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The End of Modernity – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 8, 2020

There was a baby in a carriage looking up at me but with no emotion whatsoever. As I smiled there was no reaction, only a blank stare. I was wearing a mask. I then turned to see that its mother was also wearing a mask. What kind of children will be raised in a masked society?

I feel like I am participating in a kind of giant Milgram experiment where the population of the world (at least the developed world) is being socialized into unthinking, fear inspired obedience.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/07/ira-katz/the-end-of-modernity/

The other day I was in line (social distancing) to receive communion. There was a baby in a carriage looking up at me but with no emotion whatsoever. As I smiled there was no reaction, only a blank stare. I was wearing a mask. I then turned to see that its mother was also wearing a mask. What kind of children will be raised in a masked society?

Many people in my internet world now see with alarm a new level of population control. Peter Hitchens, C.J. Hopkins, the Bionic Mosquito, are worth reading; and this one by Gareth Roberts comparing our new world order to the Village from the Patrick McGoohan series the Prisoner is I think especially accurate in the type of horror (with a smile) society is becoming.

I feel like I am participating in a kind of giant Milgram experiment where the population of the world (at least the developed world) is being socialized into unthinking, fear inspired obedience. Terrorism, financial collapse, epidemics and biosecurity, and cultural revolution are all top down events aimed at creating a docile, obedient population. It is clear that to the powers that be, all human relationships, simple pleasures, social and psychological needs are expendable. All individual humans are expendable. It is telling that the elite has politically dropped the working class in favor of extreme environmentalism and immigration. Human labor (at least in the developed world) is no longer seen as being essential.  As James Corbett has documented, the achieved goal is population control.

The Renaissance was the transition from a culture centered on Christianity (the age of faith as exemplified by Chartres Cathedral) to the human centered modern culture (the age of human individuality as exemplified by Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man). This was the age of modernity, but modernity is now over; the dystopian present is a postmodern, post-human world as exemplified by the robot Sophia. As our human individuality will be covered by a mask, our every move and purchase will be noted and approved by an electronic system of control, our very DNA will be at the mercy of mandatory vaccines.

In these troubling times I fear for my family. I find it very difficult to discuss these fears with my wife who is French and a journalist so sees the world through very different lenses than me. I recently met a group of friends, all graduates from the elite French university Science Po, on a lovely evening at an outdoor bar along the Seine. A very nice and intelligent gentleman I was speaking with did not wear a mask, but had total belief in the virus and the government. I tried to present a different point of view though I doubt that I was convincing.

In these desperate times, I feel the two actions that are essential are to take courage and to pray.

Be seeing you

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Erie Times E-Edition Article – Short on coins

Posted by M. C. on July 8, 2020

Another government screw-up or an intentional step toward a cashless society?

The same government that is controlling your health can’t keep nickels and dimes in the till.

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=2ba69efcc

How a coin shortage is impacting Mich. retailers, grocery stores

At Barrel’s and Vines, an upscale Royal Oak, Michigan, gas station, signs are posted urging customers to have the correct change or use debit or credit whenever possible.

Normally, owner Ken Lucia keeps boxes of rolled coins to fill register tills to use as change at both Barrel’s and Vines locations on Woodward.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has coins — quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies — in short supply.

Retailers get their boxes of coins from banks. But, Lucia said, the supplies are low at banks.

“Our bank will only allow us to buy one roll of coin at a time,” he said. “The banks have cut down on giving boxes of change out.”

A box of quarters has 50 rolls or $500 worth, while a box of pennies has 100 rolls or $50 worth, Lucia said.

In mid-June, the Federal Reserve announced a nationwide coin shortage, which it blamed on the pandemic..

“The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the supply chain and normal circulation patterns for U.S. coin,” the government said in a statement. “In the past few months, coin deposits from depository institutions to the Federal Reserve have declined significantly and the U.S. Mint’s production of coin also decreased due to measures put in place to protect its employees. Federal Reserve coin orders from depository institutions have begun to increase as regions reopen, resulting in the Federal Reserve’s coin inventory being reduced to below normal levels. “

On June 15, the Federal Reserve Banks and their coin distribution locations began to allocate available supplies of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to depository institutions as a temporary measure.

The temporary coin allocation methodology is based on historical order volume by coin denomination and depository institution endpoint, and current U.S. Mint production levels. Order limits are unique by coin denomination and are the same across all Federal Reserve coin distribution locations. Limits will be reviewed and potentially revised based on national receipt levels, inventories, and Mint production.

Barrels and Vines is a gas station that sells beer, wine and liquor and has a restaurant inside called Saroki’s Pizzeria, that also utilizes the change. Lucia said he began to see the coins run low in mid-April.

But now the coin shortage appears to be worse.

“Some banks have been more lenient than others,” Lucia said.

The shortage makes it tough for retailers.

To conserve coins, Lucia said, he has resorted to rounding sales up or down.

“I try to give out change in onesies and twosies, not in multiples,” he said.

For example, if the sale is $4.79, he will ask customers if they mind losing a penny and round up, giving them 20 cents. Or, he will round down to $4.75 and give them a quarter.

Constance Nobis, director of Retail Market Operations at Comerica Bank, said the bank is limiting what it gives to customers because its supply from the Fed has been cut by 90%.

“It’s a supply chain issue,” Nobis said. “Normally there’s a lot of recycling. Customers bring in coin to the bank, we ship it to the Fed and we fill our order out for customers.”

Nobis said the shortage is temporary.

“As more banks open and they are able to take those coin deposits in and the Fed is going to increase what they are minting,” she said.

In the meantime, she said, the bank is urging customers to bring in coin. It’s also doing centralized ordering, doing half boxes and rationing.

“Primarily gas stations and party store owners are frustrated with lack of coin and we have been able to get them about 50% of what they are asking for,” Nobis said.

That shortage may have an impact on the way you pay at grocery stores and other retailers.

At most of Meijer’s selfscan checkouts, the retailer has temporarily switched to credit, debit and SNAP/EBT card use only. Self-scan will also accept Meijer gift cards.

But customers using cash must use a cashier staffed checkout.

“While we understand this effort may be frustrating to some customers, it’s necessary to manage the impact of the coin shortage on our stores,” a Meijer spokeswoman said.

Be seeing you

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Ghislaine Maxwell, And Other Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2020

Maxwell, like Epstein, was never the lead player in the sexual blackmail op. There is at this time no reason to believe anyone’s coming for the intelligence operatives or their oligarchic allies who were actually running the thing.
The fact that mainstream news outlets consistently refuse to account for something as basic and indisputable as intelligence agencies being known liars should by itself fully discredit the entire institution of mass news reporting.
author: Caitlin Johnstone

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/07/04/ghislaine-maxwell-and-other-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

Like so many other things, all this Ghislaine Maxwell buzz would be a lot more interesting without all the dumbass partisan angles people are putting on it. People fixate on the Trump angle or the Clintons angle when it’s clear they’ve all been manipulated by forces that are far more powerful than they are.

The real story is still the fact that opaque and unaccountable intelligence agencies use child sex slavery to blackmail powerful world leaders and manipulate our society. It’s weird that people focus anywhere else.

Anyway it’s not like this is going to “bring down” anyone with real power. Even if Ghislaine survives, don’t get your hopes up that her arrest will affect elite power structures in any meaningful way. The FBI is the swamp. The DOJ is the swamp. The swamp will never drain the swamp.

Maxwell, like Epstein, was never the lead player in the sexual blackmail op. There is at this time no reason to believe anyone’s coming for the intelligence operatives or their oligarchic allies who were actually running the thing.

~

In a society that is dominated by violent extremists, the “moderate” mainstream ideology is actually extremism and the sane path toward stability looks radical. When war, oppression, exploitation and ecocide are the status quo, those who just want health and harmony are painted as extremists.

While mainstream “centrists” will acknowledge that our current way of doing things is unsustainable, they resist making meaningful change. This is because of a cognitive glitch humans have called status quo bias, which can cause us to fallaciously equate change with danger.

Remember when you were a kid and you’d get stuck up a tree, but you couldn’t bring yourself to climb down because clinging to the swaying branches felt safe compared to the risk of descending? You’d be clinging to the high branches and your mother would call up “Well you can’t stay there!” And you knew she was right but the prospect of climbing down was terrifying.

That’s a very concrete example of status quo bias. Change is needed, but it’s so scary. That’s where we’re at right now. That’s the only thing keeping so-called “centrism” going.

These “centrists” maintain their ideology because we live in increasingly scary times, which means they’re stuck up a strange tree where they know things need to change but they can’t bring themselves to actually push for it because “What if I lose what little I still have?”

~

War is the worst thing in the world. By far. If the rank-and-file public could see past the veil of propaganda and distortion and objectively see war for the horrific thing that it is, ending it would immediately become everyone’s foremost priority. Hence all the war propaganda.

~

The continued Afghanistan occupation is like if the cops stormed a house, shot a bunch of people, realized they got the wrong house and would never find the guy they’re looking for by staying there, stayed anyway, moved in, and then years later said they can’t move out because they heard a rumor that the neighbors are trying to make them leave.

~

The fact that mainstream news outlets consistently refuse to account for something as basic and indisputable as intelligence agencies being known liars should by itself fully discredit the entire institution of mass news reporting.

~

The Julian Assange story is being written right now whether you like it or not. In ten years when the movie comes out with Colin Hanks playing Nils Melzer as the truth-seeking protagonist who would not give up, which side of the story will you be able to say you were on?

~

People who believe China is responsible for America’s coronavirus problems are even dumber than people who believe Russia is responsible for Trump’s presidency.

~

Stop calling homegrown US illnesses “Trump’s America”. You’re just seeing America. As it is. As it has always been. Trump is the fruit of America. Trump arose from America. The nation isn’t Trump’s America, the nation’s president is America’s Trump.

~

People who hide behind irony are just a more boring version of people who hide behind humor.

~

Supporting the censorship of online speech is to support the authority of monopolistic tech oligarchs to exert more and more control over human communication. Regardless of your attitude toward whoever happens to be getting deplatformed today, supporting this is suicidal.

~

I spent most of this month talking about US police brutality, which made me a deep state Soros shill. The last few days I’ve been criticizing the latest Russiavape psyop so now they say I’m a Trump shill. Whenever the West Bank annexation happens I’ll be a Jew-hating Nazi. It’s been a wild ride.

~

People who say privilege isn’t real and they earned everything they’ve got are really just telling you they’ve never done any honest inner work. With a little humble introspection you’d quickly see how little you had to do with the preconditions which led to your circumstances.

~
The real revolution is an expansion of consciousness in all directions. Consciousness of oppression and exploitation, of corruption and imperialism, of propaganda and manipulation, of unjust social and economic dynamics, of our own egoic structures and unconscious mental habits. People can’t change things they’re unaware of. Once they’re fully aware of them, change is inevitable.

~

Follow the white rabbit down the hole and you’ll learn that our world is ruled by sociopaths using violence, plutocracy and propaganda. Follow it even further and you’ll learn that we are ultimately ruled by no one and the self is an illusion and the world is not as it seems.

~

You thought you were storming the gates of Heaven

to become a Fully Realized Buddha™,

but that turned out to be a character in a video game

being played on a beautiful summer day

by a child with popsicle-stained lips

who simply set down the controller,

got up,

and went outside.

______________________

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How Biden’s Foreign-Policy Team Got Rich – The American Prospect

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2020

There is no Biden Doctrine. “He’s not a guy who knows history. He’s not a guy who is intellectually curious,” said Emma Sky, who advised the U.S. military in Iraq. “It’s all about personal relationships.” Those close bonds may cloud his judgment. He has expressed “love” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even after he had defied the Obama administration and stood by the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as he assaulted protesters. In effect, Biden’s foreign policy is a blank slate, onto which often-conflicted advisers from the traditional national-security establishment will project actual policies.

https://prospect.org/world/how-biden-foreign-policy-team-got-rich/

by

They had been public servants their whole careers. But when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, two departing Obama officials were anxious for work. Trump’s win had caught them by surprise.

Sergio Aguirre and Nitin Chadda had reached the most elite quarters of U.S. foreign policy. Aguirre had started out of school as a fellow in the White House and a decade later had become chief of staff to U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. Chadda, who joined the Pentagon out of college as a speechwriter, had become a key adviser to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in even less time. Now, Chadda had a long-shot idea.

They turned to an industry of power-brokering little known outside the capital: strategic consultancies. Retiring leaders often open firms bearing their names: Madeleine Albright has one, as do Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. Their strategic consultancies tend to blur corporate and governmental roles. This obscure corner of Washington is critical to understanding how a President Joe Biden would conduct foreign policy. He has been picking top advisers from this shadowy world.

More from Jonathan Guyer

At the outset of a new administration, high-ranking officials often join one of a dozen such firms, which are surprisingly bipartisan in their makeup, to help companies navigate the areas where their relationships give them power. The model was pioneered by Henry Kissinger, who through Kissinger Associates represented American Express and Coca-Cola, among other banks and transnationals. In Beijing, Washington, and developing countries, strategic consultants help corporations manage tricky regulations, potential crises, and new markets. Their behind-the-scenes work in world capitals can look a lot like lobbying.

The problem for Aguirre and Chadda was that neither young man was a marquee name. Chadda realized that the latest crop of senior officials hadn’t yet started their own named consultancies. “The thought for us was to build a living and breathing platform, with those who are enthusiastic about serving again,” he said. Staying up late one night, they drafted a plan and came up with the first target they would pitch.

Michèle Flournoy had served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012. Both Aguirre and Chadda had known her well in the Obama administration. Since leaving office, she’d spent several years in consulting and was hitting her stride. With Flournoy as senior adviser, Boston Consulting Group’s defense contracts grew from $1.6 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2016. Before she joined, according to public records, BCG had not signed any contracts with the Defense Department.

Flournoy, while consulting, joining corporate boards, and serving as a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, had also become CEO of the Center for a New American Security in 2014. The think tank had $48 million on hand, and defense contractors donated at least $3.8 million while she was CEO. By 2017, she was making $452,000 a year.

If a Democrat were to win office, she would likely become the first woman defense secretary. She had considered an offer to serve as deputy to Trump’s first secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, but ultimately withdrew from the vetting process and stuck to consulting. “That’s more of a labor of love,” she told me. “Building bridges between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government is really, really important.” Read the rest of this entry »

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The tyranny of cancel culture – spiked

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2020

Maya Forstater has lost work for daring to criticise the cult of transgenderism. Selina Todd and Julie Bindel are No Platformed for the same thoughtcrime. Graham Linehan has been expelled from Twitter for likewise doubting the ability of men to become women. Toby Young lost education jobs after Twittermobs subjected him to a politically vindictive round of offence archaeology and dug up some old jokes he’d made. Baroness Nicholson was dumped by the Booker Prize for ‘transphobia’, a radio presenter on the Isle of Man was suspended for criticising the idea of white privilege (he’s now been reinstated), and a Welsh journalist was removed from the judging panel of a literary prize after he criticised BLM.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/06/the-tyranny-of-cancel-culture/

Trump is right: cancel culture is destroying freedom of thought.

Brendan O’Neill
Editor

Trump is right. Cancel culture is the key weapon in the armoury of the intolerant. In his 4 July speech at Mount Rushmore, Trump talked about the ‘political weapon’ of ‘cancel culture’ – the totalitarian thirst for ‘driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees’.

On the cult of wokeness, the ideology of PC that says there is only one way to think about history, race, gender and myriad other issues, Trump declared: ‘If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished.’

Anyone who has been awake at any time over the past four weeks will know that Trump is right. They will have witnessed the furious, misogynistic rage against JK Rowling for refusing to ‘speak the language’ of the new woke elites – in this case the eccentric, science-denying language of ‘genderfluidity’. They will have seen Britain’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab being mauled for days for refusing to ‘perform the rituals’ of the correct-think mob – in this case by taking the knee (that is, bowing down) to the slogan of Black Lives Matter and all the identitarian nonsense that lurks behind it.

And they will have seen black actor and TV host Terry Crews being denounced as a race traitor for refusing to ‘recite the mantras’ of the new identitarianism – in Crews’ case by expressing concern that the cry of ‘black lives matter’ might morph into a belief that ‘black lives are better’. In short, Crews was flirting with the great blasphemy of our time – the idea that ‘all lives matter’.

And yet what has been the response to Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech from the commentariat and the liberal elites? Sheer, bizarre denialism. They insist cancel culture is a myth. They say there is no culture war against the past or against ordinary people’s moral and cultural values. That’s a lie spread by right-wingers like Trump, they claim. In fact, if anyone is igniting a culture war, it’s Trump, they say. ‘Trump fuels culture war at Mount Rushmore’, as a New York Times headline put it.

Read the rest of this entry »

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We are all prisoners of groupthink – UnHerd

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2020

As Number 2 says of the Village in the episode ‘The Chimes Of Big Ben’: “What, in fact, has been created? An international community! A perfect blueprint for world order … this is the pattern for the future.” I remember when that line sounded a bit on-the-nose and quaint.

Can The Prisoner go back to being dated and irrelevant? Please?

https://unherd.com/2020/07/why-the-prisoner-is-more-accurate-than-orwell/

BY

It’s a place with no history and no identity of its own. It has no nationality. It could be anywhere. Its citizens repeat cheery slogans to each other instead of having conversations. They’re forever staging oddly joyless ‘celebrations’, parading in circles through the streets waving rainbow-striped flags, cheering and clapping. They live in fear of saying the wrong thing, not joining in, and being declared ‘unmutual’ by a mysterious, unaccountable committee.

But this isn’t Britain in 2020. It’s the Village, the very unusual prison that a secret agent played by Patrick McGoohan is banged up in (and forever trying to bust out of) in the 1967 ITV adventure series The Prisoner. The Village is portrayed on screen by Portmeirion, the quite beautiful and grand architectural folly in North Wales created by eccentric millionaire Clough Williams-Ellis, and still doing very nicely as a tourist attraction and hotel. It’s an amazing place, on screen and off.

In the decades following its original transmission, The Prisoner seemed a gaudy curiosity, and very, very much of its time. It’s got the clashing brightness of much early colour TV; a jarring half-jazz, half-guitar pop score; and a jumpy, psychedelic mise-en-scene. It clearly belonged to a very particular paranoid Cold War moment; a colossally expensive remake in 2009 starring Ian McKellen seemed totally irrelevant to the modern world, and died a death. The original lived on only as a cult series, remembered more for the nostalgia value of its vivid iconography than anything else.

McGoohan’s character (known as ‘Number Six’) is permanently angry, or at least tensed up — there’s nobody he can relax or speak normally with. This gives the show an intense, unrelenting atmosphere that makes it heavy going for some viewers. There are many things The Prisoner shares with The Good Place, but chirpy, flirty banter isn’t one of them. The thing most people know about the show is ‘Rover’, the giant white balloon which patrols the Village, roaring and heavy-breathing, and which often smothers McGoohan back into line to the accompaniment of frantic bongos and detuned electric guitars.

You’re never quite sure whether Rover is meant to be funny, frightening, a bit of both or neither. It’s a quality that sums The Prisoner up. To most people it seems, or seemed, a typically naff bit of meandering, a product of the time that also served up the Beatles’ rambling, almost unwatchable, TV film Magical Mystery Tour.

But over the last few years, as the public sphere of Western society has taken a very odd and unexpected turn, I couldn’t help thinking more and more of The Prisoner, and specifically the Village. While The Prisoner shares many concerns with Nineteen Eight-Four, it now seems that McGoohan (who co-created it, and wrote and directed many of the episodes) got it more right than Orwell — and did so in a Sunday night mainstream TV show with ad breaks, punch-ups and dolly birds.

The Village is just the backdrop to thriller stories that are inventive and unusual, though they’re recognisably of the same genre as Ian Fleming or Len Deighton. There’s a whole futuristic underground base beneath the Village of the kind Sean Connery is always blowing up. And on its surface level The Prisoner works as a spy story with a unique twist, Bond transplanted into a totally oppositional setting. But that backdrop now seems by far the most striking and relevant thing about it.

Unlike the shoddy goods and deprivation of Airstrip One in Nineteen Eight-Four, the Village is an affluent society, an apparently quite attractive place to be. It’s certainly not a communist hellhole; no cage was ever more gilded. Consumer goods are plentiful, all branded with the Village’s meaningless penny farthing logo. People are punctiliously polite and convivial until the very moment somebody (and it’s almost always McGoohan) starts asking questions or strikes a sour note. Then they either evade, pretend not to hear, get nervous, or run away. “A still tongue makes a happy life” and “Questions are a burden to others” are two of the Village’s often-parroted slogans at these moments. Inquiries about the location or history of the Village are particularly unwelcome — it’s just ‘very cosmopolitan’ and ‘international’.

There are regular applause sessions for “valued members of the community” — “they do a marvellous job!” Art is there merely to reproduce Village symbols, and has no value as beautiful or diverting in and of itself. Even sport and play are ideological: there’s ‘kosho’, a bizarre hybrid involving baseball gloves, helmets and trampolines, or human chess, which is monitored in case anybody makes a suspiciously individualistic move.

The parades and festivities are never-ending. It’s always Pride Month of a kind in the Village. A particularly good example is ‘Appreciation Day’, the climax of which is the unveiling — to much hooraying — of a stone monument that says simply ‘Achievement’.

And the Village is nothing if not progressive — at one point, during the election campaign, Chief Administrator Number 2 ends a stump speech by calling, “We know what we must do! What must we do?” A lackey holds up a board reading “PROGRESS” and the crowd dutifully chants it back. The recent ‘Progress Pride’ flag — updated to be even more inclusive, and displayed on the Twitter profile of the House Of Commons, for heaven’s sake — features a large red umbrella that’s so Village it’s hard to believe it wasn’t intentional.

Definitely the most eyebrow-raising episode in our current times is ‘A Change Of Mind’, in which McGoohan’s character is cancelled by a mob of ‘public-minded citizens’. A particularly heinous anti-social misdemeanour sparks this cancellation: he builds his own gym equipment and refuses to use the Village sports facilities. But this offence is merely a pretext. He’s taken before a ‘committee of social affairs’ and makes the very unwise move of mocking it.

Other miscreants who comply with the committee are made to give tearful public apologies (written for them) to the mob, including lines like “They’re right, of course, I’m inadequate!” The next stage is to attend a young people’s denouncing session, a kind of HR sensitivity course, which McGoohan sends up — at which point he is officially posted as ‘unmutual’, has his social credit removed, is officially shunned and marched up to the hospital to be ‘cured’ by a lobotomy.

The recent sight of Peter Hitchens being pursued down the street by placard-waving, slogan-chanting students was uncannily similar to the pursuit of McGoohan the unmutual by the marching mob. All it needed was the balloon to set the whole thing off.

I get the feeling the Village is very much where the elite institutions of our society want us to end up — a progressive, international community with no past and no sense of place, where we celebrate continually, avoid debate and difficult facts with mantras, reward non-conformity with ‘re-training’, and punish ‘Unmutuals’ with mobs. There is a large, and growing, blob of pure Village throughout our public life, and it’s seeping into our private lives too. Can you trust everybody in your DMs?

As Number 2 says of the Village in the episode ‘The Chimes Of Big Ben’: “What, in fact, has been created? An international community! A perfect blueprint for world order … this is the pattern for the future.” I remember when that line sounded a bit on-the-nose and quaint.

Can The Prisoner go back to being dated and irrelevant? Please?

Be seeing you

 

 

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Refusal to Talk with Contact Tracers a Crime?

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2020

One might not want to submit to an unconstitutional search of one’s mind. One might not want to submit to a police state measure. Mr. Day is way off base in his remark about “ignorance, stupidity, or obstinance” being the cause of evading the contact tracers.

Who owns the contents of your mind? Do you own them, or does Rockland County and its contact tracers?

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/july/06/refusal-to-talk-with-contact-tracers-a-crime/

Written by Michael S. Rozeff
Monday July 6, 2020
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Prior to arrest of a suspect of a crime, “The officer is free to ask questions before an arrest, but must inform the suspect that the questioning is voluntary and that he or she is free to leave at any time.”

“After placing the suspect under arrest, the officer will say something similar to, ‘You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.’”

If a crime suspect need not say a word, having a right to remain silent, doesn’t a person allegedly in contact with a coronavirus-infected person, have the same right to remain silent? The person thought to be in contact is not a suspect in a crime, after all. Doesn’t freedom of speech include this right to remain silent?

Yet:

Officials in New York’s Rockland County announced on Wednesday that they had issued subpoenas to eight people allegedly infected by the coronavirus for refusing to speak with contact tracers voluntarily.

‘The health of our county’ will not be ‘compromised because of ignorance, stupidity, or obstinance,’ Ed Day, the county executive, told reporters.

‘Failure to comply will be costly: $2,000 per day,’ Patricia Rupert, the county’s health commissioner, added, referring to the subpoenas, according to the Hill.

There are sound reasons to refuse to talk. One might be forced to be tested. The result might be a two-week quarantine. A test might be a false positive. One might be snitching on other people and not want to live with such behavior. One might not want to submit to an unconstitutional search of one’s mind. One might not want to submit to a police state measure. Mr. Day is way off base in his remark about “ignorance, stupidity, or obstinance” being the cause of evading the contact tracers.

Who owns the contents of your mind? Do you own them, or does Rockland County and its contact tracers?

This news item is infuriating. Looting a person’s mind under threat of excessive fines for no crime, also violating the Fifth Amendment, is on a par with smashing a window and looting a pair of sneakers. It actually is worse. The notion of a thoughtcrime is worse, because it invades your being.

Be seeing you

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Is the Texas Covid ‘Spike’ Fake News?

Posted by M. C. on July 7, 2020

As Judge Hill said at that May 18th meeting, “If you have a subjective fever and you have a headache and you live in Collin County, you now meet the qualifications to be a probable COVID patient. It is remarkable how low the standard is now.”

Even worse, once a “probable” case was determined based on possibly unrelated subjective criteria, up to 15 people in possible contact with that “probable” case were also listed as “probable cases.” And “probable cases” were considered cases.

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/july/06/is-the-texas-covid-spike-fake-news/

Written by Ron Paul
Monday July 6, 2020
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On July 2nd, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order mandating the wearing of face masks across the state, whether indoors or outdoors, when six feet cannot be maintained between people. In the governor’s decree, he cited a rise in Covid cases, a rise in test positivity, and a rise in hospitalizations as justification to force people to cover their faces in public.

The move is not only a violation of the civil liberties of all Texans. Abbott may have based his executive order on inaccurate information about a “rise” in Covid cases due to the Texas State Department of Health Services changing the definition of what constitutes a “Covid case.”

Thanks goes to Collin County Judge Chris Hill for blowing the whistle on what appears to be a move in mid-May to redefine what was a “Covid” case to open the door to a massive increase – all to match the mainstream media line that a “second wave” was on the way.

In a Commissioners Court hearing for Collin County on May 18th, it was revealed that while previously the determination of a Covid “case” was a confirmed test result, the definition was suddenly changed to count “probable” cases as “cases.” At the same time, the threshold for determining “probable” was lowered to a ridiculous level.

As Judge Hill said at that May 18th meeting, “If you have a subjective fever and you have a headache and you live in Collin County, you now meet the qualifications to be a probable COVID patient. It is remarkable how low the standard is now.”

Even worse, once a “probable” case was determined based on possibly unrelated subjective criteria, up to 15 people in possible contact with that “probable” case were also listed as “probable cases.” And “probable cases” were considered cases.

Repeat that farce across Texas and is it any wonder there was a “spike” in “cases”?

Also, Governor Abbott’s claim that hospitals were being over-run by Covid patients was refuted by the Houston hospital directors themselves, who said they were nowhere near actual capacity and in fact were about the same level as they were last year.

The basis for Abbott’s unconstitutional “executive order” has been shown to be false. Will he admit his mistake?

It is encouraging to see so many local and county officials across Texas announcing they will refuse to enforce Governor Abbott’s unconstitutional face mask order. Thankfully the spirit of freedom and love of liberty is still alive in Texas.

The “second wave” is driven by propaganda. Across the country, Covid testing increased from about 150,000 to more than 700,000 per day. You can’t drive through Houston without seeing a flurry of signs advertising “Free Covid test! Results in 15 minutes!” Last week Reuters reported that tests shipped around the country by the federal government were contaminated.

Deaths from coronavirus – even the deaths “with” coronavirus rather than deaths “from” coronavirus – are down more than 90 percent since the peak in April. The decline in deaths continues. That means we are closer to the “herd immunity” that will finally kill this virus. Yet Governor Abbott and others across the country see this as a reason to lock the country back down.

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Private Defense in the History of Genoa | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 6, 2020

In conclusion, I have briefly illustrated the peculiar resilience of a republic with a weak, premodern state, and the fascinating fact that the availability of private arms and private wealth rendered a conquest of this republic by a foreign power always difficult—its pacification and annexation almost a mirage.

https://mises.org/wire/private-defense-history-genoa?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=49783bb324-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-49783bb324-228343965

The city of Genoa is often excluded from histories of medieval and Renaissance republicanism. Similarly, Genoa is also absent from discussions on the rise of territorial states in northern Italy. This exclusion can be explained in various ways. To be sure, the Genoese have demonstrated a lack of interest in writing political philosophy and in intellectualizing their civic values. But, more importantly, Genoa represents an unwelcome contradiction for all the comprehensive theses proposed by scholars to describe the “progress” from medieval chaos to modern state building and statecraft. In other words, because statist historians do not know how to tackle Genoa, they very often ignore it. In this article, I will not give a complete account of the history of Genoa—its rise as a maritime community in response to Islamic raids, its sophisticated constitutional history, and its countless commercial colonies and business networks scattered across the Mediterranean world and beyond.1 I do not have the space to accomplish all this.

Rather, my aim here is to focus on a particular aspect of Genoese history, namely, military organization and defense. I shall not flesh out a systematic theory of private defense, its practical feasibility and its moral superiority to various forms of warfare state and to the state monopoly of violence, because I would not be qualified to attempt such an endeavor, and anyway Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Bob Murphy, and Walter Block (among others) have already articulated such a theory.2 Instead, I will simply offer some examples of historical episodes surrounding private wealth and private arms in Genoa that do not fit current historical narratives about the rise of the modern, militarized and territorial state. I include private wealth in this discussion, because, as we shall see, private wealth was strictly linked to the ability to raise private armies, build private fleets, and develop financial/diplomatic ties akin to insurance.

In a sense, what I wish to do is simply wonder. Does the history of Genoa—and in this instance, specifically, its tradition of private defense—fit into modernist, teleological narratives about state formation? Does it exemplify, or even simply imperfectly sketch, an alternative to state-run monopolies of violence—an alternative that is more respectful of property rights and less conducive to wasteful aggression? This subject is relevant for Austro-libertarians, because if we wish to question the legitimacy of the modern state, we have to explore examples from history that show how all government “services” have at some point been offered in alternative, effective ways by private actors or privatized “governments.”

Private Wealth

The Italian Wars were a long and tragic series of conflicts starting in 1494 and fought mainly across the Italian Peninsula. They had a multiplicity of objectives, among which were the control of cities such as Milan and Naples but also the leadership of Christendom in the difficult fight against Ottoman Islam. To make a long story short, the main contestants were France—a kingdom that since the end of the Hundred Years’ War had become one of the most militarized on the entire continent—and Spain—whose Habsburg rulers held a transnational collection of crowns and titles including of the Holy Roman Empire. This conflict between regional powers kickstarted or hastened the demise of medieval communes and local self-government in Italy, because small states could not survive in the brave new world of large standing and mercenary armies raised by foreign princes. To survive, independent Italian states had to come to their senses and modernize, tax away, and build efficient bureaucracies. This, in a nutshell, is the story we are told. A triumph of Machiavellian determinism.

And yet it is interesting to consider what happened in the late 1530s, when the French king Francis I sent a request to the Genoese doge (the traditional title for the head of government in Genoa). The request was very straightforward: Francis I knew that Genoese funds were being used by his Habsburg rival, Charles V, to finance military campaigns, and because Genoese merchants were at that time trying to mend the relations between their city and France in order to continue to access the French markets, Francis demanded as a sign of goodwill that the doge order some public funds to be lent to his court as well, not just to the Habsburg Spanish one. The reply that the French king received from Genoa shows the intellectual and ideological gap separating this Italian republic from its increasingly “modern” neighbors. The doge and the Genoese government, baffled by the French request, explained how in Genoa the state owned almost nothing and its funds were very limited. The doge went on to explain to the French court that yes, it was true that the Spanish monarch had received money from Genoa, but he had done so by dealing on the capital market and borrowing money from private Genoese citizens, aristocratic families, and professional moneylenders. If the French king needed funds, he was very welcome to do the same.

Was the doge bluffing? No. He was not. Since the fourteenth century, Genoa’s constitutional order had embodied a medieval conception of freedom that favored the dispersion of power and limited public expenditures. And from the fifteenth century, the creation of the Bank of St. George had represented yet another obstacle to the centralization of power and state formation. St. George was not merely a bank, but rather a spontaneous, crossclass organization of creditors who effectively privatized tax farming and took over the administration of the colonies in the Levant: very often the members of the assembly of St. George were the same businessmen who had invested in trade across the Mediterranean. They were skeptical toward the idea of empowering a specific doge or the communal government with a standing army or a navy—yet they were ready to put together funds necessary to ensure the survival of their colonies and the rule of law. As a result of these institutional changes (which I can only mention here), sixteenth-century Genoa was still a medieval polity, with a series of overlapping jurisdictions, and a city of private family wealth and power—what George Gorse has aptly described as the “antithesis of Venice.”3

Private Arms

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Nigeria: Over Fifty Boko Haram Attacks on Christians in Six Months Go Unreported

Posted by M. C. on July 6, 2020

You don’t hear about that from the US government nor the media.

Christians…you know, that’s like Christmas and stuff.

Too offensive.

I wonder if these Christians were killed by the same weapons the dead Hillary state department/CIA staffer in Libya was running.

https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2020/07/06/nigeria-over-fifty-boko-haram-attacks-on-christians-in-six-months-go-unreported/

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.

Boko Haram Islamic terrorists carried out over “fifty different attacks on different communities between the end of 2019 to June 2020,” the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN) has revealed, most of which were “unreported or underreported” by the media.

As Breitbart News reported, EYN — the largest indigenous Christian denomination in the Northeast of Nigeria — has reported the slaughter of more than 8,370 of its members, including 8 pastors, by militants of the Boko Haram Islamic terror group.

The Reverend Joel Billi, president of the EYN, said last week that the church has been the hardest hit by jihadists of any Christian denomination in the country and along with the deaths more than half of EYN’s 586 church buildings were either burned or damaged by Boko Haram.

The extent of the attacks, amounting to what many consider an authentic Christian genocide in the country, is exacerbated by the seemingly willful silence of the global media.

“The Boko Haram factions continue to be responsible for the most appalling violence in northeast Nigeria on an almost daily basis,” said Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). “However, aside from particularly appalling incidents that garner international attention, the majority of these attacks go unreported and unnoticed.”

“Both local and international media outlets must do more to report on the violence which is unfolding across Nigeria,” Thomas added. “We are deeply saddened by the suffering endured by the EYN and its members, and echo its calls on the Nigerian government to take immediate action to mitigate and address attacks by all non-state actors.”

CSW has provided a helpful partial list of some of the many unreported terror attacks carried out against Christians by Boko Haram over the last six months.

On December 25, 2019 Boko Haram militants attacked the Bagajau community in Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State, killing nine Christians, CSW notes. Among them were Damjuda Dalihis, his two children and their friends, who were burnt alive in their room.

Four days later, eighteen Christians were abducted following an attack on the Mandaragirau community in Biu LGA, Borno State, in which raiders destroyed the church building, primary school, and foodstuffs.

On February 2, 2020 all three EYN Churches were burnt down during an attack on the Leho community of Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State.

On February 20, 2020 Boko Haram raided the Tabang community in Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State, abducting a 9-year-old boy, injuring a female EYN member, and burning down the homes of 17 EYN members.

The following day, jihadists attacked the Garkida community and torched the first EYN Church, along with an Anglican and a Living Faith church building. The assailants went on to loot and burn the EYN Brethren College of Health Technology, the EYN Rural Health Department and its vehicles, and prominent Christian homes and shops, and abducted Mr. Emmanuel Bitrus Tarfa.

On April 3, 2020 Boko Haram jihadists attacked Kuburmbula and Kwamtiyahi villages in Chibok, Borno State, burning down 20 homes and abducting and later murdering Meshack John, Mutah Nkeki and Kabu Yakubu.

Two days later, Boko Haram attacked Mussa Bri in Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State, looting and burning Christian-owned shops.

On April 7, 2020 Boko Haram terrorists stormed the Wamdeo community in Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State, burning two vehicles, robbing stores, and killing five people.

On May 6, 2020 members of Boko Haram attacked the Debiro, Dakwiama, and Tarfa communities in Biu LGA, Borno State, killing Mr Audu Bata, destroying two villages, and burning down two EYN Churches.

The following week, Boko Haram once again raided Mussa Bri in Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State, killing Luka Bitrus and slashing Mrs Ijaduwa Shaibu with a machete.

On May 30, 2020 Islamic terrorists attempted to slay an entire family in Kwabila village in Askira/Uba LGA, Borno State. They managed to kill three family members, and the other three had to be hospitalized because of their injuries.

On June 16, 2020 Boko Haram militants attacked Mbulabam in Chibok LGA, Borno State, abducting a young girl named Mary Ishaku Nkeke.

The next day, Boko Haram attacked the Kautikari community in Chibok LGA, Borno State, killing three and kidnapping five young women and girls belonging to EYN.

On June 22, 2020 Boko Haram attacked the Kautikari community in Chibok LGA, killing two and abducting two teenage girls and a 20-year-old woman.

The U.S.-based Family Research Council (FRC) recently denounced the “bloodbath” taking place in Nigeria, as radical Islamists carry on a largely unreported slaughter of the nation’s Christians.

The “dangerous darkness” of radical Islam with its genocidal intentions is sweeping across the African continent and is particularly lethal in Nigeria, Lela Gilbert wrote on June 23 in an article titled “The Threat of Genocide Darkens the Future for Nigeria’s Christians.”

In recent decades, “tens of thousands of Nigerians have been slaughtered,” Gilbert writes, and yet “their stories rarely appear in mainstream Western news reports” despite the fact that it is “increasingly clear that another genocide is already taking place.”

Last January, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) appealed to President Trump and Pope Francis to intercede to help stop the “genocidal killings of Christians” taking place in the country.

Spokesmen for the rights group said they had made this decision after a recent string of well-coordinated attacks on Christians by armed Islamists in Kaduna state.

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