work of discriminating against (what they considered) the least productive by making them unemployable.

It has been over a hundred years since the Progressive Era. But the laws of economics haven’t changed. The only question is: Have we? Author:

Caleb Fuller

Dr. Caleb Fuller is assistant professor of economics at Grove City College. He has published papers in Public Choice, the International Review of Law and Economics, the European Journal of Law and Economics, the Review of Austrian Economics, and others.

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Rand Paul vs. Rachel Levine: Do You Support Government Overriding Parental Consent On Puberty Blockers?

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/02/25/rand_paul_vs_rachel_levine_do_you_support_government_overriding_parental_consent_on_puberty_blockers.html

Pennsylvania’s Finest

Posted By Ian Schwartz

Sen. Rand Paul took on Dr. Rachel Levine, President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health, at Thursday’s confirmation hearing on genital mutilation and her position on government resources overriding parental consent on transgender medical methods such as puberty blockers.

“The question is a very specific one, should minors be making these momentous decisions,” Paul said. “For most of the history of medicine, we wouldn’t let you have a cut sewn up in the ER, but you are willing to let a minor take things that prevent their puberty, and you think they get that back.”

“You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard, do you think she’s going to go back looking like a woman when you stop the testosterone? You have permanently changed them,” he said.

Levine responded to Paul’s questions with a standard response on how nuanced transgender medicine is.

“Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field, and if confirmed to the position of assistant secretary of health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and to talk with you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field,” Levine said.

Levine, a transgender woman, was the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and managed the commonwealth’s COVID crisis.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Genital mutilation has been nearly universally condemned. Genital mutilation has been condemned by the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund. According to the WHO, genital mutilation is recognized internationally as a violation of human rights. Genital mutilation is considered particularly egregious, because as the WHO notes, it is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.

Most genital mutilation is not typically performed by force. But as WHO notes that by social convention, social norm, the social pressure to conform, to do what others do and have been doing as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community.

American culture is down normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent their biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics. Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor’s genitalia.

Like surgical mutilation, hormonal interruption of puberty can permanently alter and prevent secondary sexual characteristics. The American College of Pediatricians reports that 80 to 95 percent of pre-pubertal children with gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence, if not exposed to medical intervention and social affirmation. Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life changing decision as changing one’s sex?

DR. RACHEL LEVINE: Well, Senator, thank you for your interest in this question. Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed. And if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as the assistant secretary of health, I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine.

PAUL: The specific question was about minors. Let’s be a little more specific since you evaded the question. Do you support the government intervening to override the parents’ consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia? You have said that you’re willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids. I’m alarmed that poor kids with no parents who are homeless and distraught, you would just go through this and allow that to happen to a minor.

I would hope that you would have compassion for Kira Belle (PH), who’s a 23 year old girl who was confused with her identity. At 14 she read on the Internet about something about transsexuals. She thought, well, maybe that’s what I am. She ended up getting these puberty blockers, cross sex hormones. She had her breasts amputated. But here’s what ultimately she says now. And this is a very insightful from decision from someone who made a mistake, but was led to believe this was a good thing by the medical community.

“I made a brash decision as a teenager, as a lot of teenagers do. Trying to find competence and happiness, except now the rest of my life will be negatively affected,” she said, adding that the medicalized gender transitioning was a very temporary, superficial fix for a very complex identity issue.

What I am alarmed that is that you are not willing to say absolutely minors shouldn’t be making decisions to amputate their breasts or to amputate their genitalia. For most of our history, we have believed that minors don’t have full rights and that parents need to be involved, so I am alarmed that you won’t say with certainty that minors should not have the ability to make the decision to take hormones that will affect them for the rest of their life. Will you make a more firm decision on whether or not minors should be involved in these decisions?

LEVINE: Senator, transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field, and if confirmed to the position of assistant secretary of health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and to talk with you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field.

PAUL: Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question. The question is a very specific one, should minors be making these momentous decisions. For most of the history of medicine, we wouldn’t let you have a cut sewn up in the ER, but you are willing to let a minor take things that prevent their puberty, and you think they get that back.

You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard, do you think she’s going to go back looking like a woman when you stop the testosterone? You have permanently changed them. Infertility is another problem. None of these drugs have been approved for this. They are all being used off-label. I find it ironic that the left that went nuts over hydroxychloroquine being used possibly for COVID are not alarmed that these hormones are being used off-label. There is no long-term studies; we don’t know what happens to them.

We do know that there are dozens and dozens of people who have been through this who–who regret that this happened and a permanent change happened to them, and you know if you’ve ever been around children, 14-year-olds can’t make this decision. In the gender dysphoria clinic in England, 10 percent of the kids are between the ages of 3 and 10. We should be outraged that someone is talking to a 3-year-old about changing their sex. I can’t vote for you if you can’t (INAUDIBLE)–

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Thank you so much, Senator Paul. Senator Levine, thank you for answering the question. I will turn to Senator Baldwin.

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Scientists: Vaccination Before EVERY Holiday May Be Needed – Summit News

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

https://summit.news/2021/02/22/scientists-vaccination-before-every-holiday-may-be-needed/

Steve Watson

Scientists at Oxford University have suggested that people may need to have a coronavirus vaccination not once, not twice, but EVERY time they want to travel out of their home country.

The scientists published a report in the Royal Society Journal last week that acknowledged there is little data on how efficient or long lasting the current vaccines are, and so it is likely that countries will require a recent vaccination.

Having endless vaccinations when there is no indication of how effective they are, or what long term side effects there may be sounds absolutely mental, but that is what is being suggested.

Speaking to the London Telegraph, Epidemiologist Christopher Dye, a leading author of the reports stated “If we thought that the duration of protection was just a matter of months, then the sort of criteria that might be introduced – we’re not saying they should be – is that when one travels internationally for a short trip, going on vacation for example, that one is vaccinated each time on that occasion for that particular trip.”

The scientists also stated that vaccine passports are “feasible,” but only when global standards can be agreed upon.

“An effective vaccine passport system that would allow the return to pre-Covid activities, including travel, without compromising personal or public health, must meet a set of demanding criteria,” said Dye.

Other co-authors of the study wanted that the covid passports, which the government’s vaccines minister has repeatedly said are not going to be used domestically, “need to be fully explored.”

Professor Melinda Mills warned that such a system “could inadvertently discriminate or exacerbate existing inequalities,” adding “The intended use will have significant implications across a wide range of legal and ethical issues.”

“Is it literally a passport to allow international travel or could it be used domestically to allow holders greater freedoms?” Professor Mills further questioned.

“We need a broader discussion about multiple aspects of a vaccine passport, from the science of immunity through to data privacy, technical challenges and the ethics and legality of how it might be used,” Mills added.

In the face of globalists repeatedly pushing for the vaccination passport system, Silkie Carlo, the director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, has penned an important op-ed warning that we risk “emerging like some sort of China-adjunct – a high-tech dystopia where citizens flash their vaccine IDs and biological risk scores to buy a pint of milk, or government-approved facial recognition for a pint of beer.”

At this moment, the UK should be showing courage and leadership to build a freer future – to “set the people free”.

Instead, with vaccine IDs and more, the government is offering us a future of more controls, not more freedom.— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) February 21, 2021

Carlo urged that we “survived the 20th century because our forebearers gave up their lives for freedom. Today, some are willing to give up their freedom for just about anything.”

(..) people can use facial recognition apps connected to government-approved identity systems to verify our age at the local pub.

Govnt is also soon to introduce a Bill to require voter ID, despite only 1 ballot box fraud case in 2017 and 3.5 million Brits who have no photo ID. pic.twitter.com/zcBA0poCUF— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) February 21, 2021

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‘Undermining faith in NATO’ is now grounds for Twitter ban, because certain kinds of politics have become a religion — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

Twitter has long abandoned its “free speech wing of the free speech party” shtick to become a cudgel for Our Democracy to beat its critics with.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/516503-twitter-faith-nato-censorship/

Nebojsa Malic

Nebojsa Malic

is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator and on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

Heresy against NATO has apparently joined the ever-expanding list of sins that will get one erased from Twitter, as Big Tech mounts a crusade against infidels at home and abroad on behalf of values of Our Democracy.

Twitter announced bans on 373 accounts it connected to “state-linked information operations” on Tuesday. Some of them, the company said, “amplified narratives that were aligned with the Russian government” or “focused on undermining faith in the NATO alliance and its stability.”

Twitter is a US-based company, and the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech as well as religion. Under that set of rules, anyone’s faith in NATO – or lack thereof – would be none of Twitter’s business. 

Then again, that set of rules isn’t exactly in effect anymore. Twitter has long abandoned its “free speech wing of the free speech party” shtick to become a cudgel for Our Democracy to beat its critics with. Or did you miss the part where they censored a sitting president of the United States over how he “might be perceived and interpreted” and meddled in the election by blocking a newspaper over a true story they falsely claimed was based on hacked materials?

Assuming for the sake of argument that these things were all part of “fortifying” the election – as TIME magazine put it – and defending Our Democracy from the evils of the constitutional republic, that might explain the repudiation of free speech and free press.

Which leaves religion, and still doesn’t answer why Twitter is now embarking on a jihad to protect NATO from heretics. 

Last I checked, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was not a god, but a military alliance. It hardly needs anyone’s “faith” – or Big Tech protection thereof. Not only is it armed to the teeth but commands its own legions of “disinformation”hunters and propaganda shops. Why, one of Twitter’s executives is literally an officer in a psychological warfare outfit of the UK military – a member of NATO, if anyone hasn’t been paying attention. 

I will not undermine faith in the NATO alliance I will not undermine faith in the NATO alliance I will not undermine faith in the NATO alliance I will not undermine faith in the NATO alliance I will not undermine faith in the NATO alliance I will not undermine faith in the N https://t.co/94FBinTPS0— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) February 24, 2021

Big Tech is also working hand in glove with an entire cottage industry of “disinformation researchers” such as Ben Nimmo – an alum of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank serving as a NATO cut-out – and Renee DiResta of the Stanford Internet Observatory. 

DiResta ought to be notorious because her old firm, New Knowledge, was exposed for literally running a bunch of fake accounts posing as ‘Russian bots’ during a 2017 special US Senate election in Alabama. Because that helped a Democrat, NK was allowed to quietly rebrand and DiResta failed upward to land at Stanford. These are not the “Russians” you are looking for, move along, that sort of thing.

So it’s ironic that DiResta’s new outfit has provided more information about Twitter’s newest crusade, as well as where it might be headed. Based on information they were provided by Twitter, some of the accounts in one of the “Russian networks,” the SIO says, “appear to have been linked to the operations primarily via technical indicators rather than amplification or conversation between them.”

Notice the weasel phrasing such as “appear to be linked,” or “show signs of being affiliated” in Twitter’s original blog. It’s simply amazing how the same people who demand irrefutable evidence of, say, US election irregularities suddenly need no evidence whatsoever for their own assertions.

From a @Reuters report.Cancel culture doesn’t exist though pic.twitter.com/eCAdfGPkF7— Philip Cunliffe (@thephilippics) February 24, 2021

SIO also offers a glimpse into the future of this crusade, noting that while Twitter, Facebook and Medium “chip away” at accounts “pushing Russia-aligned narratives about Syria and NATO,” such activity persists on LiveJournal and Telegram.

No doubt these two platforms – one bought by a Russian company back in 2007, the other founded by a Russian national but currently operating out of Dubai – will find themselves in the crosshairs soon enough.

“Censorship is an intoxicating power that endlessly expands until it’s smashed,” as independent journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out.

Especially since enforcing “faith” means this isn’t about differences of opinion anymore. Forget about things such as free speech, or due process, or debate that’s the cornerstone of an actual democracy. Politics of a certain kind is now religion.  

Soi-disant “champion of freedom in Russia” cheers on @Twitter for closing down accounts and hence suppressing free expression. https://t.co/z2Esugd3Ps— George Szamuely (@GeorgeSzamuely) February 24, 2021

In a move that should surprise no one, this religious war against heretics who dare doubt NATO and other “Russian” wrongthink was hailed by such luminaries of the US establishment as former ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. 

Lest you think he’s an outlier, the US embassy in Kiev applauded the Ukrainian government’s order to close down three opposition TV stations earlier this month. Democrat lawmakers are currently pushing for similar censorship at home. 

Just last week, the newly installed US President Joe Biden told European allies that “the transatlantic alliance is back,” pledging his renewed support for NATO. Biden has also said he would govern based on “values.” The thing to understand is that those values aren’t necessarily what the Constitution of the American Republic, now effectively replaced by what has been dubbed Our Democracy, says they are.

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No more Mr. Potato Head? Hasbro bombarded with mockery after announcement that famous toy brand is gender neutral now — RT USA News

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

Important victory for women who aspire to be potatoes

https://www.rt.com/usa/516595-mr-potato-head-gender-neutral/

Hasbro has announced that their famous Mr. Potato Head toy will soon be rebranded as simply Potato Head to break away from the traditional two genders once offered.

“Culture has evolved,” Kimberly Boyd, an SVP and GM at Hasbro, told Fast Company about the change. “Kids want to be able to represent their own experiences. The way the brand currently exists – with the ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’– is limiting when it comes to both gender identity and family structure.”

Since the Mr. and Mrs. Potato head toys have appealed to mainly young children for decades now, this new change will be a way to break down the idea of two genders and nuclear families, according to the company. 

First launched in 1952 as simply accessories children could add to real potatoes, the Potato Head line has evolved over the years into plastic Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads, with various accessories and expressions. The two became film characters in the massively popular ‘Toy Story’ franchise, as well, but there has never been much more to differentiate the two toys except for plastic pieces like lipstick or a mustache. 

Hasbro will now be offering simply Potato Heads, with no gender titles. They will also cease selling family sets that fit into the traditional structure they’ve stuck with for so long aka a husband, a wife, and children. This major change will occur this year. 

While the move is meant to play to a rapidly changing and more aggressively politically correct culture, the announcement has mainly been met with mockery online, most of it coming from conservatives.

“Now any child, of any gender, can look at a Potato Head and dream of growing up to be a plastic spheroid with interchangeable parts,” Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro tweeted in reaction to the news. 

Mrs. Potato Head has also been killed off. She will be replaced by an asexual can of Pringles.— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 25, 2021

“Imagine thinking in the middle of a global pandemic: ‘What’s really important is dropping the ‘Mr’ from Mr Potato Head & making him gender-neutral in case we upset a few wokies,’” Piers Morgan wrote of the decision. 

“Mr Potato Head is now non binary. You still don’t have health insurance,” comedian Tim Dillon added. 

I’m glad Brian Stelter can finally feel like he has a voice in our culture https://t.co/KxNmrZb7lR— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 25, 2021

Then, they came after Mr. Potato Head. But, I wasn’t a Hasbro Toy so I didn’t speak out.— Herr Professor Doktor Damnable Cracker (@Phillyastro) February 25, 2021

I told my 7-year-old daughter that Mr. Potato Head is gender neutral now and she smiled and said, “This is the greatest day of my life. Finally I can be at peace.” We hugged and I started sobbing. It was so beautiful.— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 25, 2021

Important victory for women who aspire to be potatoes https://t.co/uYnj01C1RV— James Bloodworth (@J_Bloodworth) February 25, 2021

Mr. Potato Head is only the latest cultural change made by a toy brand. For instance, the once famous skinny and blonde Barbie has expanded its line to include more color shades and body types, while the American Girl doll line has created a boy doll to go with their long line of female toys. 

Following the backlash, Hasbro tweeted that the change will only affect the brand name, and not the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head models, which will keep their genders. The company did not clarify the seeming contradiction with the original media comments of its own executive.

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Caitlin Johnstone: US bombs Syria and ridiculously claims self defense — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

In America especially it is important to oppose war and imperialism, because an entire empire depends on keeping the locals too poor and propagandized to force their nation’s resources to go to their own wellbeing. As long as the United States functions as the hub of a globe-spanning power structure, all the progressive agendas that are being sought by what passes for the US left these days will be denied them. Opposing warmongering must come first.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/516647-caitlin-johnstone-us-bombs-syria/

By Caitlin Johnstone, an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

On orders of President Biden, the United States has launched an airstrike on a facility in Syria. As of this writing the exact number of killed and injured is unknown, with early reports claiming “a handful” of people were killed.

Rather than doing anything remotely resembling journalism, the Western mass media have opted instead to uncritically repeat what they’ve been told about the airstrike by US officials, which is the same as just publishing Pentagon press releases.

Here’s this from the Washington Post:

The Biden administration conducted an airstrike against alleged Iranian-linked fighters in Syria on Thursday, signaling its intent to push back against violence believed to be sponsored by Tehran.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the attack, the first action ordered by the Biden administration to push back against alleged Iranian-linked violence in Iraq and Syria, on a border control point in eastern Syria was “authorized in response to recent attacks against American and coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats.”

He said the facilities were used by Iranian-linked militias including Kaitib Hezbollah and Kaitib Sayyid al-Shuhada.

The operation follows the latest serious attack on U.S. locations in Iraq that American officials have attributed to Iranian-linked groups operating in Iraq and Syria. Earlier this month, a rocket attack in northern Iraq killed a contractor working with the U.S. military and injured a U.S. service member there.

So we are being told that the United States launched an airstrike on Syria, a nation it invaded and is illegally occupying, because of attacks on “US locations” in Iraq, another nation the US invaded and is illegally occupying. This attack is justified on the basis that the Iraqi fighters were “Iranian-linked,” a claim that is both entirely without evidence and irrelevant to the justification of deadly military force. And this is somehow being framed in mainstream news publications as a defensive operation.

This is Defense Department stenography. The US military is an invading force in both Syria and Iraq; it is impossible for its actions in either of those countries to be defensive. It is always necessarily the aggressor. It’s the people trying to eject them who are acting defensively. The deaths of US troops and contractors in those countries can only be blamed on the powerful people who sent them there.

The US is just taking it as a given that it has de facto jurisdiction over the nations of Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and that any attempt to interfere in its authority in the region is an unprovoked attack which must be defended against. This is completely backwards and illegitimate. Only through the most perversely warped American supremacist reality tunnels can it look valid to dictate the affairs of sovereign nations on the other side of the planet and respond with violence if anyone in those nations tries to eject them.

To remind Iran who’s boss — rather than conduct the diplomacy he promised — Biden opts to act as ISIS’ Air Force. (That’s who “Iranian-backed militia” have long been fighting) https://t.co/9YGXnpUeyI— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 26, 2021

It’s illegitimate for the US to be in the Middle East at all. It’s illegitimate for the US to claim to be acting defensively in nations it invaded. It’s illegitimate for the US to act like Iranian-backed fighters aren’t allowed to be in Syria, where they are fighting alongside the Syrian government against ISIS and other extremist militias with the permission of Damascus. It is illegitimate for the US to claim the fighters attacking US personnel in Iraq are controlled by Iran when Iraqis have every reason to want the US out of their country themselves.

Even the official narrative reveals itself as illegitimate from within its own worldview. CNN reports that the site of the airstrike “was not specifically tied to the rocket attacks” in Iraq, and a Reuters/AP report says “Biden administration officials condemned the February 15 rocket attack near the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region, but as recently as this week officials indicated they had not determined for certain who carried it out.”

This is all so very typical of the American supremacist worldview that is being aggressively shoved down our throats by all Western mainstream news media. The US can bomb who it likes, whenever it likes, and when it does it is only ever doing so in self-defense, because the entire planet is the property of Washington, DC. It can seize control of entire clusters of nations, and if any of those nations resist in any way, they are invading America’s sovereignty.

It’s like if you broke into your neighbor’s house to rob him, killed him when he tried to stop you, and then claimed self-defense because you consider his home your property. Only in the American exceptionalist alternate universe is this considered normal and acceptable.

Americans: $2000 checks pleaseGovernment: Sorry did you say airstrikes on Syria?Americans: No, $2000 checksGovernment: Okay, since you asked nicely here’s your airstrikes on Syria.— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) February 26, 2021

This sort of nonsense is why it’s so important to prioritize opposition to Western imperialism. World warmongering and domination is the front upon which all the most egregious evils inflicted by the powerful take place, and it plays such a crucial role in upholding the power structures we are up against. Without endless war, the oligarchic empire which is the cause of so much of our suffering cannot function, and must give way to something else. If you’re looking to throw sand in the gears of the machine, anti-imperialism is your most efficacious path toward that end, and should therefore be your priority.

In America especially it is important to oppose war and imperialism, because an entire empire depends on keeping the locals too poor and propagandized to force their nation’s resources to go to their own wellbeing. As long as the United States functions as the hub of a globe-spanning power structure, all the progressive agendas that are being sought by what passes for the US left these days will be denied them. Opposing warmongering must come first.

Standing against imperialism and American supremacism cuts directly to the heart of our difficulties in this world, which is why so much energy goes into keeping us focused on identity politics and vapid energy sucks which inconvenience the powerful in no way whatsoever. If you want to out-wrestle a crocodile, you must bind shut its mouth. If you want to take down a globe-spanning empire, you must take out its weapons. Opposing warmongering and killing public trust in the propaganda used to justify it is the best way to do this.

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31 Reasons Why I Won’t Take the Vaccine | Gates of Vienna

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

https://gatesofvienna.net/2021/02/31-reasons-why-i-wont-take-the-vaccine/

Why I Won’t Take the Vaccine

Posted on by Baron Bodissey

The following list was created by the Israeli rabbi Chananya Weissman. Many thanks to MC for the tip.

31 Reasons Why I Won’t Take the Vaccine

by Chananya Weissman

1. It’s not a vaccine. A vaccine by definition provides immunity to a disease. This does not provide immunity to anything. In a best-case scenario, it merely reduces the chance of getting a severe case of a virus if one catches it. Hence, it is a medical treatment, not a vaccine. I do not want to take a medical treatment for an illness I do not have.
2. The drug companies, politicians, medical establishment, and media have joined forces to universally refer to this as a vaccine when it is not one, with the intention of manipulating people into feeling safer about undergoing a medical treatment. Because they are being deceitful, I do not trust them, and want nothing to do with their medical treatment.
3. The presumed benefits of this medical treatment are minimal and would not last long in any case. The establishment acknowledges this, and is already talking about additional shots and ever-increasing numbers of new “vaccines” that would be required on a regular basis. I refuse to turn myself into a chronic patient who receives injections of new pharmaceutical products on a regular basis simply to reduce my chances of getting a severe case of a virus that these injections do not even prevent.
4. I can reduce my chances of getting a severe case of a virus by strengthening my immune system naturally. In the event I catch a virus, there are vitamins and well-established drugs that have had wonderful results in warding off the illness, without the risks and unknowns of this medical treatment.
5. The establishment insists that this medical treatment is safe. They cannot possibly know this because the long-term effects are entirely unknown, and will not be known for many years. They may speculate that it is safe, but it is disingenuous for them to make such a claim that cannot possibly be known. Because they are being disingenuous, I do not trust them, and I want no part of their treatment.
6. The drug companies have zero liability if anything goes wrong, and cannot be sued. Same for the politicians who are pushing this treatment. I will not inject myself with a new, experimental medical device when the people behind it accept no liability or responsibility if something goes wrong. I will not risk my health and my life when they refuse to risk anything.
7. Israel’s Prime Minister has openly admitted that the Israeli people are the world’s laboratory for this experimental treatment. I am not interested in being a guinea pig or donating my body to science.
8. Israel agreed to share medical data of its citizens with a foreign drug company as a fundamental part of their agreement to receive this treatment. I never consented for my personal medical data to be shared with any such entity, nor was I even asked. I will not contribute to this sleazy enterprise.
9. The executives and board members at Pfizer are on record that they have not taken their own treatment, despite all the fanfare and assurances. They are claiming that they would consider it unfair to “cut the line”. This is a preposterous excuse, and it takes an unbelievable amount of chutzpah to even say such a thing. Such a “line” is a figment of their own imagination; if they hogged a couple of injections for themselves no one would cry foul. In addition, billionaires with private jets and private islands are not known for waiting in line until hundreds of millions of peasants all over the world go first to receive anything these billionaires want for themselves.
10. The establishment media have accepted this preposterous excuse without question or concern. Moreover, they laud Pfizer’s executives for their supposed self-sacrifice in not taking their own experimental treatment until we go first. Since they consider us such fools, I do not trust them, and do not want their new treatment. They can have my place in line. I’ll go to the very back of the line.
11. Three facts that must be put together: Bill Gates is touting these vaccines as essential to the survival of the human race. Bill Gates believes the world has too many people and needs to be “depopulated”. Bill Gates, perhaps the richest man in the world, has also not been injected. No rush. Uh, no. I’ll pass on any medical treatments he wants me to take.
12. The establishment has been entirely one-sided in celebrating this treatment. The politicians and media are urging people to take it as both a moral and civic duty. The benefits of the treatment are being greatly exaggerated, the risks are being ignored, and the unknowns are being brushed aside. Because they are being deceitful and manipulative, I will not gamble my personal wellbeing on their integrity.
13. There is an intense propaganda campaign for people to take this treatment. Politicians and celebrities are taking selfies of themselves getting injected (perhaps in some cases pretending to get injected), the media is hyping this as the coolest, smartest, most happy and fun thing to do. It is the most widespread marketing campaign in history. This is not at all appropriate for any medical treatment, let alone a brand new one, and it makes me recoil.
14. The masses are following in tow, posting pictures of themselves getting injected with a drug, feeding the mass peer pressure to do the same. There is something very alarming and sick about this, and I want no part of it. I never took drugs just because “everyone’s doing it” and it’s cool. I’m certainly not going to start now.
 
15. Those who raise concerns about this medical treatment are being bullied, slandered, mocked, censored, ostracized, threatened, and fired from their jobs. This includes medical professionals who have science-based concerns about the drug and caregivers who have witnessed people under their charge suffering horrible reactions and death shortly after being injected. When the establishment is purging good people who risk everything simply to raise concerns about a new medical treatment — even if they don’t outright oppose it — I will trust these brave people over the establishment every time. I cannot think of a single similar case in history when truth and morality turned out to be on the side of the establishment.
16. This is the greatest medical experiment in the history of the human race.
17. It is purposely not being portrayed as the greatest medical experiment in the history of the human race, and the fact that it is a medical experiment at all is being severely downplayed.
18. Were they up front with the masses, very few would agree to participate in such an experiment. Manipulating the masses to participate in a medical experiment under false pretenses violates the foundations of medical ethics and democratic law. I will not allow unethical people who engage in such conduct to inject me with anything.
19. The medical establishment is not informing people about any of this. They have become marketing agents for an experimental drug, serving huge companies and politicians who have made deals with them. This is a direct conflict with their mandate to concern themselves exclusively with the wellbeing of the people under their care. Since the medical establishment has become corrupted, and has become nothing more than a corporate and political tool, I do not trust the experimental drug they want so badly to inject me with.
20. We are being pressured in various ways to get injected, which violates medical ethics and the foundations of democratic society. The best way to get me not to do something is to pressure me to do it.
21. The government has sealed their protocol related to the virus and treatments for THIRTY YEARS. This is information that the public has a right to know, and the government has a responsibility to share. What are they covering up? Do they really expect me to believe that everything is kosher about all this, and that they are concerned first and foremost with my health? The last time they did this was with the Yemenite Children Affair. If you’re not familiar with it, look it up. Now they’re pulling the same shtick. They didn’t fool me the first time, and they’re definitely not fooling me now.
22. The government can share our personal medical data with foreign corporations, but they won’t share their own protocol on the matter with us? I’m out.
23. The establishment has recruited doctors, rabbis, the media, and the masses to harangue people who don’t want to get injected with a new drug. We are being called the worst sort of names. We are being told that we believe in crazy conspiracies, that we are against science, that we are selfish, that we are murderers, that we don’t care about the elderly, that it’s our fault that the government continues to impose draconian restrictions on the public. It’s all because we don’t want to get injected with an experimental treatment, no questions asked. We are even being told that we have a religious obligation to do this, and that we are grave sinners if we do not. They say that if we do not agree to get injected, we should be forced to stay inside our homes forever and be ostracized from public life.
This is horrific, disgusting, a perversion of common sense, morality, and the Torah. It makes me recoil, and only further cements my distrust of these people and my opposition to taking their experimental drug. How dare they?
24. I know of many people who got injected, but none of them studied the science in depth, carefully weighed the potential benefits against the risks, compared this option to other alternatives, was truly informed, and decided this medical treatment was the best option for them. On the contrary, they got injected because of the hype, the propaganda, the pressure, the fear, blind trust in what “the majority of experts” supposedly believed (assuming THEY all studied everything in depth and were completely objective, which is highly dubious), blind trust in what certain influential rabbis urged them to do (ditto the above), or hysterical fear that the only option was getting injected or getting seriously ill from the virus. When I see mass hysteria and cult-like behavior surrounding a medical treatment, I will be extremely suspicious and avoid it.
25. The drug companies have a long and glorious history of causing mass carnage with wonder drugs they thrust on unsuspecting populations, even after serious problems had already become known. Instead of pressing the pause button and halting the marketing of these drugs until these issues could be properly investigated, the drug companies did everything in their power to suppress the information and keep pushing their products. When companies and people have demonstrated such gross lack of concern for human life, I will not trust them when they hype a new wonder drug. This isn’t our first rodeo.
26. Indeed, the horror stories are already coming in at warp speed, but the politicians are not the least bit concerned, the medical establishment is brushing them aside as unrelated or negligible, the media is ignoring it, the drug companies are steaming ahead at full speed, and those who raise a red flag continue to be bullied, censored, and punished. Clearly my life and my wellbeing are not their primary concern. I will not be their next guinea pig in their laboratory. I will not risk being the next “coincidence”.
27. Although many people have died shortly after getting injected — including perfectly healthy young people — we are not allowed to imply that the injection had anything to do with it. Somehow this is anti-science and will cause more people to die. I believe that denying any possible link, abusing people who speculate that there might be a link, and demonstrating not the slightest curiosity to even explore if there might be a link is what is anti-science and could very well cause more people to die. These same people believe I am obligated to get injected as well. No freaking thanks.
28. I am repulsed by the religious, cult-like worship of a pharmaceutical product, and will not participate in this ritual.
29. My “healthcare” provider keeps badgering me to get injected, yet they have provided me no information on this treatment or any possible alternatives. Everything I know I learned from others outside the establishment. Informed consent has become conformed consent. I decline.
30. I see all the lies, corruption, propaganda, manipulation, censorship, bullying, violation of medical ethics, lack of integrity in the scientific process, suppression of inconvenient adverse reactions, dismissal of legitimate concerns, hysteria, cult-like behavior, ignorance, closed-mindedness, fear, medical and political tyranny, concealment of protocols, lack of true concern for human life, lack of respect for basic human rights and freedoms, perversion of the Torah and common sense, demonization of good people, the greatest medical experiment of all time being conducted by greedy, untrustworthy, godless people, the lack of liability for those who demand I risk everything… I see all this and I have decided they can all have my place in line. I will put my trust in God. I will use the mind He blessed me with and trust my natural instincts. Which leads to the final reason which sums up why I will not get “vaccinated.”
31. The whole thing stinks.
 

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Erie Times E-Edition Article-Fossil fuel subsidies don’t pay off for Pennsylvanians

Posted by M. C. on February 26, 2021

Government shouldn’t subsidize anyone. Government messes up most everything it touches.

If consumers aren’t happy with price, product or delivery of anything the consumer should be free to go somewhere else, stimulating providers to either develop something new and better or fix what they have.

That is called free market.

Did I mention government shouldn’t subsidize anyone. Government messes up most everything it touches?

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=158714e9e

Budget hearings began this week in Harrisburg, a long process that will culminate with the passage of a new spending plan by the end of June.

The next several months will be filled with contentious hearings and verbal sparring as lawmakers grapple with a $3 billion budget deficit. While legislators will argue about individual line items, a much larger issue will be largely ignored — the massive amount of money being wasted on fossil fuel subsidies.

According to research conducted by PennFuture, the fossil fuel industry received $3.8 billion in subsidies for fiscal year 2019 alone, or about $296 per Pennsylvania resident. This makes Pennsylvania one of the largest corporate subsidizers in a country that is the second largest fossil fuel subsidizer in the world.

This industry harms public health, degrades the environment and destabilizes our climate as the people of Pennsylvania suffer very real costs. Instead of ensuring the fossil fuel industry pays for the damage it causes, the commonwealth has been more interested in helping corporate polluters generate as much profit as possible.

These subsidies distort our markets and make it harder for better, cleaner technologies to compete. At a time when we need to be transitioning to a clean energy economy to fight the climate crisis, these subsidies do the exact opposite by prolonging our dependence on polluting industries.

Of the $3.8 billion in fossil fuel subsidies, the fracked gas and petrochemical industry captured at least $2 billion, or 52%. Despite the continued pleas of those living nearest fracked gas and petrochemical development, more subsidies are added every year. Our subsidy problem is getting worse, not better.

The industry continues to claim that keeping the subsidies flowing will bring jobs and prosperity, but as a recent

report from the Ohio River Valley Institute shows, counties with significant oil and gas development are far below average in both job growth and personal income. Even the S&P 500 Energy Index has fallen more than 50% from its 2014 peak. This is the picture of an industry in decline.

As this decline continues, our families, schools and local governments wrestle with unprecedented challenges made worse by dirty industries that are given a free pass to drain our resources. Sustainable alternatives exist, but any attempt to invest in better choices is quickly attacked by the industry as the government ‘picking winners and losers.’

The damage doesn’t stop in the counties with fracked gas. Our report reveals an additional $11.1 billion in external costs, including drinking water contamination, infrastructure damage and health impacts like respiratory problems and cancers. That’s not to mention the greatest damages that come from methane pollution contributing to climate change.

Our legislators owe it to each and every Pennsylvanian to do better than this. PennFuture’s report details over 50 fossil fuel subsidies that have covertly wormed their way into Pennsylvania’s tax code and other rules and regulations.

After reviewing these harmful and unfair subsidies, we find our way forward with a package of key recommendations.

Perhaps most importantly: Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel subsidies are pernicious in part because they are buried out of sight and difficult to disentangle. To tackle this problem, we need to report and track these fossil fuel subsidies so that we can accurately understand the scope and nature of the problem at hand. While watchdog organizations like PennFuture are happy to bring sunlight to this problem, our state government should be providing this transparency. Even before achieving full transparency, however, there are a few things we can say for sure: Fossil fuel development and consumption is not sustaining our communities; it’s fueling their deterioration.

We ask that fossil fuel companies, for just once in their centuries-long existence, begin to pay the full price for consumption of limited natural resources, contribute their fair share to the state treasury, and prevent and mitigate their eroding impact on health and well-being, the environment and the climate.

These are commonsense solutions at a time we need them most. As budget season progresses, we will have our eyes on Harrisburg, hoping that our elected officials do the right thing.

Rob Altenburg is the director of the PennFuture Energy Center, and co-author of a new report that details fossil fuel subsidies in Pennsylvania.

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