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Critical Thinking
Posted by M. C. on November 21, 2024
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Will we survive the Biden Administration’s provocation of WWIII?
Posted by M. C. on November 20, 2024
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Big Gov, Big Brov
Posted by M. C. on November 19, 2024
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These People Push Divisive Rhetoric in America | Thomas Sowell
Posted by M. C. on November 18, 2024
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A Political Price is Being Paid for Being in the West
Posted by M. C. on November 18, 2024
by Ted Snider
But key among Germany’s economic challenges is the hammering Germany’s energy intensive industrial sector has taken by the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. German industry has struggled to adjust to the higher price of energy caused by U.S.-led sanctions on Russian oil and by the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline. Being the largest economic supporter of Ukraine has further strained the economy.
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/a-political-price-is-being-paid-for-being-in-the-west/
The concept of “the West” is a complex and difficult one. At times it excludes countries in the geographical west, like Cuba and Venezuela and sometimes Brazil. At times it includes countries not in the geographical west, like Japan and Australia. As Richard Sakwa has explained, the West can refer to a 500 year old civilizational West or to a cultural or historical West of which Russia considers itself to be a core member.
The twin ticket admission into the political West is membership in the U.S.-led, post-Cold War security community built around NATO and in a cultural community allegedly built around free trade, freedom and democracy. The political West, by definition, excludes Russia and, now, China.
But recently, there seems to be a political price being paid by governments in the political West. It is being exacted at the polls by their citizens.
On November 6, the government of Germany, Europe’s most populous country and its largest economy, collapsed when Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister, the leader of one of his two coalition partners, dissolving the coalition government. The government will limp along until a confidence vote is held in parliament in January. If Scholz’s Social Democrat Party does not survive the confidence vote, that would trigger early elections in March.
The catalyst of the collapse is disagreement by the coalition partners over a weakening economy and budgetary struggles. There are multiple reasons for Germany’s economic decline, including competition from China in the automotive industry. But key among Germany’s economic challenges is the hammering Germany’s energy intensive industrial sector has taken by the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. German industry has struggled to adjust to the higher price of energy caused by U.S.-led sanctions on Russian oil and by the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline. Being the largest economic supporter of Ukraine has further strained the economy.
All three members of Scholz’s already unpopular coalition have been losing support. Scholz’ Social Democrats are polling only around 16% and the combined support of their coalition hovers around 30%, while the opposition Christian Democrats by themselves have 32.5% support. Two fringe parties, the far right populist Alternative für Deutschland and the populist leftwing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance are both gaining support in part because they oppose further support for Ukraine.
Though not the only cause of the price the German government is paying at the polls, the war in Ukraine, and their policies on it, are contributing to the cost. Molly O’Neal, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, has pointed out that opponents of governments’ stances on Ukraine have fared well, not only in Germany, but in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Several members of the political West have been punished in elections recently, including Italy, Austria, Finland, Portugal, Slovakia, Australia and Japan. While many members in good standing among the political West have fallen, governments outside of the political West, including all the original members of BRICS, who have taken alternative policy approaches to the war in Ukraine have fared better. Some have done worse than they traditionally have, and though not all meet the West’s criterion for democracy, Russia, China, India, and South Africa have all re-elected their governments. Brazil returned Lula da Silva to power, a man strongly supportive of BRICS and, along with China, has played a leading role, unlike the political West, in advocating for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine.
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In Defense of Huemer’s ‘Progressive Myths’
Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2024
For those of us unwilling or unable to spend a hundred thousand dollars and four years of our life at university only to be turned into a race-baiting, economically illiterate Bolshevik, Michael Huemer gives us the economic and philosophical education I wish I would have had in school.
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/huemer-cowen/
by Keith Knight
In a blog post last month, Dr. Tyler Cowen listed a number of books he is currently reading, and specifically mentioned a book which I think is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of all time. Here is what Cowen said:
“Michael Huemer, Progressive Myths. Michael is a very smart philosopher, but this book seemed like a waste of time to me. Will it persuade anyone? Do we need Michael writing seven-page essays rebutting various claims of the BLM movement and the like?”
I invited Dr. Tyler Cowen on the Libertarian Institute podcast to discuss his objections to Huemer’s Progressive Myths; he politely declined. I’d like to address Dr. Cowen who has an open invitation onto my podcast to defend himself anytime.
I don’t know what metric Cowen uses to differentiate productive books from unproductive books. Let’s assume productivity can be categorized as “Increased efficiency attempting to peruse a given end accounting for (opportunity) costs and benefits.” The book costs $12 on Amazon, is 245 pages, and is a complete refutation of the progressive ideology on economic, philosophical, empirical, and historical grounds.
Huemer provides readers with the very low cost education progressives pretend to offer us!
Progressive ideas are widely embrace by both Democrats and Republicans since it allows politicians to increase their power and social status under the guise of helping society while using involuntary investors (taxpayers) to bear the cost of their programs.
This is why presidents such as Republican Teddy Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson can historically be categorized as progressives, along with George W. Bush and Barack Obama today. All four presidents drastically increased the size and scope of government under the guise of helping the vulnerable masses.
Every basic tenet of Progressivism has been fully embrace by both parties for more than a century. If Republicans or moderate democrats were not progressive, we’d see the following:
- Drastic decreases in government spending year after year (we of course see the opposite regardless of which party is in power)
- Abolition of numerous regulatory agencies
- Abolition Teddy Roosevel’ts anti-trust laws
- Universal school choice with a plan to fully “voluntarize” all education
- Privatization of food stamp programs
- Abolition Franklin Roosevelt’s minimum wage
- Abolition of Woodrow Wilson’s income tax
- Abolition of Woodrow Wilson’s Federal Reserve
- Abolition of the Department of Education
No Dr. Cowen, your time is not being wasted when for a monetary cost of $12 and an opportunity cost of roughly 8 hours (1.5 days of school), you get to see through a century of lies being promoted by the most powerful people on earth.
My time is not wasted when decades of Huemer’s research is summarized for readers like me.
Huemer’s ability to save people time is astounding. You could spend a thousand hours watching mainstream news and never learn about the important empirical evidence Huemer brings to light. On page 189, Huemer addresses a claim few if any are familiar with:
“How could masking possibly increase the spread of disease?…Most people also wear the same mask repeatedly for many days, so pathogens may accumulate in the mask. This is a particular problem with cloth masks, which many people wore during the pandemic; indeed, one study found that cloth masks caused a nearly sevenfold increase in the risk of influenza-like illness, compared to wearing no mask.”
He mentions this after quoting Dr. Anthony Fauci on 60 Minutes in March 2020:
“Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks…There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”
Consider Huemer’s refutation of the entire concept that ‘billionaires” are people with bank accounts hoarding billions of stationary dollars:
“Jeff Bezos, for example, does not have $200 billion sitting in a bank account. Rather, he owns a large stake in Amazon. When you read that Bezos is worth $200 billion, that is based on the current Amazon stock price and the portion of the company that he owns.”
Having the opportunity to clearly see the world around you at a microscopic cost is not a “waste of time.”
Ever since I lost my crystal ball I’ve been unable to see the future and determine what will persuade who and to what degree.
I can say with a high degree of confidence that the chance of humanity being debamboozeled from the wealth destructing, divisive death cult of Progressivism is higher than it otherwise would be when we have professors with Ph.d.’s debunking progressive conspiracy theories regarding the economy, race, American history, and gender.
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War on Gaza: Blood mixed with flour as Israeli kills Palestinians receiving food
Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2024
Air strikes hit civilians seeking aid in so-called ‘humanitarian zone’
Israeli forces have killed more than 43,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, including over 17,000 children and nearly 12,000 women, according to the health ministry and local officials. Thousands more are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
By Ahmed Aziz in Khan Younis, occupied Palestine and Lubna Masarwa in Jerusalem and Nader Durgham
Published date: 14 November 2024 06:39 GMT | Last update:1 day 3 hours ago
Editor’s note: This articles contains a photo that may be disturbing to some readers
Israeli forces killed several Palestinians seeking food supplies in the Gaza Strip’s so-called “humanitarian zone” earlier this week, rescuers and relatives of victims told Middle East Eye.
The deadly air strike had struck a tuk-tuk vehicle near an aid distribution point in the Miraj area north of Rafah.
Disturbing images from the scene show victims’ blood mixed with flour on the floor.
Ziad Farhat, the director of rescue teams in Rafah, told MEE the area where the people were hit is within Israel’s so-called “humanitarian zone”, which is supposed to be safe for displaced people.
“From what we are seeing as rescue teams, there is no such thing as a humanitarian area,” Farhat said.
Mohammad Abu Armana, a journalist volunteering with Gaza’s civil defence, said the road where the strike took place was regularly used by civilians travelling between Khan Younis and Rafah.
While the civil defence repeatedly warned people against heading to Rafah where it is too dangerous, some still go to check on their homes, Abu Armana said.
Israeli forces killed at least 400 aid seekers in Gaza earlier this year in various air strikes and also bombed aid distribution centres.
They have also repeatedly forced people to flee to certain zones with the promise of safety, before bombing them and killing them in their makeshift tents.
‘What humanitarian area?’
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Corporate Media Angst-Stricken Over RFK Jr. as HHS Boss, Pharma Stock Tanks
Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2024
If you cut through the BS, eventually you get to the real fear, which is that Pfizer stock might not be as lucrative as it was when the Brandon entity’s handlers were forcing everyone in the country to submit to their injections passed through the regulatory process via fraud and pseudoscience.
By Ben Bartee
Originally published via Armageddon Prose:
“You gotta operate the easy way
‘I made a G today’
But you made it in a sleazy way
Sellin’ crack to the kids
‘I gotta get paid’
Well hey, well, that’s the way it is”
-Tupac on Big Pharma
Heavens to Betsy!
Who could have guessed that legacy media, Great Respecter of Democracy™, might not take well to the cabinet appointments of the man who won a landslide mandate from the people?
Virtually every article on this topic in legacy media follows the same formula:
· RFK Jr. is a dangerous vaccine denialist
· Some NGO asshole, probably getting paid by Bill Gates or similar interests, is worried the babies might not get all 72 of their CDC-recommended injections straight out of the womb
· Another random community college professor, excited to be quoted by CNN (I made it, Mom!) on such a grave matter of import, is also very concerned
· In addition to his anti-vaxx wrongthink, RFK Jr. bitterly clings to wild ideas like toxic industrial waste products dumped into the water supply with no informed consent from the public might not be ideal policy
· He also once chopped a whale’s head off
None of this lazy smearing of their political opponents worked to keep Trump out of office — if anything, it had the opposite effect of making him more sympathetic because 90% of the public at this point hates legacy media and knows they lie — why would it work now?
Related: Did Populist Rage at Big Pharma Fuel Trump Victory? Election Data Indicates Maybe
But let’s not intervene on behalf of the corporate media mid-suicide.
Instead, let’s cheer as they condemn themselves further to irrelevancy.
Via The Guardian (emphasis added):
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“NAFTA Fever” and the Myth of Government-Created Free Markets
Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2024
Those defending markets should not fall into NAFTA fever, into a dogmatic orthodoxy whereby they defend NAFTA and the illusion of a free market victory. These were never free market victories, but intervention dressed in the garb of market rhetoric. We should not be jumping to the defense of the results of interventionism. Interventionism causes a death spiral of failure and continually worse social conditions.
How can you call documents that are thousands of pages, with requirements for environment, inclusion, wages and whom you are NOT ALLOWED TO TRADE WITH free market?
https://mises.org/mises-wire/nafta-fever-and-myth-government-created-free-markets
Left or right, the enemy is the free market. Every problem is the fault of the free market. On the left, the supposed radical deregulation of the 1980s paved the way for the financial crisis and the destruction of the environment. On the right, free trade is responsible for the gutting of manufacturing. The free market is made out in this mythos to have had its heyday in the 1980s and ‘90s and destroyed everything. Even free market advocates fall into this trap, saying that this time in the near past was a free market victory. The results—they try to argue with the market critics, but they agree with the causal analysis: Markets won! Hooray!
The fact is that all three of these groups are wrong. There was no American market revolution in the ‘80s.
It is important to make note of the rhetoric of American life up until the 1980s. American life at the beginning of the 1930s was introduced to the message of “market failures” that justified the New Deal. By the end of the 1940s, Americans were thrown into the Cold War, where all of American life was defined by a battle between “American Capitalism” and “Soviet Communism.”
Paying lip service to the free market was easy. Fusionism became the default conservative ideology, the mixture of so-called “fiscal conservatism,” the “moral majority,” and hawkish foreign policy. The hawkish foreign policy—the boogeyman of National Review—was bearing the brunt of the load. As Buckley put it:
We have got to accept Big Government for the duration [of the Cold War]— for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged…except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores.
“Fiscal conservatism” was cast aside in the name of fighting the Soviet menace, but it was in the name of capitalism because everything was done in the name of fighting communism. Every American who bought into the existential crisis of Cold War rhetoric could be coaxed into supporting any policy in the name of capitalism and free trade. So when politicians wheeled forward thousand-page treaties with import/export quotas, environmental regulations, and currency price controls under the name of “Free Trade Agreements.” No wonder the American people got behind it.
No wonder free trade got stuck with the blame. It is an age-old tactic to give bills positive names while they have the opposite effect (e.g., the Inflation Reduction Act). Who would oppose the “Giving Puppies Good Homes Bill of 2024”? At the end of the Cold War, who would oppose a supposed free trade agreement with our fellow capitalist allies?
With the backing of the tail-end of the Cold War market-rhetoric and every Cold War “free enterprise” think tank, we were given NAFTA. Rothbard himself lamented the rise of NAFTA fervor in every so-called “free market think tank.” He wrote in his essay “The NAFTA Myth”:
For some people, it seems, all you have to do to convince them of the free enterprise nature of something is to label it “market,” and so we have the spawning of such grotesque creatures as “market socialists” or “market liberals.” The word “freedom,” of course, is also a grabber, and so another way to gain adherents in an age that exalts rhetoric over substance is simply to call yourself or your proposal “free market” or “free trade.” Labels are often enough to nab the suckers.
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