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How To Fix College Admissions – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2020

We do not want government run newspapers or television stations. They should function as checks and balances against an overweening public sector, e.g., totalitarianism. But exactly the same principle applies to higher education. None of these institutions can accomplish this role under the thumb of government.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/walter-e-block/how-to-fix-college-admissions/

By

First we separate all institutions of higher learning into two categories. In one, we include those that are purely private, which accept no direct subsidies from government whatsoever; in the other, all the rest.

Into the first classification we place Hillsdale College, Michigan; Grove City College, Pennsylvania; University of San Francisco, California; Christendom College, Virginia; Pensacola Christian College, Florida; Patrick Henry College, Virginia; Wyoming Catholic College, Wyoming; Gutenberg College, Oregon; Yeshiva Toras Chaim Talmudic Seminary of Denver, Colorado; Biola University, California; Bob Jones University, South Carolina, Goldsboro Christian Schools, North Carolina. There may be a few more, but not too many.

What should be our perspective on the admissions policies of universities in this first, private category? They may do exactly as they please. We live, hopefully, in a free country, and freedom means the right to inaugurate your own policies, provided, only, that you do not violate the rights of others. No one has any right to be enrolled in any of these places without the permission of their owners. That would constitute trespass. High up on the list of liberty is freedom of association. These colleges should admit whoever they choose, with no non-discrimination requirements imposed upon them at all. They may use SAT and ACT to their heart’s content. Or not.

What of the remaining 99.99% of universities in the country which are directly subsidized, or owned outright, by the state? While private persons and schools should be free to discriminate, the same does not apply to government or quasi governmental institutions. They should not be allowed to discriminate on any basis whatsoever. For example, the controversial ACT and SAT tests should be forbidden to them as admission criteria.  These discriminate, mainly, between people with high and low IQs. It is intolerable for a state or state-related institution to make such an invidious distinction. After all, the government does not impose intelligence tests on those it admits to its buses, trains, libraries, parks, hospitals, museums, art galleries, concert halls, zoos, sports arenas, beaches, etc. In some countries, the government owns the airlines; in Canada, PetroCan owned a string of gas stations. No intelligence requirement was obligatory for service from these state institutions either.

This non-discrimination policy should apply not only to admissions, but also to grading. Enrolling students who can hardly read, write or do math will not suffice, for with any such system they will soon fail out. Other public institutions, see above, have no such grading systems, which would remove the intellectually non-gifted after a while. There is simply no justification for doing so in education either. This is NOT satire. I am very serious about this. These recommendations follow, logically, from the premise that it is and should be unlawful for government to discriminate against the intellectually challenged.

Of course, this would spell the ruination of these public universities. At present, the following US institutions are highly ranked in terms of prestige: University of California , Los Angeles; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill; University of Virginia; Georgia Institute of Technology; University of Texas, Austin; University of Florida; University of Georgia; University of California, Berkeley; Indiana University.  So are these ostensibly “private” ones: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago, Stanford, Duke, Hopkins. Many of these are highly ranked in world compilations. Were freedom instituted, none of this would be true any longer. Smart students would no longer enroll due to the intellectual diversity of open admission. Accomplished professors would go elsewhere.

Would that be a detriment to this modest proposal? Of course not. If these universities wished to retain the prestige they presently justifiably enjoy, they will have to eschew all direct government grants (the relation between the state and their students is entirely a different matter, and an irrelevant one). But this is precisely the goal of the freedom philosophy. The desiderata is not only separation of church and state, but, also, separation of education and state. We do not want government run newspapers or television stations. They should function as checks and balances against an overweening public sector, e.g., totalitarianism. But exactly the same principle applies to higher education. None of these institutions can accomplish this role under the thumb of government.

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Congressman Tom Massie Warns of Potential Meat Supply Disruptions

Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2020

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/04/congressman-tom-massie-warns-of.html

Of course, it is because of government red tape and the lockdowns.

Hopefully, Massie’s bill will pass Congress and eliminate the regulatory problems.

–RW

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Joint Law Enforcement Task Forces are Creating a National Police State

Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2020

This jurisdictional neverland also allows members of these task forces to escape accountability or punishment when they use excessive force, destroy property, or simply engage in sloppy police work. Balko’s article chronicles the story of a man who was beaten senseless after undercover members of a joint task force mistook him for a wanted individual. The state and federal law enforcement officers both dodged prosecution by playing ping-pong with state and federal jurisdictions.

Ironically, the Obama administration couldn’t even conduct a cost-benefit study on joint police task forces because records were almost nonexistent.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/joint-law-enforcement-task-forces-are-creating-a-national-police-state/

by

Through the proliferation of joint law enforcement task forces, the federal government is creating a national police force that operates in a legal twilight zone with little or no oversight.

Law enforcement officers from various state, local and federal law enforcement agencies make up these joint task forces. The concept evolved out of the unconstitutional “War on Drugs” launched by President Richard Nixon. The first multi-jurisdictional task forces were put together in the 1970s.

Dan Baum chronicled the evolution of these multi-jurisdictional police forces in his book, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. Radley Balko summarized Baum’s description of the origins of these task forces in a Washington Post article writing, “Nixon wanted ‘strike forces’ that could kick down doors and put the fear of God into drug offenders without burdensome hurdles like the Fourth Amendment or the separation of powers.”

Initially, many local law enforcement agencies weren’t interested in getting in bed with federal cops and were wary of the aggressive tactics employed by the joint task forces. But the feds used federal grants and asset forfeiture money to bribe reticent departments and incentivize participation. The number of joint task forces grew exponentially in the 1980s and 1990s. The deployment of these task forces also expended beyond the “war on drugs.”

Today, you will find hundreds of joint state-federal task forces across the U.S. Just consider this list of task forces in the Pittsburgh area alone.

  • Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC)
  • Crimes Against Children Task Force
  • FBI Opioid Task Force
  • Greater Pittsburgh Safe Streets Task Force
  • J-CODE (Joint Criminal Opioid DarkNet Enforcement Team)
  • Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit
  • Pittsburgh Financial Crimes and Electronics Task Force
  • Western Pennsylvania Fugitive Task Force
  • Western Pennsylvania Violent Crimes Task Force

As of 2016, the DEA oversaw or participated in 271 anti-drug task forces across the U.S. Through a program called Project Safe Neighborhood, the Department of Justice ran another 86 taskforces as of 2018. The FBI administers 160 violent gang task forces.

The U.S. Marshalls run 60 Fugitive Task Forces. The ATF oversees the National Explosives Task Force and forms task forces for specific investigations. According to Balko, the U.S. Attorney General runs 18 task forces through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program. And then there are the countless temporary joint task forces created every year for special investigations and law enforcement initiatives.

Due to their nature, joint task forces operate in a legal twilight zone that gives them wide latitude. As Balko explained, they often go about their business with little or no oversight. Often, it’s impossible to identify any local officials overseeing their work. And even when somebody is technically in charge of the task force, they often give it free rein.

With little oversight, they have a record of overstepping and misdeeds, from excessive force to shootings, to mistaken raids, to straight-up corruption.”

This jurisdictional neverland also allows members of these task forces to escape accountability or punishment when they use excessive force, destroy property, or simply engage in sloppy police work. Balko’s article chronicles the story of a man who was beaten senseless after undercover members of a joint task force mistook him for a wanted individual. The state and federal law enforcement officers both dodged prosecution by playing ping-pong with state and federal jurisdictions. As Balko illustrates, In practice, joint task forces can “pick whichever laws — state or federal — afforded them the most power and the least accountability.”

Ironically, the Obama administration couldn’t even conduct a cost-benefit study on joint police task forces because records were almost nonexistent. According to those conducting the study, “Not only were data insufficient to estimate what task forces accomplished, data were inadequate to even tell what the task forces did as routine work.”

There are other pernicious consequences resulting from the rise of joint police task forces.

Local police can circumvent strict state asset forfeiture laws by claiming cases are federal in nature due to the participation in a joint task force. Under these arrangements, state officials simply hand cases over to a federal agency, participate in the case, and then receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds.

And the money and power that comes when local cops partner up with the feds incentives local police to focus on “national” priorities such as the war on drugs, federal gun control and “anti-terrorism” efforts instead of prioritizing more routine local policing such as murder, rape and property crime.

We also see the influence of these task forces in the state legislative process. Police lobbyists often oppose warrant requirements, limits on state and local cooperation with federal surveillance, prohibitions on the state enforcement of unconstitutional federal gun control, asset forfeiture reform, and other laws blocking state enforcement of unconstitutional federal laws because they don’t want to jeopardize “our federal partnerships.” In other words, their relationships with their “federal partners” trumps the Constitution.

The federal government was never intended to exercise “police powers” in the first place. The Constitution only defines four federal crimes – treason, piracies and felonies committed on the high Seas, counterfeiting, and crimes against the law of nations. The federal government also has criminal jurisdiction within Washington D.C. and its other enclaves.

The creation of every other federal crime violates the Constitution.

In other words, virtually the entire federal law enforcement apparatus is unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, the federal government is developing a national police force that operates outside of any jurisdictional, legal or constitutional boundaries. Joint task forces are a threat to liberty. States should simply withdraw.

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Duncan Lemp’s Parents Threatened With Jail For Protesting His Killing

Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2020

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/duncan-lemps-parents-threatened-with-jail-for-protesting-his-killing/

by

It has been six weeks since a SWAT team shot and killed 21-year-old Duncan Lemp in a 4:30 a.m. raid at his family’s home in Potomac, Maryland, an affluent and sedate suburb of Washington, D.C. Montgomery County Police have thus far refused to provide any evidence on how or why they killed Lemp. But a county prosecutor leaped to action on Wednesday, effectively threatening any Lemp family members who attend a protest over his killing with a $5000 fine and a year in jail.

The reason? Maryland’s strict stay-at-home orders, imposed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan last month.

Read the entire article at The American Conservative.

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Climate Change at Fox News – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2020

Drowning in the swamp. Holding hands with Trump on the way down.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/no_author/climate-change-at-fox-news/

By Steve Hall

There has been a drastic change in the climate at Fox News.  We used to think of them as a counter-balance to the “mainstream media”; an alternative perspective, with “balance” and yes, with a healthy dose of skepticism about all things government.  Then suddenly, inexplicably, Fox News jumped on the hysteria bandwagon.

– – – – –

Imagine this:  an old white guy is elected President, with AOC as his running mate.  The old guy can no longer do the job, perhaps perishes, and AOC becomes President.  She immediately sounds the alarm:  the threat from climate change, the destruction of the earth, is imminent.  She shows the models and presents the science.  The media shouts “armageddon” day after after day, incessantly, with a parade of experts who agree.

AOC says that we knew this was coming and yet we did not prepare.  That we had ten years, but now there is no time left.  The public is whipped into fear and mass hysteria.  AOC declares a national emergency and a “War on Climate Change” and the people acquiesce.  She orders temporary measures to cut the use of carbon-based fuel: shuts down oil production; shuts down cruise ships; restricts airline flights; orders people not to drive unless it is essential; and shuts down all frivolous activities.  But the two-week “temporary” shutdown quickly turns into another month, and then another, with no end in sight.

People comply voluntarily.  “Everyone agrees” that this must be done.  But voluntary soon turns to mandatory.  Guidelines, when administered by bureaucrats, become arbitrary laws.  Because the economy is so interconnected, because all workers are essential, the economic impact begins to grow and spread.  Hundreds of thousands of workers are unemployed.  Businesses are bankrupted.  The effects ripple through the entire economy and cause a deep recession.  AOC promises to make everyone whole and initiates massive Federal spending, with Congress happily agreeing (it buys them votes, and would be so politically incorrect to question, let alone dissent).

The Federal government has no money except which it first takes from the people; the shutdown drastically reduces the money coming in.  The Federal government has no savings; they were already deep in debt.  The “Fed” was out of “ammunition”; interest rates had been held artificially low for years and they had already been doing bailouts and QE to keep the economy propped up.  So all of the AOC stimulus and Federal aid has to come from additional, excessive debt, or from what amounts to printing money out of thin air.  America wobbles on the verge of an unprecedented depression, perhaps total economic collapse.

– – – – –

Now try to imagine Fox News jumping on board with AOC in that scenario.  Not questioning the models.  Not presenting other perspectives and alternative views.  Not considering the consequences.  In fact, doing just the opposite – sounding the alarm and promoting the panic, actually encouraging the shut downs!   Unimaginable?  Many of us thought so.  Yet that is exactly what they did with this virus!

Tucker Carlson was one of the very first, sensationalizing how dangerous this could be, urging Federal action.  Within weeks, every Fox News anchor was on board, not only agreeing with the unprecedented step of shutting down the nation, but also with the dangerous, dictator-like experiment of quarantining people who were not sick!

That was, in fact, pretty much what communist China did.  Except in America it was to be  “guidelines”?  Voluntary?  Temporary?  No, it’s turning out to be mandatory.  And once that hysteria was in place, the momentum is to remain shutdown, especially from those who have acquired new powers.  “Flatten the curve” we did, but now the new goal seems to be “no new cases” (an impossible goal in any realistic time frame) or “until there is a vaccine.”  A vaccine, by the way, is no silver bullet; we have had seasonal flu vaccines for years and people still die.

Today at Fox, they repeat, “We all know that we had to do it” while at the same time scrambling to address how we avoid the inevitable economic consequences (which would have been so obvious to anyone who bothered to think about that before taking the leap).  But just like the AOC story, we have shut down oil production; shut down cruise ships; and restricted air travel and driving.  But we went even further, locking down a majority of the population, shuttering most businesses.  Now we have the unemployment and the bankruptcies.  And the politicians are making the ludicrous promise that no one will suffer financially.

So now Fox News folks are resorting to the CNN approach – attacking – complaining about a Governor who makes arbitrary rules, how awful that is.  Do you really expect any different when you make such a leap toward authoritarianism?  That’s what always happens when you replace the Rule of Law with the Laws of Rulers.  Why has Fox News not been interviewing Rush Limbaugh and Judge Napolitano and Lieutenant Dan Patrick and Doctor Ron Paul from the very outset?  Why are they arguing that some are “taking it too far” when they never should have been allowed to “take it” in the first place?

It was a mistake to shut down the country.  Because of economic repercussions, of course.  But also in our loss of liberties, another huge step toward an authoritarian America.  Not to mention that the deaths that result long-term are very likely to far exceed the death toll from the virus.  Especially if our economy collapses.  Or if we experience hyperinflation.  Or we we engage in a huge new hot war to “pull us out of the depression”.

What is so sad and disheartening now is the refusal of Fox News to admit that the shutdown was a mistake, or to even entertain the idea that it might have been.  I guess they are in CYA mode, just like so many politicians.  Instead, they continue to straddle the fence – “we all agree that we had to do it, but now we need to decide how best to open up.”  They continue to promote the theory that “if we hadn’t done it, it would have been much worse” – – when there is no valid data to support that (we’ll likely, eventually, prove that theory to be false).

Where are the models and the what-ifs and the projections about what might have happened if we had not shut down?  If we had Instead just issued the guidelines and encouraged people to act responsibly?  Even on Fox, that discussion seems to be off limits.

We were never going to stop this virus, because it is so contagious; they told us that from the beginning.  The bottom line is this:  if someone is afraid, has underlying health issues – in fact for for any reason at all – they have the option of self-isolating.  If they do, and if they sanitize incoming, wash their hands, and don’t touch their face, then they will not get the virus!  (Or at least the chances are so slim as to be statistically negligible.)  No one is stopping them!

But many people are willing to take the small risk.  After contact, there’s maybe a 50/50 chance of contracting the virus.  Of those that do get infected, only 4% will get seriously ill.  In other words 96% – ninety-six percent – will experience mild symptoms, or none at all.  The risk of dying from Covid-19 looks to be about the same as from the flu just a few years ago.  Less total deaths than from driving automobiles.

It is pure irony to see the “awful mainstream media” and Fox News on the same page!  Promoting mass hysteria, crazy models, and un-vetted “science”.  Let alone supporting a national lock down and lock up.  Ironic, too, that it is the Washington Post, of all people, now questioning these trillions of dollars of spending and debt.  Maybe their objectives really are no different?  This pandemic, and our response, is revealing the crumbling infrastructure of the American experiment and our Constitutional Republic.  Perhaps we were unprepared do defend against this latest virus (it is, after all, one of about 200), but neither was Fox News prepared to defend our liberty.

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Open Letter From a Pastor: Can We At Least Let the Children Play? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2020

This was courage in a city of cowering people, going through every which means of contortion in order to comply: the face masks that probably don’t work, the social distancing that probably doesn’t work, the quarantines which almost certainly don’t work, the shameful ‘essential workers only’ mandate which evokes this.

Even the USSR had no massive peacetime lockdown of hundreds of millions like this. The atheist communists couldn’t manage to close churches like America has done this spring………

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/no_author/open-letter-from-a-pastor-can-we-at-least-let-the-children-play/

By Pastor Rich Little

Pastor Rich Little sent this message to friends, family, and leaders in his Michigan community on April 9, 2020.

All Brothers & Sisters in Christ –

I have been trying very hard to “stick to my lane,” as I was told when I was in the Army, and concentrate on Christ and the Gospel as a pastor during this crisis.

Truly, the Lord and His Word is the one eternal thing that endures and matters, and will save us in the end – His promise of forgiveness and life are literally all we have.

However, as a human being, deeply flawed and self-serving and sinful as I am, I can’t help but being very upset and dismayed by what I see taking place around me. So I am going to take a bit of a risk, perhaps going “out of my lane” a bit, and speak from my heart now on what I see going on in the world, because what I saw today disturbed and saddened me greatly. 

We live in a county in Upper Michigan that has zero cases of this virus. Yet, children are not only not legally permitted to play with one another outside of immediate family (by order of the Governor), but now our local officials have seen fit to put chains and locks on the playgrounds.

Think about that: chains and locks on the playgrounds!

As I have been taking my 10-year-old granddaughter, Lorelei, out daily, so she gets some fresh air and sunlight in God’s good creation, the playgrounds were the one place where we could play and have fun and be, well human again – no fear, no stress, just love and fun. Now, that’s gone too.

What next? Arresting people for walking too much? What price are we paying here when we become so myopically focused on “flattening the curve” or even “saving just one life” that, even if we are still physically alive at the end of all this, it now feels much more like death and hell than actual life? And make no mistake about it, this is a foretaste of what hell is like: being alone, afraid, suspicious of others, constantly in fear of others as a threat to your life – self-preservation above all.

Yes, this coronavirus is new and scary and some people are dying if not of, at least in part, from it. We can debate numbers and how many of this and that and what to do etc. We can even also debate if we are being short-term “wise” but being “long-term” foolish as the economic costs add up to many future lives lost too.

But I think that all of you have pretty much already formulated from whatever source you have gotten your information where you stand on all that stuff. I am not trying to talk you out of that as it’s almost an impossibility, as the one truly defining characteristic of sinners, that is to say humans, is that we are natural “self-justifiers” and we will go to great lengths to be “right,” even if wrong (all of us are both right and wrong on this factually to one degree or another).

So, again, I am not writing this paragraph of this message with the hopes of trying to talk you out of your opinions but I would just like to point out once more, as we are all sinners, none of us gets to claim to be righteous before God in their opinions or actions in all of this. To our sin, Christ says “I forgive you.” He alone makes us right before God. So where you stand on this is not a “right hand kingdom” or salvation issue. This is not a matter of the Gospel. It’s a matter of the law and how we live in the earthly or “left hand kingdom” for now until Christ’s return.

Having said that, one of the great gifts we receive from Christ, as His chosen, forgiven sinners (Christians) is that even as we patiently await Our Lord’s return, and with it the new age of grace, He alone will usher in. We do receive back this old creation (the earthly or “left hand kingdom”) for now to love and to care in our humanity for as it is still God’s good work too. In this regard, in our humanity, we work hard to care for God’s creation and our neighbors. In this capacity, we are all called to fight evil as we see it under the law. The law is for now God’s gift to preserve life and order in this age, and I can’t help but feel a great evil is at work here beyond whatever deaths or economic ruin this virus may bring. The evil is we are losing our humanity.

What truly saddens, and what I think is a great evil, is that we fail to recognize that we lose our humanity by not realizing that there are many other forms of dying we can experience before physical death.

Living in constant fear, not only of some virus, but of the people around you too – either that they may be carriers of the infection or informers to the police that you are a “violator” of the “orders” – so we go about our day, even the best of us who recognize the problem and try to fight off this urge to fear, suspicious of the intentions of others. Not that we didn’t have this tendency toward self-preservation before, as sinners, but now it is on the loose “on steroids,” as the expression goes.

This constant looking over one’s shoulders is a powerful form of dying before physical death, I think. We are now looking not with charity to our neighbors who actually simply want to get on with the business of being human, but are actually treating them as criminals, or somehow selfish, for somehow posing a hypothetical risk of being disease carriers.

Were we not enjoined by Luther in the 8th Commandment to “think well of our neighbor, promote their good name, property, etc”? I know we fail in this regard routinely, but how can we even remotely attempt to do this under these circumstances?

Last night, as I was surfing the internet news late, as my sleep is not the best now either, I ran across this story that literally made me cry as it summed my personal experience today ironically and incredibly well.

As I acknowledged, yes, we all have our own opinions on this virus, the “lockdown”, etc and I know this person has a particular bias too; certainly politically he is biased toward personal liberty. But, then again, we all have our own biases. So yeah, there is stuff you may disagree with in the article – perhaps strongly disagree with or even say is “dangerous” and that’s okay.

I am not trying to impose an opinion on you, even if I am perhaps very poorly trying to express my own opinion. But I do think the author does capture what, from my perspective, is an important eternal, biblical truth quite well. In our never-ending quest for health, “safety,” and security in this world for our physical lives, are we not actually, in the process actually failing to live out our humanity in love?

I will just give you with this short quote from the article to consider as the sheer, simply beautiful truth of it touched the deepest reaches of my heart:

“But there she was.

Here was a mother bucking that, taking her son to the playground. A profile in courage, in the midst of corona.

And before long, the father followed with their dog, who was also happy to get out.

They ran about the morning park, availing themselves of the beautiful playground that everyone else was too gullible and cowardly to visit. Dozens of parents an hour would pass through that park just a few weeks earlier.

This was courage in a city of cowering people, going through every which means of contortion in order to comply: the face masks that probably don’t work, the social distancing that probably doesn’t work, the quarantines which almost certainly don’t work, the shameful ‘essential workers only’ mandate which evokes this.

Even the USSR had no massive peacetime lockdown of hundreds of millions like this. The atheist communists couldn’t manage to close churches like America has done this spring………

In the midst of that, a mother and a father courageously determined they would reject that distraction and instead live their lives.

Courageously they stepped out to go to the park. Courageously they stepped out of the house to live their lives.

And I want to thank them.

Because courage is contagious.”

I don’t know if this family was Christian or not, and frankly, I don’t care. They were human. Deeply human. And as Luther would say, they were “caught” taking a risk and doing and living exactly as God meant human life to be: a circle of peace, love, joy, and harmony with the Creator and other creatures. They were out “planting their tree,” as Luther once famously answered about what he wanted to be found doing when the end of the world came.

Can’t we be courageous too?

We Christians have the promise of eternal life from the lips of the Living God Himself. We have the Holy Spirit to lead us too. Certainly, can we not say to this evil driving us to lock ourselves fearfully behind doors and to push others there too: Enough is enough.

Have we, at long last, no sense of decency left?

In our quest to save our lives or at least save ourselves from the public shaming of supposedly “not wanting to hurt others,” can we not, at least, let the children play in the park unmolested?

Who did they harm?

Who do they want to harm?

Do we have to sacrifice the emotional well-being and happiness of our children too upon the altar of the god of the almighty coronavirus?

Is not our life and times in God’s hands?

The Bible indicates to me that Jesus might have been the most happy in His earthly life when He played with the children. I think I am too. I would gladly, instantly, give my physical life up right now just so the children can be happy and play in the park. That is how God intended His creation, and His children, to be, and that’s worth giving up my life to strive for in my humble opinion.

I know many of us went along with all this, as did I, to be good neighbors, good citizens, good Christians, good pastors. Good intentions all around. Many of you are also “higher risk.” I get that too – I have many aliments from miltary service, like asthma, that put me in that category with you. I am not particularly fond of the thought of impending physical death either, having never experienced that of course.

As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians 15:26, death is the final enemy to be defeated. Christ hasn’t taken me through that yet. So I am sympathetic to the concern for one’s own well-being and other’s concerns for the well-being of other people and loved ones too.

That is certainly also a legitimate human impulse, that is genuinely of the Spirit, heartfelt and sincere. Nobody wants people hurt or killed needlessly or certainly doesn’t want to be the catalyst for that, but, unfortunately, we don’t get the luxury in a fallen world of “no-risk” only “reward” solutions to complex or life-threatening problems.

There is a cost to all our choices, individually and collectively, as participants in civil society. So as Christians, we must ask as Paul admonishes in Romans 13:10 to determine: “What are the costs?” We don’t have a perfect solution in a sinful world. We can only hope to reason our way to the one which minimizes most the effects – short & long term – of sin.

All I am saying is that we have gone too far in one direction in striving to protect people from this virus. We are drifting beyond even long-term harm, into something, as I see it, that is evil and that soon will be a genie we can’t “put back into the bottle” so to speak.

I also understand that writing what I am writing may come off as an accusation of wrongdoing to some people, which isn’t my personal intent, but I truthfully acknowledge, it might end up being. It can’t help but be this way, because we are dealing with a matter of the law, not the Gospel. We are all placed by Christ back into a world governed and run by law – moral laws, laws of nature, government laws, social laws, and on and on – and the law in all forms always accuses us.

But I do sincerely want to say, I am trying to the best of my fallen, limited, sinful ability to keep in mind that good intentions certainly abounded from almost all folks in this situation. Definitely, this was the case I think as this was billed as something of a temporary inconvenience or sacrifice, but has now morphed into an open-ended solitary confinement prison sentence for billions of people around the world.

None of you wanted to cause harm or death to others nor I think ruin businesses or our Constitutional rights. But this “lock-down” is now a monster that appears, to me, to be “eating its young,” as the saying goes. There is far too much “collateral damage” well beyond the daily “confirmed cases and deaths” going on in this war on the hidden virus for me to stomach any further. So my heart compels me to say:

This has got to stop now. Not tomorrow. Not a week from now. Certainly not months from now, because this is not living, it’s dying while alive.

I know saying this right now is a risk, a big risk because many of you may judge that I am going too far “out of my lane” as a Pastor, as this probably is not a very popular message with you, nor most of the wider world these days. Email is like a virus you know. It’s contagious – you can send this anywhere – and thus potentially deadly, in certain ways for me, for daring to espouse contrary opinions to the popular narrative out there.

So, it could cost me dearly for publicly writing things like this right now. It could cost me a lot. It could cost me my call to our congregation. It could cost me my home in this community. It could cost me my freedom. It could cost me my family. It could cost me my physical life. Who knows? It might sound crazy to you to say this. But a few weeks ago, if I told you that you would be locked in your homes as a virtual prisoner in fear of a virus, you would have thought me quite mad. So anything is possible these days now, in regard to the consequences of freely speaking what is on one’s mind or heart now…..

But, I must confess too, that I believe that Christ died, gave up His own life in love for us, so we can really, for the first time, actually live in freedom, not fear – so we do not have to live in uncertainty anymore, because we now definitively know that God is for us, not against us. We can now dare be human again and leave the business of bringing in the eternal future to God.

So we can play like children in the park and enjoy the love and company of one another once more in the image of God – in peace with our Creator and one another – certain that even if bad things happen, God will be there to pick us up again and return us to living – even from our graves. So I am going to shove down my fear and say what my heart tells me to say, pray to God, turn it over to Him and rest in the promise of my Baptism that whatever may come my way in this old world, Christ is with me and has my life safely in His ever-loving arms, will carry me into His new creation where these things, which bring suffering, pain, and death will trouble me no more. And I know Christ has said this very same Baptismal promise is also for you.

So please pray that our Lord returns soon…..He is, in the end, our only hope!

v/r

Pastor Rich

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Being Afraid and Eliminating Exposure to Germs Leads to Death by Fear and Germs: Unless the Government Kills You First – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2020

Virtually everything mandated by government to combat this virus is extremely detrimental to life, and this may be by design. As more deaths are falsely attributed to this coronavirus, more power and control will be concentrated in the hands of the State.

Population control through higher mortality and sterilization is evident in the government’s agenda, and distancing, isolation, forced vaccination, and undue stress are sought in order to facilitate this plan.

Eugenics

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/gary-d-barnett/being-afraid-and-eliminating-exposure-to-germs-leads-to-death-by-fear-and-germs-unless-the-government-kills-you-first/

By

“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain.”

~ George Orwell (1961). “1984”

Death is inevitable, so never hide from life, and never allow a moment of life to be taken from you by tyrants. All government is tyrannical, and all government seeks power and control, and today it is using a purposely-created crisis in order to gain that control. We are being told by false rulers to abandon our lives, and hide away from those we care about in order to stop a virus. This is the highest form of deception, and is only meant to divide us so sinister agendas can be accomplished in the shadows.

It has been forgotten in this day and age of total fear that our bodies, not governments, are our defense against viral agents. Maybe a few will learn from this fakery that germs are our friends. Unless our bodies are exposed to germs and viruses, natural defenses against sickness disappear, leaving the body vulnerable to every sort of germ and virus. Listening to these political trimmers therefore is detrimental to our health.

Coronaviruses are not a threat to healthy humans with strong immune systems. Viruses cannot replicate in that environment, which means symptoms and sickness are rarely present. In addition, sunshine and high vitamin D levels are of great importance, as is diet, exercise, sleep, and relaxing calm. What this means is that government and its idiotic mandates are actually killing many people, and those deaths are due to the very governing body that is lying about how to protect your health. They are in fact causing much death, much more so than this so-called Covid-19.

Virtually everything mandated by government to combat this virus is extremely detrimental to life, and this may be by design. As more deaths are falsely attributed to this coronavirus, more power and control will be concentrated in the hands of the State. One major factor in helping a virus to replicate and cause harm is stress. The more stress evident, the weaker the immune system of its host. When the immune system has to go into action in order to alleviate mental and physical symptoms due to stress on the body, this leaves the body undefended, and viruses take immediate advantage of this opportunity. In other words, people will get sick simply because of undue stress, stress now intentionally caused by this incompetent government.

Unemployment causes stress, fear causes stress, financial problems cause stress, foreign agents in the form of vaccines causes stress, hunger causes stress, worry, isolation, and lack of physical activity causes stress, self-imprisonment causes stress, and any relationship or family problems due to these factors causes extreme stress.

In addition, wearing a mask causes immediate stress to the body due to restricting airflow, and anyone with a weak immune system or with any respiratory issues whatsoever, is very susceptible to harm in this circumstance. Also, the state and health idiots claim that one should not touch their face, but wearing a mask vastly increases that touching due to the many obvious reasons to do so. Since viruses do not have the ability to jump from one person to another, masks then are not only ineffective, but may actually cause more viral spread than if not worn at all.

Then there is the ventilator issue, which is very suspect. Ventilators are actually killing those that have a viral infection.

“Some hospitals have reported unusually high death rates for coronavirus patients on ventilators, and some doctors worry that the machines could be harming certain patients. Mechanical ventilators push oxygen into patients whose lungs are failing. Using the machines involves sedating a patient and sticking a tube in the throat. Deaths in such sick patients are common, no matter the reason they need the breathing help. Generally speaking, 40% to 50% of patients with severe respiratory distress die while on ventilators, experts say. But 80% or more of coronavirus patients placed on the machines in New York City have died, state and city officials say.

That is quite a statistic, given that the state and its so-called health “experts” in the administration, at the WHO, and at the CDC, have been pushing the use of ventilators since the beginning, and have used massive resources not only to greatly step up production and purchase of such machines, but have propagated far and wide on a daily basis the effectiveness of these machines in treating coronavirus patients. But with 80% of those patients dying while on ventilators, is another agenda being worked forward? Are hospitals gaining a financial advantage for putting patients on these ventilators? Is this a way to increase the death count, just as is coding any and every death as Covid, regardless whether the patient died due to other factors?

All of the federal and state mandates to supposedly combat this virus have caused more undue death and sickness. While the extreme stress caused by these government mandates has been devastating as far as virus susceptibility is concerned, many more sicknesses, disease, and deaths are occurring simply due to government action. Stress and isolation cause any number of adverse problems, and many of those cause higher death rates than normal. The psychological harm alone is alarming and has been felt nationwide, and due to this harm, suicides have increased as well. While suicide has been increasing every year, with the onslaught of government interventions due to coronavirus, many risk factors that cause suicide have been greatly enhanced, and this will most likely not only lead to many more suicides this year, but will also lead to higher suicide rates for years to come. How many more will kill themselves in the future due to measures initiated by government during this so-called crisis? There is no way to know for certain, but indications are that it will far exceed the deaths of this 2020 virus scam.

The bottom line is this; sickness and death due to the government response to this manufactured pandemic will be multiple times greater than the death toll due to this coronavirus. But it is much worse than that, because the deaths due to this response will continue to rise for years to come, as people struggle to stay afloat in a country whose economy has been destroyed. Early and unnecessary death, suicide, family abuse, violence, despair, starvation, and loneliness will continue to reek havoc on Americans, causing any number of continuing health problems and death.

Population control through higher mortality and sterilization is evident in the government’s agenda, and distancing, isolation, forced vaccination, and undue stress are sought in order to facilitate this plan. The only viable solution as I see it is to eliminate government at every level possible.

“The state lies in all the tongues of good and evil, and whatever it says is lies, and whatever it has, it has stolen, everything it is, is false, it bites with stolen teeth, and it bites often, it is false down to its bowels.”

~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra [1896]

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Three Reasons Why Politicians Must Leave Oil Markets Alone | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2020

Any refiner knows that crude quality matters, but most policymakers certainly do not.

Only the market knows which crude grades need to be produced and in what quantities at a given time. Likewise, only the market knows which crude grades need to be exported or imported and in what quantities. Prices along the oil supply chain alone coordinate this process. Now more than ever, the market needs unfettered prices to tell producers which grades to produce and refiners which grades to refine.

The same goes for every other market and commidity.

https://mises.org/wire/three-reasons-why-politicians-must-leave-oil-markets-alone?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=a702beee22-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-a702beee22-228343965

Although the heads of the world’s largest oil-producing nations were quick to claim a diplomatic victory following the latest OPEC+ (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries “plus” non-OPEC oil producers) output-cut agreement, crude prices are telling a different story. Prompt month Brent and WTI futures contracts are now trading nearly 20 percent below their early April highs, both returning to a supercontango forward curve price structure following the conclusion of the OPEC+ meeting. A contango price structure, where near-term prices plummet relative to prices further along the curve, is the market’s way of clearing. But political efforts to support crude prices from around the world continue to muddy the waters for those trying to efficiently and rationally reallocate capital in the industry.

With the long-awaited OPEC+ deal failing to balance the market, some Texas oil producers are hoping to rekindle a largely dormant regulatory body in the Texas Railroad Commission to coordinate output cuts in the heartland of US crude production for the first time since the 1970s. In addition, amid this week’s turn lower in oil prices, US tariffs on crude imports are reportedly still on the table as well as a newfound idea to potentially pay producers to shut in production. Although politicians and regulators are still busy trying to find regulatory cures, this historic moment in oil markets should serve as a lasting reminder of the limitations of political remedies and the need to allow market prices to be the ultimate arbiter of production levels. Efforts by US policymakers to boost crude prices and to throw a lifeline to high-cost US crude producers is the exact opposite of what prices are telling us the market needs at this time. Seeking to prop up the least efficient US oil producers through import penalties or production quotas risks further misallocations in the sector going forward. Let us address a few key points:

1. Higher Crude Prices Are Not What Is Needed Amid Sharp Fuel Demand Contraction

Much of the recent focus for US politicians and other representatives of oil-producing nations has been on getting crude prices higher. But nothing could be more unwarranted at this time. As fuel demand for transportation has ground to a halt globally over the past two months, refining margins have been crushed—particularly for gasoline and jet fuel. It is this record weakness in underlying demand for transportation fuels, and the accompanying weakness in refining margins, that has led to the rapid surplus of crude oil globally as refineries have cut throughput.

Therefore, global political efforts to send crude prices higher risk exacerbating demand contraction for crude oil in the near term as higher crude prices without higher refined fuel demand would further limit a refiner’s incentive to process crude.

2. The Market Is Trying to Do Its Job

Crude prices returned to a state of supercontango early this week, following the conclusion of the OPEC+ meeting. After narrowing to just –$3.96 in early April, the Brent 1–7 month time spread has widened back to –$9.51 as of the April 15 close. Prompt month WTI is at an even wider discount to prices further along the curve than it was prior to the OPEC+ agreement, with the 1–7 month time spread closing at a whopping –$13.54 on April 15. This historically steep discount for near-term crude reflects the market coordinating multiple needed processes simultaneously.

On the one hand, physical crude prices and prompt month futures prices are coordinating the process of shutting in production. With prompt month WTI trading at a $13.54 premium to current prices just six months from now, a steep contango price structure is the strongest signal a US producer can receive to shut off new supply today and reserve that production for a future date. To the extent that production cannot be immediately shut in, this same price structure incentivizes placing crude into storage rather than continuing to push it onto the market, further crushing physical prices.

On the other hand, and to reflect on the first point above, the steep discount in near-term crude prices is needed to begin to stimulate crude demand at refineries once again. Crude prices must drop faster than refined fuel prices or refiners will have no profit motive to begin to process the glut of crude. In order to clear, the crude market needs positive gasoline-refining margins and/or diesel margins high enough that the weak gasoline and jet fuel margins are not overwhelming. This can only be accomplished by allowing for weakness in crude prices.

WTI Crude Oil Forward Curve

vinc

3. Only the Market Knows Which Crudes Should Be Cut and in What Quantities

Any refiner knows that crude quality matters, but most policymakers certainly do not. Crude quality, which is to say the profile of a specific grade of crude based on both its API gravity and sulfur content, is of chief importance to a refiner. A crude refining slate consisting of various grades is chosen carefully, based in large part on a refinery’s physical sophistication (what they can run) and the cost of the crudes compared to their expected revenues (based on their relative yields of the refined products (what they want to run)). For example, with gasoline currently bearing the brunt of the demand-contraction pain, light, sweet crudes that yield high volumes of light distillates, such as the majority of US shale grades, are far less desired by refiners that can run heavy crudes and are optimizing their refining slate to target higher yields of diesel.

Only the market knows which crude grades need to be produced and in what quantities at a given time. Likewise, only the market knows which crude grades need to be exported or imported and in what quantities. Prices along the oil supply chain alone coordinate this process. Now more than ever, the market needs unfettered prices to tell producers which grades to produce and refiners which grades to refine. This is just another reason why blanket production cuts or quotas and penalties on crude imports are both risky and suboptimal. Only refiners and producers themselves are sophisticated enough and can respond in a timely enough fashion to optimize the supply chain. And let us not forget that this market function will be just as important as demand begins to recover in the coming months. Policy interventions risk not only skewing market prices today, but also causing misallocations longer term.

Conclusion

It is often forgotten that market prices are themselves the constant coordinators of commerce. “The market” is not just some amorphous entity in the imaginations of ideologues and traders. Markets are made up of the industrial players that have the most skin in the game and the most to lose from misallocating capital.

In times of high uncertainty and economic risk it is politically difficult to resist the temptation to intervene in markets in an effort to protect specific pieces of domestic industry, but policies enacted in panicked times can also produce large and lasting unintended consequences. As we hope for a slow return to normalcy in refined product demand as COVID-19 quarantines are lifted in the coming months, let us be cautious of policy prescriptions that can wind up further ailing the entire oil industry and consumers in the long run.

Originally published at DTN.com.

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Your Supermarket Overlords: Why Barbados Needs a Voluntary Quarantine | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2020

She informed us that with the blessing of a group of supermarket owners and shopkeepers she could no longer delay mass business closures. With the exception of what are known as village shops, all supermarkets would be closed until midnight April 14, with the possibility of that date being extended (for the record, no one is quite sure what the definition of a village shop is).

To recap, bureaucrats spent weeks preparing for their response to COVID-19, then abruptly changed their minds twenty-four hours after making their public announcement.

This sounds like Pennsylvania except for the comment about preparation.

https://mises.org/wire/your-supermarket-overlords-why-barbados-needs-voluntary-quarantine?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=49aa3a2458-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-49aa3a2458-228343965

On Wednesday, April 1, the acting prime minister of Barbados, Hon. Santia Bradshaw, came on the local news station to announce a mandatory partial shutdown to combat COVID-19. She announced that starting April 3, all “nonessential” businesses would remain closed until midnight April 14.

I watched this address with my girlfriend, and we both were scared. Not so much for the coronavirus, though it is a great concern to us. We had recently begun disinfecting all of our groceries, throwing our clothes in the wash, and showering every time we came home. We were terrified because St. Lucia had recently announced a 24-hour shutdown with no warning to its citizens.

We sat with dread and watched the acting prime minister give her address, in fear of a similar lockdown. We were relieved when she announced that grocery stores would remain open, in spite of her scolding of the naughty Barbadians who continued to shirk the already imposed curfew of 8 p.m.

“It could be a lot worse,” I told my girlfriend once the address was over.

It Gets Worse

We both decided that the following day (Thursday, April 2) would be a good time to supplement our pantry and to get last-minute alcohol (one thing deemed “nonessential,” though funnily enough the subsidized sugar factories remain open for business).

On Thursday morning, we prepared to leave for our grocery run. Looking at our phones, we noticed our group chats talking about further government restrictions. The acting prime minister was tightening the noose on the country again.

Instead of restricting business hours and enacting a late-night curfew, the government abruptly decided that all grocery stores needed to be shut down until further notice starting on April 3, the following day. Now we only had two days to prepare for a shutdown that we were not warned of in advance.

Watching the eight-minute press conference, the acting prime minister coldly informed us that since the night before, people had continued congregating in large numbers outside of supermarkets and that the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 had exploded by one whole case.

She informed us that with the blessing of a group of supermarket owners and shopkeepers she could no longer delay mass business closures. With the exception of what are known as village shops, all supermarkets would be closed until midnight April 14, with the possibility of that date being extended (for the record, no one is quite sure what the definition of a village shop is).

To recap, bureaucrats spent weeks preparing for their response to COVID-19, then abruptly changed their minds twenty-four hours after making their public announcement.

Individuals in our group chat expressed solidarity with the government:

“Bajans didn’t exercise common sense and now we in this piss pot.”

“If they had just stayed inside, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

You see, “we” were behaving very badly, and “we” had to be punished for our own safety.

Nevermind the thousands of citizens who had followed the rules and refrained from any unnecessary contact. The majority were being punished for the crimes of the minority.

Now the righteous fury of the people was directed not at the rulers who had doled out punishment without any semblance of a trial, but at their own people, who were unfairly imprisoned. The people were taking the side of their own kidnappers.

In the midst of all this, did anyone stop to question why large amounts of people were gathering outside of supermarkets at the risk of their own health?

Perhaps it was because of justified widespread panic that the government would shut everything down. Which they did.

My girlfriend and I left our home on Thursday with this edict hanging over us, and we came upon a grocery store with a line spanning hundreds of feet out the door. It took over two hours to get what we needed.

We decided to go out one last time the next day. It was the last day that supermarkets were allowed to be open, and people were camped out with lawn chairs. We waited for about an hour before bailing on the line. People who stayed and gutted it out were still waiting once the curfew took effect at 6 p.m., so the government graciously pushed it back to 8 p.m.

So much for trying to prevent large gatherings.

Lack of Transparency

“Oh, they gave you plenty of warning!”

This is what my girlfriend’s coworker said recently during another work-from-home day. Their company had proactively shut down the office weeks ago but continued operating with everyone working remotely.

I agree with her coworker. There were plenty of warning signs before the complete shutdown. Fearing the worst, we had been slowly building up our frozen food and pasta reservoirs for a few weeks. It never feels like enough, but we weren’t completely unprepared once it happened (full credit to my girlfriend).

However, to pass this off as the government being transparent is charitable at best. The fact that we were scared that the government would do something drastic does not justify their actions.

If a scantily clad woman walks into a biker bar that has a bad reputation, do we blame her for being harassed? Again, some of her friends might question her judgment, but what moral authority do complete strangers have to shame her? Do we lecture her and take the side of the biker gang?

What about the people who have not prepared for this shutdown? Do we make fun of them and shame those who continued to exercise their own free will? Do we shrug at the people with no choice but to break curfew due to economic circumstances? Do we blame the unwilling prisoners of an unjust war?

For those who would protest, and claim that the government had no choice but to make us prisoners in our own homes, here’s what we can reasonably understand from some common pieces of information:

1. The Barbadian government met with various supermarket and business owners, and the acting prime minister claims that they were in unanimous agreement that large gatherings of people outside their supermarkets was an immense concern.

If the supermarket and business owners were in such unanimous agreement and everyone was so concerned, why did we need the government to tell everyone to close down? The whole process could have been resolved quickly and efficiently, and without relying on the day-to-day whims of bureaucrats.

Private companies were already shutting down before any government decree. Do we really need to be told to isolate in a global pandemic?

2. People are outraged at those who broke curfew.

The fact that people break curfew just proves that smaller, decentralized communities are better at organizing than a few top-down planners. We don’t need a dictatorship telling us what to do; our neighborhoods can do a much better job of self-regulating.

The neighborhood I currently live in has a group chat that effectively polices intruders who come into the neighborhood. If someone suspicious shows up and starts walking around, peering into people’s yards, you had better believe that multiple people will sound the alarm and someone will call the police. Our small neighborhood works together to isolate during times like these far better than any government decree.

If you are truly worried about getting infected, then you need to become the dictator of your own property. From there, you can expand your isolation zones to wherever you see fit, and things will naturally sort themselves out. Thousands of small communities will have a better understanding of what works for them than one centralized government.

Even in a small country like Barbados, a one-size-fits-all approach to isolation and pandemic preparedness is not the best option.

People who live alone in the country do not need to be imprisoned in their own houses, whereas if you are walking around a densely populated neighborhood touching everything in sight, your neighbors might have something to say to you.

3. The minister of health and wellness, Lt. Col. the Honourable Jeffrey Bostic, MP, assured the Barbados press that they had more than enough medical facilities and respirators prepared for the worst-case scenario of a massive outbreak.

A large portion of the country was self-isolating before any curfew was set. Unfortunately, not everyone is afforded the luxury of being able to work from home. Given that the government claims to have the capacity to treat a large-scale outbreak, there should be no reason to punish someone who weighs the risks and decides to go about their normal daily life.

Instead, the public at large seems to be content with the mass destruction of small businesses and reliance on welfare checks. People will always behave irresponsibly on some level, but do we want to punish ourselves for the poor behavior of others?

There has to be a better way.

Instead of Forced Closures, Why Don’t Businesses Have “Pandemic Insurance”?

It was recently reported that Wimbledon will be collecting $141 million in pandemic insurance claims. This will not restore all of their losses, and not every business will invest in pandemic insurance. Still, businesses tend to do the right thing when properly incentivized, and insurance could provide the motivation.

Under pandemic insurance coverage, businesses could be liable for any injuries caused to customers and employees for remaining open during a pandemic. Insurance companies could stipulate that money will be withheld in the event of negligence, and they could also perform testing to insure a safe working environment, probably much more efficiently than government departments such as the CDC in the US. Grocery stores and other business owners could negotiate with their insurers to determine what practices are deemed safe in the event of a pandemic. We were already moving towards a delivery-only model, and in that case insurance companies might give a partial payout to supplement workers’ salaries and allow small businesses to avoid bankruptcy (as opposed to massive government bailouts with our tax dollars).

The Government Eventually Walked Back Its Strict Closures

On April 7, Hon. Santia Bradshaw changed her tone and announced that grocery stores would be allowed to open back up for delivery and pickup only. This was in response to “concerns” raised in the two and a half days that the shutdown lasted.

It turns out that a population of 385,719 needs more than baked bread and canned food, at least if you want to keep them happy.

The best way to handle the coronavirus in Barbados is not through a top-down dictatorship. Small business owners and neighborhood communities have proven much more effective at responding to the needs of the people, and no amount of political grandstanding on local news stations will solve our problems.

The economy is not an arbitrary experiment to be poked and prodded. The economy is us, and we don’t need to be forcefully manipulated to do the right thing.

Coronavirus isn’t the only killer out there: unemployment, crime, and suicides are a threat as well, and all of these increase during economic depressions. Individuals need to decide for themselves what’s best for their families and communities. A group of bureaucrats in a room has thus far proven disastrously ineffective.

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The Other COVID Disaster – The CDC

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2020

I shared this post on my FB page and got my first block!

It took a while but I finally made it!

I violated community standards.

There must be a sensitive FB community in Lubyanka.

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