MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Green New Deal, Healthcare for Illegals: Soros-Funded Groups Push Dems to Use Virus to Achieve Progressive Wish List

Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2020

George Soros

Disease Has A Face

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/05/green-new-deal-healthcare-for-illegals-soros-funded-groups-push-dems-to-use-virus-to-achieve-progressive-wish-list/

by Aaron Klein

A coalition of progressive groups, many funded by billionaire George Soros, is sponsoring a “People’s Bailout” community organizing outfit nudging Congress to use the next stimulus package during the coronavirus crisis to enact reforms that would fundamentally transform American society by achieving longtime progressive aims.

In the spirit of the repurposed progressive anthem of never letting a crisis go to waste, the suddenly created People’s Bailout group is demanding that the next stimulus package adhere to “five principles” the group says are endorsed by “nearly 1,000 organizations, unions, and community leaders, and nearly 100 members of Congress.”

Those “principals” encompass such far-left wish list items as government healthcare for illegal immigrants, required $15 per hour minimum wage, enhanced union collective bargaining and government regulation of the board of directors of private companies to ensure “worker representation.”

Also within the “five principles” list are “direct sizable cash payments to every person” and the use of stimulus legislation to push what would amount to a massive “green” new deal.

The “green” section calls for public funds to (below are direct quotes):

  • expand wind and solar power
  • build clean and affordable public transit
  • weatherize our buildings
  • manufacture more clean energy goods
  • expand public services that support climate resilience,
  • [reduce] climate emissions and toxic pollution.

Using progressive key words, the group exclaims that a “people’s bailout should be rooted in justice” and “we demand the bailout provide a just recovery.”

The group is pushing the #PeoplesBailout hashtag and has gone so far as to provide activists with wording to use in social media posts directed at lawmakers.  The group’s website also provides exact scripting for people to read when calling their lawmakers to demand the “five principles” be incorporated in stimulus legislation.

The People’s Bailout held an online May Day rally and now wants activists to get further involved by displaying banners and forming car caravans.

The website promotes a “helpful slideshow and handout on key tactics to use” to push promote the transformative agenda.

The “helpful slideshow” and “tactics” linked on the site are from the Ruckus Society, which specializes in the disruption tactic of so-called direct action.

Ruckus provided training and resources to the Occupy movement. It’s been funded by the Soros-financed Tides Foundation.

Ruckus leaders infamously helped to spark the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle that turned violent.

The Occupy-Ruckus link is instructive. Besides Ruckus, Occupy was also backed by groups like MoveOn.org and the Working Families Party.

The Soros-funded MoveOn.org and the Working Families Party are two of 13 listed “sponsors” of the People’s Bailout group.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one People’s Bailout sponsor is the Sunrise Movement which helped craft the socialist utopian Green New Deal blueprint introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Sunrise was in part inspired by the activism of Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the radical immigration group United We Dream.

Another sponsor is the Indivisible Project, which has partnered with Organizing for Action, the activist group that morphed from Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.  Breitbart News extensively reported that Indivisible leaders are openly associated with groups financed by Soros.

Indivisible yesterday endorsed Joe Biden for president. The group’s leaders say they are engaged with Biden’s campaign on such policies as universal voting by mail.

The other 13 sponsors of the People’s Bailout include the Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Justice Alliance, Greenpeace and the Soros-funded Sierra Club.

The People’s Bailout also boasts over 1,000 “signatories” which reads like a who’s who of far-left activist groups, including a large number of groups funded by Soros as well as the Soros-financed Tides Foundation.

The People’s Bailout is not alone. Many of the same far-left, Big Government proposals are also being peddled by other influential progressive organizations for Democrats to include in the next round of emergency stimulus funding, which the groups say should be at least as large as the $2.2 trillion CARES Act.

The Center for American Progress (CAP), which functions as an idea factory for the Democratic Party, compiled its own wish list for the next round of recovery legislation.

Like the People’s Bailout, CAP wants those defined as essential workers to get paid minimum wages of at least $15 dollars and they must have the ability to join a union.

Progressives have long pushed minimum wage hikes despite warnings that such proposals could lead to disastrous economic consequences.

The federal minimum wage hike is a progressive plan that in the past was marketed as a “living wage.” The living wage scheme, deployed in the past locally, has a history of hurting small businesses, negatively impacting local economies and decreasing employment opportunities for low income workers. Indeed, the living wage has monumentally failed during numerous high profile trials.

Increased abortion funding, stimulus checks for illegals, permanent housing guarantees, mail-in voting for elections and more union access also make their way into the CAP proposals.

Be seeing you

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

How Long Can Biden Stay in His Basement? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2020

With that flat denial, Biden put his credibility on the line — in defense of his character. For one cannot equate what Reade claims Biden did with the reputation he has built over half a century as a decent and honorable man. Biden now has to persuade the nation this woman is deluded, wildly exaggerating, misremembering — or is deliberately lying.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/patrick-j-buchanan/how-long-can-biden-stay-in-his-basement/

By

Where Barack Obama achieved notoriety for “leading from behind,” Joe Biden, these last two months, has been leading from the basement.

And, one must add, doing so quite successfully.

Since his rout of Bernie Sanders on Super Tuesday, Biden has led President Donald Trump in every national poll and, lately, opened up a lead in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida. One poll has him tied with Trump in Texas.

Last week, however, reality intruded. Biden was forced to defend himself against the lurid charge of ex-aide Tara Reade that, as a senator in 1993, he had groped and assaulted her inside the Capitol complex.

Why did Biden go public? 

Because witnesses were coming forward to say Reade told them of Biden’s misconduct years ago, and major media outlets began to give the charge credibility by moving the allegation onto Page One.

Media allies were signaling that they could not forever give Biden a pass on this, and he had to speak to the charges. Which is what Biden did Friday as he told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski:

“This never happened … and it’s as simple as that.”

With that flat denial, Biden put his credibility on the line — in defense of his character. For one cannot equate what Reade claims Biden did with the reputation he has built over half a century as a decent and honorable man. Biden now has to persuade the nation this woman is deluded, wildly exaggerating, misremembering — or is deliberately lying.

If “nothing happened,” Biden must explain how well he knew Reade and why she left a plum job in the office of a U.S. senator after only nine months.

This is not a matter any presidential candidate wants to discuss while conducting his campaign. But this is only the beginning of Biden’s problems — and of his party’s problems with Biden.

With four months left before his nomination in Milwaukee, and six months before the November election, there are still among Democrats gnawing concerns based on Biden’s performance in the debates and primaries, and since, that he has lost the ability to articulate issues clearly and cogently, or to complete complex thoughts.

The worry is that he is suffering from mental decline and could be destroyed by Trump in a presidential debate. Biden forgets, mumbles, misspeaks, loses his train of thought and appears, at times, confused.

Moreover, Biden is no spring chicken. He would take office at 78, one year older than Ronald Reagan, our oldest president, was when he left office.

Biden has also signaled, by his references to being a “bridge” president, that he will be serving only the single term that would end in 2025 with him having celebrated his 82nd birthday.

“I view myself as a transition candidate,” Biden conceded last week.

This makes his vice presidential choice crucial. For that individual would not only become president instantly should something happen to a President Biden, but he or she would also become the leader of the Democratic Party, the probable presidential nominee in 2024, and possibly president.

Who will Biden select as America’s future leader, after him?

First rule: No white men need apply. Biden has ruled them out.

Indeed, no male candidate of any race or ethnicity need apply. The vice presidential nomination has been set aside for a woman.

A woman of color? Not necessarily. 

But here Biden has another problem. It was a huge turnout among African Americans in South Carolina that rescued Biden’s failing candidacy and propelled him to his Super Tuesday triumph three days later.

Should Biden choose Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar as his running mate in a party that celebrates diversity above all, that all-white ticket would dismay and conceivably enrage the political elites of the black and Hispanic communities in the Democratic coalition.

If he chooses Sen. Elizabeth Warren, that ticket would also be all white. Moreover, it would point to a Democratic Party future far to the left of the constituencies that turned out in panic for Joe Biden because he was the last man standing athwart the forced march to the left of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.

If Biden chooses an African American like Stacey Abrams, who lost the Georgia governor’s race in 2018, or Sen. Kamala Harris, who did poorly in the primaries and savaged Biden for his opposing forced busing to integrate public schools in the 1970s, would Democrats welcome either as the party’s designated future leader?

Michelle Obama, as Biden wistfully says, would fit the bill perfectly.

But the former first lady is unavailable. And while Biden is mulling over his choice in his basement, Republicans will be attacking his character, credibility and mental competence. Before the fall campaign begins, they will have soiled his candidacy good.

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried,” said Winston Churchill, after the British gave him “The Order of the Boot” in 1945.

Campaign 2020 may show us our own democracy at its worst.

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Get Russian – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2020

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/05/01/get-russian/

Dissent is Russian, or haven’t you heard?

Dissent is Russian.

Peace activism is Russian.

Exposing war crimes is Russian.

Inconveniencing Democrats is Russian.

Tara Reade? Russian.

Julian Assange? Russian.

Jill Stein? Russian.

Tulsi Gabbard? Russian.

Russia? You bet your sweet ass that’s Russian.

Conspiracy theories are Russian.

Alternative media are Russian.

It’s Russian to ask questions.

It’s Russian to reveal objective facts.

It’s Russian to tell the truth.

Truth is Russian in an empire of lies.

If truth is Russian, I don’t want to be Australian.

If truth is Russian, you can call me Svetlana.

If truth is Russian, then I will ascend to the clouds

by climbing a Tolstoy novel,

kicking my feet out in front of me

with my bum low to the ground

balancing a bottle of vodka atop a fur hat

whilst shouting “Stallone was the bad guy in Rocky IV”

until my voice is hoarse.

If truth is Russian, then let’s all get Russian.

Get as Russian as possible.

Get aggressively Russian.

Get offensively Russian.

Get Russianly Russian.

Get so Russian it hurts.

Get so Russian they write Palmer Report articles about you.

Get so Russian that Rachel Maddow spits your name like it’s poison.

Get so Russian that Putin calls you and says tone it down.

Get so Russian that Khabib Nurmagomedov has nightmares about fighting you.

Camus said “The only way to deal with an unfree world

is to become so absolutely Russian

that your very existence is an act of rebellion,”

or something like that.

So get Russian, baby.

Fold your arms and get low on the dance floor.

Get low, shorty,

get low, low, low.

Get low,

get low,

and get Russian.

_________________________

_________________________

_________________________

_________________________

_________________________

_________________________

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Rutherford Institute :: Appeals Court Chills First Amendment Activity by Allowing Cops to Retaliate Against Nonviolent Protesters |

Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2020

“Police have mastered the art of the double standard: they don’t want to be held accountable for their own misconduct or that of their fellow officers, but they want to throw the book at anyone who peacefully engages in constitutionally protected activities if that person is nearby when a cop gets hurt on the job,”

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/appeals_court_allows_cops_injured_while_policing_public_protests_to_retaliate_against_activists_who_were_present_but_didnt_cause_the_injuries

WASHINGTON, DC  — The Rutherford Institute is pushing back against an effort by police to chill constitutionally-protected civil rights protests through the use of retaliatory lawsuits. In filing an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Mckesson v. Doe, Rutherford Institute attorneys are challenging a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that allows law enforcement officials to hold protest organizers financially liable when officers get hurt (accidental or otherwise) while carrying out their duties at a constitutionally-protected demonstration, even when the organizers themselves did nothing to cause the injury. Incredibly, the lower court reasoned that organizers of a protest should be held responsible for engaging in activity that merely has the potential to involve police or require their presence, thereby exposing them to possible injuries. The case arose after a police officer, positioned near a group that was protesting police brutality in front of police headquarters, was hit by a projectile thrown by an unknown, unidentified individual. The injured officer sued one of the event organizers, DeRay Mckesson, for more than $75,000, despite the fact that Mckesson engaged in no acts of violence and did not incite or condone violence by others.

Attorneys Erin Glenn Busby, Lisa R. Eskow, and Michael F. Sturley of the University of Texas School of Law Supreme Court Clinic assisted in advancing the legal arguments in Mckesson.

“Police have mastered the art of the double standard: they don’t want to be held accountable for their own misconduct or that of their fellow officers, but they want to throw the book at anyone who peacefully engages in constitutionally protected activities if that person is nearby when a cop gets hurt on the job,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “This is yet another Machiavellian attempt by the government to prevent Americans from exercising their First Amendment right to peacefully speak truth to power.”

In July 2016, activists took to the streets in outrage after two Baton Rouge police officers shot 37-year-old Alton Sterling six times at close range while the man was pinned to the ground. The incident, which was recorded by bystanders and shared on social media, sparked outrage in the city’s African-American community. On July 9, activists demonstrated in front of the Baton Rouge Police Department’s headquarters to protest the escalating police violence directed at black men and women nationwide and demand accountability and reforms. During the protest, DeRay Mckesson, one of the event organizers, engaged in no acts of violence and did not incite or condone violence by others. While the demonstration began peacefully, enraged protesters began throwing objects at police who were massed nearby preparing to make arrests. One officer was struck and injured by a rock thrown by an unknown protester. The injured officer brought a personal injury lawsuit against Mckesson and the “Black Lives Matter” movement, seeking more than $75,000, claiming they knew or should have known that violence would erupt during the demonstration. The lawsuit was dismissed by the trial court, which ruled that Mckesson was engaged in constitutionally protected activity and there was no allegation that he authorized or directed any violent actions. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit, ruling that Mckesson could be liable for the officer’s injuries because Mckesson should have known police might respond to the protest, inciting violence by protesters. In its brief, The Rutherford Institute warns against allowing police to weaponize personal injury lawsuits in order to chill First Amendment activities.

Be seeing you

image_511

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

The Rutherford Institute :: Technofascism: Digital Book Burning in a Totalitarian Age | By John W. Whitehead |

Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2020

Journalist Matt Taibbi gets its: “The people who want to add a censorship regime to a health crisis are more dangerous and more stupid by leaps and bounds than a president who tells people to inject disinfectant.”

Don’t fall for the propaganda.

Translation: the CCDH evidently believes the public is too dumb to think for itself and must be protected from dangerous ideas.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/technofascism_digital_book_burning_in_a_totalitarian_age

By John W. Whitehead

“Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices—taking advantage of our freedom of speech—who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do.”—Nat Hentoff

We are fast becoming a nation—nay, a world—of book burners.

While on paper, we are technically free to speak—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—in reality, however, we are only as free to speak as the government and its corporate partners such as Facebook, Google or YouTube may allow.

That’s not a whole lot of freedom. Especially if you’re inclined to voice opinions that may be construed as conspiratorial or dangerous.

Take David Icke, for example.

Icke, a popular commentator and author often labeled a conspiracy theorist by his detractors, recently had his Facebook page and YouTube channel (owned by Google) deleted for violating site policies by “spreading coronavirus disinformation.”

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which has been vocal about calling for Icke’s de-platforming, is also pushing for the removal of all other sites and individuals who promote Icke’s content in an effort to supposedly “save lives.”

Translation: the CCDH evidently believes the public is too dumb to think for itself and must be protected from dangerous ideas.

This is the goosestepping Nanny State trying to protect us from ourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Professor Neil Ferguson, and the idiot presidents and prime ministers who believe his computer predictions

Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2020

This is called a clue. Computer models predicting the spread of disease may be an interesting academic exercise, but in the real world, where lives and nations are on the line, THE DATA, on which the projections are based, are elusive. Without accurate data, what do you have? How about opinion, bias, and conjecture?

Business Insider, 4/25: “Ferguson’s team warned Boris Johnson that the quest for ‘herd immunity’ [letting people live their lives out in the open in the UK] could cost 510,000 lives, prompting an abrupt U-turn [massive national lockdown in the UK]…His [Ferguson’s] simulations have been influential in other countries as well, cited by authorities in the US, Germany, and France.”

“On March 23, the UK scrapped ‘herd immunity’ in favor of a suppression strategy, and the country made preparations for weeks of lockdown. Ferguson’s study was responsible.”

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/05/04/professor-neil-ferguson-and-the-idiot-presidents/

Buying, for the moment, the official story about the “pandemic,” there were two basic choices:

Let people go about their lives and develop, through contact, natural immunity to the disease; or imprison populations in their homes.

Why was the second choice made?

This is my second article about Neil Ferguson (first article, here), the UK professor whose computer model of COVID-19 changed the world and drove that second choice.

Ferguson’s model predicted a worst-case estimate of 510,000 deaths in the UK, and 2.2 million deaths in the US.

At that point, anybody who was anybody stood up and saluted.

Both heads of government, Trump and Johnson, radically changed course. Instead of allowing people to go about their lives and develop natural immunity, they took the lockdown approach, devastating their economies.

Below, I’ll reprint quotes from my first article, exposing Professor Ferguson’s track record of abysmal and destructive failures in predicting the spread of diseases.

This record was available to anyone—including Trump, Fauci, Deborah Birx, Boris Johnson—but of course these important people have no time to read or think.

Apparently, a key White house conversation went something like this:

FAUCI: Mr. President, we have a new report from the UK. A computer model is predicting the spread of the epidemic. There could be 2 million deaths in the US, if we don’t take drastic action. There must be heavy lockdowns. The state governors will have to carry that ball, but your position on this needs to be unequivocal.

TRUMP: Two million deaths. You’re sure?

FAUCI: Yes, sir. Quite sure.

TRUMP: No way out? Except lockdowns?

FAUCI: That’s right.

TRUMP: Well, then. Okay.

The sheer brilliance in the Oval Office that day must have been blinding.

So, first up, let’s take a peek at a recent article from Nature, the venerable British medical journal. April 2, “Special report: The [computer] simulations driving the world’s response to COVID-19”:

“…it’s natural to wonder how reliable any of the [computer] simulations are. Unfortunately, during a pandemic it is hard to get data — such as on infection rates — against which to judge a model’s projections.”

This is called a clue. Computer models predicting the spread of disease may be an interesting academic exercise, but in the real world, where lives and nations are on the line, THE DATA, on which the projections are based, are elusive. Without accurate data, what do you have? How about opinion, bias, and conjecture?

Nature: “’You can project [via computer models] forwards and then compare against what you get. But the problem is that our surveillance systems are pretty rubbish’, says John Edmunds, who is a modeller at the LSHTM [London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine]. ‘The total numbers of cases reported, is that accurate? No. Accurate anywhere? No’.”

I see. Rubbish. Total number of cases—inaccurate everywhere. Bad data. No data. In other words, the computer models are sophisticated tripe.

Nature: “’Forecasts made during an outbreak are rarely investigated during or after the event for their accuracy, and only recently have forecasters begun to make results, code, models and data available for retrospective analysis,’ Edmunds and his team noted last year in a paper that assessed the performance of forecasts made in a 2014–15 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. They found that it was possible to reliably predict the epidemic’s course one or two weeks ahead of time, but no longer, because of the inherent uncertainty and lack of knowledge about the outbreak.”

Computer predictions are rarely investigated for accuracy. Can’t make accurate predictions for more than two weeks ahead. Do you suppose Fauci, who has served as a public health dictator since medieval times, is aware of this, but is ignoring it? That’s a rhetorical question, Your Honor. I withdraw it. The answer is obvious.

Finally, Nature provides us with this startling factoid: “The 16 March simulations that the [Neil Ferguson] team ran to inform the UK government’s COVID-19 response used an agent-based model built in 2005 to see what would happen in Thailand if H5N1 avian flu mutated to a version that could spread easily between people.”

That’s like saying, “This year, the driver in the Indianapolis 500 is sitting in a car built 15 years ago. He’s dusted it off and hopes it works and doesn’t crash into the wall.”

You may think this is an unkind comparison, but we know something about that dusty Ferguson 2005 computer model of avian flu. Here is a quote from the Business insider, 4/25:

“…he [Ferguson] was accused of creating panic by overestimating the potential death toll during the 2005 Bird [avian] Flu outbreak. Ferguson estimated 200 million could die. The real number was in the low hundreds.”

THIS is the basic model Ferguson has now used to project deaths from COVID-19.

Are your eyeballs popping? They should be.

Without further ado, here is the Business Insider, 4/25, reporting Neil Ferguson’s other grotesque prediction failures:

“Michael Thrusfield, a professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the paper he had ‘déjà vu’ after reading the [Ferguson] Imperial paper [on COVID], saying Ferguson was responsible for excessive animal culling during the 2001 Foot and Mouth [actually, Mad Cow disease] outbreak.”

“Ferguson warned the government that 150,000 people could die. Six million animals were slaughtered as a precaution, costing the country billions in farming revenue. In the end, 200 people died.”

“In 2009, one of Ferguson’s models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu outbreak in the UK — the final figure was below 500.”

Want more? The Business Insider raises the level of shock even higher.

“Ferguson co-founded the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, based at Imperial [College], in 2008. It is the leading body advising national governments on pathogen outbreaks.”

“It gets tens of millions of dollars in annual funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and works with the UK National Health Service, the US Centres for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), and is tasked with supplying the World Health Organization with ‘rapid analysis of urgent infectious disease problems’.”

Getting the picture?

Bill Gates wants a COVID vaccine before planetary lockdowns end. The lockdowns, of course, are already making a wreck of the Earth’s economies.

Bill Gates’ money goes to Ferguson.

Ferguson supplies, to the CDC and WHO, a vastly worthless but frightening computer projection of COVID deaths. Ferguson thus communicates a justification for the Gates global vaccine plan.

The CDC and WHO act, based on what Gates wants, as expressed by Ferguson.

National governments surrender to WHO and CDC. LOCKDOWNS.

What say you, Trump, Johnson, Merkel, Macron, et al? Are you merely clueless idiots, no brighter than some passerby on a street corner who’s handed a sign for a protest, and joins the line, having zero idea what he’s supporting? Are you that stupid, as you point to Ferguson’s farce of a computer model, with eyes glazed?

Are you simply in fear of experts who, on their best day, should be consigned to modelling numbers of cockroaches in motel rooms?

Or are you hostile idiots, who intend to destroy countless lives as economics sink further into ruin, day by day?

P.S. Perhaps you’re thinking, “These governments couldn’t be THAT crazy and stupid and vicious. They couldn’t have acted based on Neil Ferguson’s computer model…”

Business Insider, 4/25: “Ferguson’s team warned Boris Johnson that the quest for ‘herd immunity’ [letting people live their lives out in the open in the UK] could cost 510,000 lives, prompting an abrupt U-turn [massive national lockdown in the UK]…His [Ferguson’s] simulations have been influential in other countries as well, cited by authorities in the US, Germany, and France.”

“On March 23, the UK scrapped ‘herd immunity’ in favor of a suppression strategy, and the country made preparations for weeks of lockdown. Ferguson’s study was responsible.”

“Dr Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator to the Trump administration, told journalists at a March 16 press briefing that the Imperial paper [Ferguson’s computer projection] prompted the CDC’s new advice to work from home and avoid gatherings of 10 or more.”

Be seeing you

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Watch “Light in the Darkness Episode 1: Opinion, Educated Opinion and Fact” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on May 5, 2020

 

Separating fact from fiction takes…EFFORT. That is why few attempt it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Watch “How the Elite Use Symbols to Gain Power” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on May 5, 2020

 

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

The Freedom of Individuals Still Matters—Even If COVID Warriors Say It Doesn’t | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on May 5, 2020

Since all action is individual, purposeful, and subjective, in the case of a crisis it is impossible for government to take collective action that would not be coercive to almost everyone. The coronavirus is a case in point.

https://mises.org/wire/freedom-individuals-still-matters-even-if-covid-warriors-say-it-doesnt?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=d462677451-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-d462677451-228343965

From 2009 to 2012, I taught an introductory course in Austrian school economics at the University of Iowa. On the first day of class, I would tell my students that the Austrian school would change the way they looked at the world, not just from an economic perspective, but from an overall life perspective. Nothing would ever appear to be the same again. They would learn to think for themselves and would not fall prey to all the propaganda from government, the mainstream news media, and poorly thought out opinions of friends and acquaintances. Of course, that does not make one the most popular person at a cocktail party!

Methodological Individualism vs. Collectivism

I would explain that economic science falls within the overall science of human action. All action is individual, subjective, and purposeful. Ludwig von Mises used the phrase methodological individualism to explain the basis of what can be known about economics in particular and human action in general. It is the individual, and not the group, that attempts to achieve a higher level of satisfaction as he perceives it at any point in time. Of course, these “preferences” are subjective, meaning that they undoubtedly are different for different people and are subject to constant change within the individual himself. (Consider the subjective desire for a glass of water after mowing the lawn on a hot day. At that point in time a cool glass of water ranks very highly on a person’s individual preference scale, but drops down the scale once the thirst is satisfied. Others may not be satisfied with a glass of water; perhaps only a cold beer or a lemonade will do.)

There is no such thing as “group” human action, such as Americans chose to sell stock last week, Frenchmen like to go to the Riviera in August, or Germany declared war on America on December 11, 1941. Some individual Americans may have sold stock last week, and some individual Frenchmen go to the Riviera each August, and certain people controlling the German government passed a resolution declaring war on America on December 11, 1941. Aggregates do not act; only individuals act. Collective action is a fallacy, as Ludwig von Mises explained. At first this seems strange, but upon further reflection it becomes self-evident and many bogus statements are dethroned. For example, the mainstream media is noted for headlines such as “Americans Are Fearful of the Coronavirus.” This is a meaningless statement, since there is no such entity as “Americans,” only individual people who live in America. The fear of catching the coronavirus that is attributed to Americans in general ranges individually, from so afraid that one will not leave one’s home to hardly any fear at all.

The Problem with Government Restrictions

Since all action is individual, purposeful, and subjective, in the case of a crisis it is impossible for government to take collective action that would not be coercive to almost everyone. The coronavirus is a case in point. At the present time (April 16, 2020), forty-one of the fifty US states have declared some form of what is called a “lockdown.” Supposedly “nonessential” businesses must remain closed, and there are various restrictions on the movement and interaction of the populace. The stated purpose in all cases is to “stop the spread” of the virus.

Yet there is no way for a government bureaucrat to know which purchases and which businesses are truly “essential.”  The individual himself must decide what action he will or will not take in order to both avoid catching the disease AND satisfy his other preferences, such as keeping a roof over his head and feeding his family. If it were the preference of all people to isolate themselves, close their businesses, not patronize businesses, refuse to show up for work, or refuse to socialize with their friends and neighbors, then the government would not need to implement any of these measures. The only conclusion to be drawn is that the state-imposed restrictions are violations of the preferences of many individuals. Since it is only the individual who acts purposefully and not groups, government restrictions upon these individuals are illogical and cannot be justified.

Man Is an End and Never a Means to an End

Suppressing the spread or lethality of the virus is a result of individual human action and is not an end in itself that justifies using man as a means. Immanuel Kant expressed it best in his humanity principle, i.e., that man is an end and must never be treated as a means to an end. Individuals have different preferences, and only the individual may determine what is and is not in his own best interest. An individual who desires to keep his business open will deal only with others who individually desire to patronize his business. The business owner and his customers may take whatever protective actions they deem mutually appropriate. No one is forced to patronize a business that he believes is not taking appropriate safety measures, and business owners may require customers to take some sort of protective action in order to obtain their goods or services. All individuals have expressed their preferences, as only each may determine for himself. This is fully consistent with Kant’s humanity principle and Austrian economic science’s recognition that society advances through social cooperation via the division of labor. In other words, there can be no such thing as a collective goal as set by government. Government is composed only of individuals expressing their own preferences. But each individual expresses his own preference through cooperative interaction with other individuals. No one, not even government, may ethically force people to act against their preferences. This is a violation of Kant’s categorical imperative, that each person should act only as if his action should be a universal law. In other words, everyone should always and everywhere obey the Golden Rule.

 

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Pulitzer Prize to New York Times Essay Falsely Claiming American Revolution Was Fought to Preserve Slavery

Posted by M. C. on May 5, 2020

Not especially news worthy other than to once again emphasize that the NYT and Nobel committee are as embarassing to themselves as they are worthless to us.

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/05/04/pulitzer-prize-to-new-york-times-essay-falsely-claiming-american-revolution-was-fought-to-preserve-slavery/

by Joel B. Pollak

The 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary was awarded Monday to Nikole Hannah-Jones for an essay in the New York Times that falsely claimed the American Revolution was fought primarily to protect slavery.

The essay, titled “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true,” launched the Times‘ controversial 1619 project.

The essay incorrectly claimed that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 (signing began weeks later, on August 2).

However, the far more egregious error was Hannah-Jones’s claim about the cause for which the Revolution was fought. She wrote: “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.”

That passage, which appeared in the original text, has since been updated to include the word “some” (emphasis added): “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.”

Historians were outraged by Hannah-Jones’s false claim. One of them, Northwestern University Professor Leslie Harris, was enthusiastic about the 1619 Project, but furious about the inaccurate claim. Harris recalled in Politico:

On August 19 of last year I listened in stunned silence as Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, repeated an idea that I had vigorously argued against with her fact-checker: that the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America.

…

I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war….

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »