MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

America’s Open Wound

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2022

The CIA is not your friend

Within a year, the young agency had already slipped the leash of its intended role of intelligence collection and analysis to establish a covert operations division. Within a decade, the CIA was directing the coverage of American news organizations, overthrowing democratically elected governments (at times merely to benefit a favored corporation), establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment, launching a long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects (purportedly contributing to the creation of the Unabomber), and—gasp—interfering with foreign elections. From there, it was a short hop to wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars.

Edward Snowden

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/americas-open-wound?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”

― Baruch Spinoza

It hasn’t been a month since President Biden mounted the steps of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, declaring it his duty to ensure each of us understands the central faction of his political opposition are extremists that “threaten the very foundations of our Republic.” Flanked by the uniformed icons of his military and standing atop a Leni Riefenstahl stage, the leader clenched his fists to illustrate seizing the future from the forces of “fear, division, and darkness.” The words falling from the teleprompter ran rich with the language of violence, a “dagger at the throat” emerging from the “shadow of lies.”

“What’s happening in our country,” the President said, “is not normal.”

Is he wrong to think that? The question the speech intended to raise—the one lost in the unintentionally villainous pageantry—is whether and how we are to continue as a democracy and a nation of laws. For all the Twitter arguments over Biden’s propositions, there has been little consideration of his premises.

Democracy and the rule of law have been so frequently invoked as a part of the American political brand that we simply take it for granted that we enjoy both.

Are we right to think that?

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Parallel Structures Are the Only Way to Freedom

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2022

Admittedly, there is a catch. You actually have to do something about it—namely, get out of your comfort zone. It won’t be enough just to write know-it-all articles or comments in the online media or to participate in petitions and demonstrations. You have to create something new based on your own actions. That is exhausting.

https://mises.org/wire/parallel-structures-are-only-way-freedom

Titus Gebel

The battle for political supremacy in the West has been decided. The so-called progressives have won; conservatives and libertarians have lost. The “march through the institutions,” started by the misguided 1968 generation, has been successful, and their children and grandchildren are now at the helm. Eco-socialist, cultural Marxist, in short: bolshewoke ideas prevail in politics and culture, public administration, media, schools, universities, and increasingly even in business. At accelerating speed. If you have kept the same center-left viewpoint over the remaining twenty years, you are considered far right today.

In virtually all Democratic states, there is a tendency for larger organizations to drift to the left over time. This applies equally to television stations, newspapers, political parties, state authorities, universities, and other associations.

Why is this so? The explanation is twofold:

First, if you like to create things or projects on your own, or prefer to work for making a living and then enjoying private life with your family, you are probably less inclined to join any of these institutions. On the other hand, if you like to manipulate other people and control them, you are very much inclined to join these institutions.

The first position correlates rather with conservative positions, the second rather with progressive positions. And precisely because the most fundamental characteristic of Progressive ideas is that they do not work, Progressives concentrate in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive. That is why Progressives are disproportionately found in professions where economically measurable results do not have to be achieved.

Thus, Progressives are often media people, teachers, professors, politicians, or otherwise employed in government service or tax-funded nongovernmental governmental organizations. This has the additional effect that they can then use this position to agitate and discredit permanently, while their victims are busy proving themselves on the market, earning their own living and also supporting their Progressive opponents through taxes.

Second, conservatives and libertarians tend to be more tolerant toward differing political positions. If someone is known as a leftie in their organization, mostly they would allow this person to stay. Not so with the Progressives: They want to missionize and force all nonprogressive fellow citizens, whom they consider either unenlightened or bribed, to a happiness defined by them. Progressives only give a position in an organization to those who have the same world view and kick out dissenters by all means.

And this is how it has been going on for decades in newsrooms, broadcasting stations, universities, and authorities. Whoever is not of their opinion is defamed, suppressed, slandered. As a result, most of these institutions have been irreparably destroyed and can no longer be reformed with reasonable effort.

If one can mobilize $50 billion like Elon Musk, then one can take over Twitter. But it will still be difficult to turn the platform into a beacon of freedom of speech as planned. That’s because virtually the entire workforce tends politically to the left (relation of donations of Twitter employees in the Biden-Trump presidential campaign: 98:2). Since the majority of these people are convinced they are in the right and fighting for a good cause, Musk’s attempts to allow dissent will be sabotaged. Musk will have to replace large parts of the workforce to change this in the long term.

Comparable things apply to newspapers, TV stations, administrations, including the leadership of the armed forces and police, the courts, and practically all educational institutions. Reforms in the sense of a freedom-oriented policy are not impossible but extremely difficult, and they will probably be watered down, because existing sensitivities have to be taken into account.

Not Forcing People to Be Happy

We have also to keep in mind that every new generation of students is released into the voting age even more tightly ideologized, thus producing more and more streamlined voters, who are no longer reachable by argumentation and who are not even willing to expose themselves to competing arguments. They learn that the state solves all their problems. Only a minority is able to break out of this framework by own efforts of thought.

Why force these people to be happy against their will? This only makes you unpopular and them angry. Rather, those who refuse for life to become adults, and thus self-responsible individuals, should bear the consequences themselves, And the consequences will be serious. One only has to reflect that almost everything that the woke mainstream claims and that is more or less absorbed by the people, is wrong and the politics based on it will therefore inevitably fail.

For example, take the idea that an industrialized country can be supplied with wind power and solar energy only, or the conviction that the world’s population can be fed with organic food without any fertilizers and pesticides, the idea that one can impose all kinds of planned economic requirements on the economy without any major loss of prosperity, or the idea that one can increase the money supply at will without triggering massive inflation sooner or later.

Or take the complete refusal to subject drastic measures to a harm-benefit analysis, for example measures against covid, against climate change, or against Russia. Take the idea that man and woman are social constructs and that there are more than two genders, or the conviction that all people are exactly the same and can perform all tasks equally well with the appropriate education, or the idea of preventing or sanctioning free speech for an alleged good cause, and so on. Errors accumulated over decades, now add up to a veritable delusion and inevitably to a downfall.

Learning through Pain

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US Has No Plans To Withdraw From Syria Or End Sanctions: White House | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2022

Yah! Remember when they overthrew the government and installed a brutal puppet dictator causing misery for twenty five years! Oh wait, that was US (CIA).

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-has-no-plans-withdraw-syria-or-end-sanctions-white-house

Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN

Via The Cradle,

The Coordinator of Strategic Communications for Washington’s National Security Council, John Kirby, said on 28 October that the US has no plans to either ease the Caesar Act sanctions against Syria or to withdraw its illegally occupying forces from the country.

The Caesar Act, passed by Congress in 2019, imposes harsh sanctions against Syria and targets any state, business, or individual involved with the Damascus government.

In an attempt to justify the US presence in Syria, Kirby said that “only a thousand American soldiers” were stationed there, whose mission he claimed was solely to combat ISIS.

The US official also claimed that Washington does not wish to shift “the balance of power” in Syria, suggesting that it has abandoned its regime change policy against Damascus.

Despite this claim, the US continues to support and arm militant groups in the country, including the CIA-trained, anti-government Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT) faction, which holds positions within the Al-Tanf base. Last month, a Russian official claimed that MaT was planning an indiscriminate, false flag operation against civilians in order to pin the blame on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Despite also claiming that its presence in Syria aims to deter ISIS, US forces only carry out superficial strikes and operations against the extremist group, killing civilians in the process, while the SAA continues to pursue the organization thoroughly.

Instead, US troops in Syria are preoccupied with their persistent and illegal oil-looting operations, the latest of which took place on 26 October. Lately, Washington has even stepped up its looting of Syrian oil in order to alleviate the man-made energy crisis it faces, as well as to ease the effect of the latest decision by OPEC+ to cut output production levels.

According to the Syrian Oil Ministry, US forces have stolen more than 80 percent of the country’s daily oil output. Damascus and Moscow have both repeatedly and strongly condemned the US occupation, as well as its sanctions and policy of looting Syria’s natural resources.

Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzya, said on 10 August that a US withdrawal from Syria would facilitate the end of terrorism in the country.

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Tyrants

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2022

“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”

― Baruch Spinoza

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Watch “Wicked Globalists Are Causing Starvation and Poverty Under the Guise of Environmentalism” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2022

Solves the “useless eater” problem the WHO warns us about.

https://youtu.be/tF5spyudTYA

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Californians Move to Texas | Episode 3: The Church

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2022

https://babylonbee.com/video/californians-move-to-texas–episode-3-the-church

Everyone’s favorite transplants from California, Steve and Timpani, are going door to door trying to get their new Texas neighbors to vote for Beto O’Rourke. And then, plot twist, they end up in a good old-fashioned Baptist church!

Watch episode 1 here

Watch episode 2 here

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Democrats Form Committee To Get To The Bottom Of Who Did All Those Lockdowns And Vaccine Mandates

Posted by M. C. on October 29, 2022

https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-form-committee-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-who-did-all-those-lockdowns-and-vaccine-mandates

Article Image

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With the 2022 midterms just around the corner, Democrat lawmakers have formed the “United States House Select Committee to Investigate Who Did All Those Lockdowns and Vaccine Mandates” in hopes of finding out just who was behind all of those school closures, mask mandates, arrests, and egregious abuses of civil rights.

“Despite the scant evidence pointing to any one political party as being at fault for enforcing harmful lockdowns and mandates,” said Committee Chair Nancy Pelosi while wearing three masks and a solid gold commemorative pin celebrating her vaccine status. “This committee pledges to leave no stone unturned in its investigation.”

Pelosi added that, while much anecdotal evidence points to Republicans being the source of damaging lockdown policies, “We may, in fact, never know who is truly to blame for the untold injuries brought upon the American people.”

The committee began its investigation by issuing subpoenas to Senators Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, and other lawmakers who, according to CNN and MSNBC, were pro-lockdown from the start.

At publishing time, the committee announced the results of their thorough investigation: It was Ron DeSantis all along.

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A Service Economy Without Service

Posted by M. C. on October 29, 2022

Indeed, the very word service raises hackles in Britain, for it implies hierarchy, the servant who provided it being by definition subordinate to the person for whom the service is performed;

It is a curious fact that public address announcements in English made in foreign countries, even by foreigners, are now much clearer and more pleasing on the ear than those made in Britain, where the shrieking voice of a person whom I always think of as Ms. Slut-Harridan is much in vogue,

Airport public address systems in most airports are also unintelligible. I wish the same could be said for airport CNN broadcast echo chamber.

The US service economy is more and more self service. I am surprised announcements are not limited to aircraft TV screens.

By Theodore Dalrymple

Taki’s Magazine

Recently, I had the doubtful pleasure of flying aboard British Airways back to London. No doubt the airline is safe, its pilots well-trained and its maintenance staff competent; and these are no small virtues in an airline, you might well say. Moreover, the plane took off and landed on time, even if it took half an hour for a space to be found for it at the terminal. It was as if it had turned up unexpectedly, like an extra guest at a dinner party.

No doubt it is a sign of human frivolity to judge the quality of an airline by its cabin staff; very few of us, however, are qualified to judge it by anything else. Even the proper interpretation of a safety record might be difficult, for accidents are nowadays so rare that when one occurs, it might be quite by chance rather than by defect of the airline, and therefore not reflect on it at all.

The cabin crew of the aircraft that brought me back to London was no doubt well-intentioned, and they were not actively rude, but they were singularly lacking in grace or charm; and in that respect, they were truly representative of the population from which they were drawn.

Britain has pioneered a new kind of economy, having long since abandoned manufacturing as a way of paying its way in the world: a service economy without service. Indeed, the very word service raises hackles in Britain, for it implies hierarchy, the servant who provided it being by definition subordinate to the person for whom the service is performed; and in these prickly democratic, or rather radically egalitarian, times, such subordination is anathema.

Two members of the airline spoke to the passengers through the public address system, and for two reasons what they said was so painful on the ears that one longed for earplugs.The first reason was that it was evident that no one had ever taught them how to use the public address system in such a way that their voices did not emerge as ear-splitting shrieks (I deemed myself fortunate in the circumstances that a recent audiometry test demonstrated that I had 15 percent loss of hearing, normal for my age). When I say that it was painful to hear them, I do not mean this metaphorically, I mean it literally. They caused an unpleasant tingle in the ears.

Any person of average intelligence could be taught in a few minutes how to speak in such a way as not to have this effect, yet it was obvious that no one had thought to do this. Such inattention to detail, such unutterable sloppiness, is typical of British service industries, and partly explains why, in conditions when there are many millions of able-bodied economically inactive people in the country, foreigners in large numbers must be imported to wait tables or man hotel receptions with efficiency, politeness, intelligence, and grace. These are tasks quite beyond the British, at least in any numbers, to perform.

There was a second reason the shrieking over the public address system in the British Airways aircraft was so painful: The two members of the crew who were responsible for it spoke English very badly, although it was almost certainly the only language that they spoke. Certainly no linguistic concessions were made to the foreigners aboard, who were most of the passengers, not even a recorded announcement in the language of the country from which we had taken off. If they didn’t understand the safety announcements in English, well then, it served them right if they died as a consequence of their incomprehension.

Read the Whole Article

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NEW VIDEO: How Did Hamilton Get the Military the Jeffersonians Feared?

Posted by M. C. on October 29, 2022

https://mailchi.mp/mises.org/thank-you-for-joining-us-952396?e=e627b531ef

James Madison warned that “the means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” Now, more than two hundred years later, Americans have seen Madison’s warning come fully to life.

The second in our newest animated video series, America: From Republic to Empire, goes straight to the reason of how this could happen: the use of standing armies.

Although a professional military is an institution Americans take for granted today, at the time of our country’s founding, it was an issue that fiercely divided Hamiltonian Federalists and their Jeffersonian opponents.

This video looks at the history of this debate, considers alternative outcomes, and shows how Shays’s Rebellion created the justification Hamilton needed to get the military he desired.

Be sure to watch “Standing Armies,” the second installment in our new foreign policy-themed animated series, America: From Republic to Empire.

This project was made possible by the generosity of Jim Kluttz.
Watch Now

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Watch “Hidden cameras are everywhere – protect yourself!” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on October 29, 2022

Cheap enough detectors to make a fun experiment, especially if one travels.

https://youtu.be/ekm6ZJ-KP98

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