Posts Tagged ‘coronavirus’

It Wasn’t The “Virus” That Crashed The Economy, It Was The People Who Obeyed

Posted by M. C. on May 18, 2020

Instead of just blindly obeying the commands, think about it and ask if what you are doing is right. Do you have the moral right to take the rights of others? Applying even the most minimal amount of critical thinking to something can usually get people to what is right. But you have to do be willing to take a look at yourself, and correct your mistakes yourself, and take responsibility for your own actions. Which is exactly why most Americans won’t. Blaming a virus and blindly obeying the ruling class and it’s foot soldiers is much easier than critical thinking.

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/it-wasnt-the-virus-that-crashed-the-economy-it-was-the-people-who-obeyed_05132020

Mac Slavo

Most atrocities in human history have all been committed by individuals and agents of government who were “just following orders” or “just obeying the law.” The virus didn’t give any orders. It was the people who obeyed the commands of tyrants that crashed the economy and ruined the livelihoods of others.

Most human beings still think like slaves. Instead of asking questions or using critical thinking skills to ask if something is right before doing it, they simply obey perceived “authority”. The truth is, this lockdown is the fault of everyone who complied and everyone who used forced to exact revenge on those who disobeyed. It was the same in all tyrannical takeovers in history.

The mainstream media keeps blaming the economic devastation on the coronavirus, but it wasn’t the fault of a virus. It was the fault of the government and the slave mentality of the police and the public willingly obeying their commands.

Mainstream media outlets are still trying desperately to spin the narrative and fault the “invisible enemy” for the very real toll on human life the government’s overreaction has already caused. This is nothing more than propaganda, and once you pick it up, you’ll be able to see it. The media doesn’t want you to put the blame where it belongs and figure things out for yourself, so they hide behind deception headlines that will keep you in fear of COVID-19 as long as possible.

This is all a part of the larger plan to keep the public panicked about a virus and looking the other way when the tyrannical boots of the state come down on them. We know this is what the media does, and we know they are doing it to keep the ruling class in power and the public panicked and in a constant state of fear so they will comply with any and all enslavement measures.

The Science of Fear: How The Elitists Use it to Control Us & How to Break Free

Larken Rose, the author of Most Dangerous Superstition, lays out just how horrifyingly devastating it is for humans to remain unevolved to the point that they will not say “no” to an immoral command. The primary threat to freedom and justice is not greed, or hatred, or any of the other emotions or human flaws usually blamed for such things. Instead, it is one ubiquitous superstition that infects the minds of people of all races, religions, and nationalities, which deceives decent, well-intentioned people into supporting and advocating violence and oppression. Even without making human beings one bit more wise or virtuous, removing that one superstition would remove the vast majority of injustice and suffering from the world.

Sheep: Watch How People Blindly Follow Orders From An “Authority” Figure

The police state and tyranny is brought to you by those willing to follow commands, regardless of the morality of the command. Tyrants can’t have power without people willing to enforce the tyranny. If there are no order followers, there are no orders.

Copyright Information: Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to http://www.shtfplan.com.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: coronavirus, critical thinking, following orders, obeying the law, order followers | Leave a Comment »

CNN to feature teen climate activist Greta Thunberg in coronavirus town hall | TheHill

Posted by M. C. on May 15, 2020

Thunberg said earlier this year that she had recovered from what she believed were mild coronavirus symptoms.

Climate expert AND virologist. A treasure.

She probably knows more about COVID than CNN and Anderson Cooper.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/497555-cnn-to-feature-teen-climate-activist-greta-thunberg-in-coronavirus-town-hall

CNN to feature teen climate activist Greta Thunberg in coronavirus town hall

By Joe Concha – 05/13/20 12:34 PM EDT 542

CNN announced Wednesday it will feature teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg in its next “Coronavirus: Facts and Fears” town hall program set for Thursday night on the cable channel.

The town hall, hosted by “AC 360” anchor Anderson Cooper and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, will also include former acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Richard Besser and former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Both officials served in the Obama administration.

Former acting CDC director Richard Besser, former HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius and activist Greta Thunberg join @AndersonCooper & @DrSanjayGupta for a live #CNNTownHall. Coronavirus – Facts and Fears, Thursday at 8 p.m. ET pic.twitter.com/I4FrXgwaL6

— CNN (@CNN) May 13, 2020

The town hall on Thursday night comes one week after the network welcomed filmmaker Spike Lee as well as former Vice President Al Gore to discuss COVID-19.

Thunberg has become an outspoken figure, drawing considerable media attention since leading school strikes in her home country of Sweden in 2018.

Thunberg was awarded Time’s Person of the Year award while also being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019…

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: AC 360, CNN, coronavirus, Greta Thunberg | Leave a Comment »

America the Victim: Are Enemies Lining Up for Revenge in the Wake of the Coronavirus? — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on May 2, 2020

Pentagon plans to fight a war
with Russia and China simultaneously, first mooted in 2018, are still a
work in progress in spite of the fact that Washington has fewer cards
to play currently than it did two years ago.

In spite of the hysteria, it is important to note that no Americans have
been killed or injured as a result of recent Iranian, Russian, Chinese
and North Korean actions. When you station ships and planes close to or
even on the borders of countries that you have labeled as enemies it
would be reasonable to expect that there will be pushback.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/30/america-victim-enemies-lining-up-for-revenge-wake-coronavirus/

Philip Giraldi

When in trouble politically, governments have traditionally conjured up a foreign enemy to explain why things are going wrong. Whatever one chooses to believe about the coronavirus, the fact is that it has resulted in considerable political backlash against a number of governments whose behavior has been perceived as either too extreme or too dilatory. Donald Trump’s White House has taken shots from both directions and the response to the disease has also been pilloried due to repeated gaffes by the president himself. The latest mis-spoke, now being framed by Trump’s press secretary as sarcasm, involved a presidential suggestion that one might consider injecting or imbibing disinfectant to treat the disease, either of which could easily prove lethal.

So, the administration is desperate to change the narrative and has decided to hit on the old expedient, namely seeking out a foreign enemy to distract from what is going on in the nation’s hospitals. The tale of malevolent foreigners has been picked up by a number of mainstream media outlets and has proven especially titillating because there is not just one bad guy, but instead at least four: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

The accepted narrative is that America’s enemies are now taking advantage of a moment of weakness due to the lockdown response to the coronavirus and have stepped up their attacks, both physical and metaphorical, on the Exceptional Nation Under God. The most recent claim that the United States is being targeted involves an incident in mid-April during which a swarm of Iranian gunboats allegedly harassed a group of American warships conducting a training exercise in the Persian Gulf by crossing the bows and sterns of the U.S. vessels at close range. The maneuvers were described by the Navy as “unsafe and unprofessional” but the tiny speedboats in no way threatened the much larger warships (note the photo in the link which illustrates the disparity in size between the two vessels).

Donald Trump characteristically responded to the incident with a tweet last Wednesday: “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.” Although no context was provided, the president commands the armed forces and the tweet essentially defined the rules of engagement, meaning that it would be up to the ships’ commanders to determine whether or not they are being harassed. If so, the would be able to open fire and destroy the Iranian boats. Of course, there might be a physical problem in “shooting down” a gunboat that is in the water rather than in the air.

In the Mediterranean the threat against the U.S. consisted of two Russian jet fighters flying close to a Navy P8-A submarine surveillance plane. The Russian fighters were scrambled from Hmeymim air base in Syria after the U.S. aircraft approached Syrian airspace and Russian military facilities. One of the fighters, a SU-35 carried out an “unsafe” maneuver when it flew upside down at high-speed 25 feet in front of the Navy plane.

Also in mid-April, North Korea meanwhile fired cruise missiles into the Sea of Japan amidst rumors that its head of state Kim Jong Un might be dead or dying after major surgery. President Trump was unconcerned about the missiles and also commented that he had received a “nice note” from the North Korean leader.

Wars and rumors of wars notwithstanding, China continues to be the principal target for Democrats and Republicans alike on Capitol Hill. GOP congressmen are reportedly urging sanctions against China while there are already a number of coronavirus lawsuits targeting Chinese assets in U.S. courts, at least one of which has a trillion dollar price tag. Theories about the deliberate weaponization of the Wuhan virus abound and they are also mixed in with stories of how Beijing unleashed the weapons and is now engaged in Russia style social media intervention to promote the notion that the United States has proven incapable of handling what has become a major medical emergency. However, those who are pushing the idea that the Chinese communist party has declared war by other means fail to explain why the government in Beijing is so keen on destroying its largest export market. If the U.S. economy goes down a large part of the Chinese economy will go with it, particularly if China’s second largest export market Europe is also suffering.

The craziness of what is going on in the context of the disruption caused by the coronavirus has apparently increased the normal paranoia level at the top levels of the U.S. government. Pentagon plans to fight a war with Russia and China simultaneously, first mooted in 2018, are still a work in progress in spite of the fact that Washington has fewer cards to play currently than it did two years ago. The economy is down and prospects for recovery are speculative at best, but the war machine rolls on. Many Americans tired of the perpetual warfare are hoping that the virus aftermath will include demands for a genuine national health system that will perforce gut the Pentagon budget, leading to an eventual withdrawal from empire.

In spite of the hysteria, it is important to note that no Americans have been killed or injured as a result of recent Iranian, Russian, Chinese and North Korean actions. When you station ships and planes close to or even on the borders of countries that you have labeled as enemies it would be reasonable to expect that there will be pushback. And as for taking advantage of the virus, it is the United States that has suggested that it would do so in the cases of Iran and Venezuela, exerting “maximum pressure” on both countries in their times of troubles to bring about regime change. If those countries that are accustomed to being regularly targeted by the United States are taking advantage of an opportunity to diminish America’s ability to intervene globally, no one should be surprised, but it is a fantasy to make the hysterical claim that the United States has now become the victim of some kind of vast international conspiracy.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: coronavirus, Hmeymim, Iranian, Kim Jong Un, Lockdown | Leave a Comment »

Doctor Nicotine – Taki’s Magazine

Posted by M. C. on May 1, 2020

“Perhaps the American president should surround himself with more smokers and fewer housewives.”

https://www.takimag.com/article/doctor-nicotine/

Jorge Montojo

In the midst of so much social hysteria and propaganda of fear, it is a pleasure to find some serenity and common sense in the statements of some doctors about the benefits of tobacco. According to recent studies, smokers may be more resistant to the new plague. This is a wonderful discovery for tobacco lovers, who have suffered decades of jihadist prosecution for their virtuous vices.

Many doctors recoil in shock when checking the statistics of those infected, whether the patients are smokers or not. We are already with the mathematical strip-tease: “Statistics are like bikinis: What they reveal is suggestive but what they conceal is vital.”

In the New World, a paradise without a mania for overdressing, the pantheistic Indians already knew about the healing powers of tobacco and considered their holy smoke a communion of man with the divine. The art of smoking soon spread throughout Spain, thanks to Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, who had accompanied Christopher Columbus. In England the smoking ambassador was Sir Walter Raleigh, gallant pirate and man of letters who lost his head with that first anti-tobacco Taliban that was James I. In France Catherine de’ Medici (always curious about poisons and elixirs) was tobacco’s great supporter, thanks to the wise advice of doctor Jean Nicot, who considered the new plant a panacea and patented alkaloid nicotine with his name.

Since its American export to the rest of the planet, most artists, priests, and doctors have been great fans of tobacco. Only in the Anglo-Saxon world did it go from love to hate. During Victoria’s long reign, tobacco was so frowned upon that the French ambassador had to lie down on the floor and stick his head into the fireplace in order to take a drag. Then came her son Edward, who fortunately was a bon vivant, a lover of peace and the joys of life. His first order was a generous “Gentlemen, you may smoke.”

“Perhaps the American president should surround himself with more smokers and fewer housewives.”

Recent studies by La Pitié-Salpêtrière French hospital refer to the fact that cells impregnated with nicotine can fight more effectively against the coronavirus. If only Donald Trump would have recommended a good smoke or a powerful whiskey instead of disinfectant to his compatriots, he would have proved to be up to date with science and would have gained popularity as well as a bonus for the next elections. Perhaps the American president should surround himself with more smokers and fewer housewives.

Of course, the international medical community has screamed bloody murder for studies favorable to tobacco. It is a revolution! (But it may be a gentle one for once.) Anti-smoking campaigns have invested billions on hysterical slogans. Progressive governments (which often have little to do with progress) have violated the private ownership of bars and restaurants, placed the most aberrant advertising in tobacco packages, and demonized smokers as creatures without rights for their bad habits.

But it was not always like this. For centuries, tobacco has been praised not only by doctors but by the best poets, painters, and musicians throughout the world. (In a recent interview on ABC, David Hockney confessed that he has had four doctors younger than he is, and all of them warned him about the evils of smoking. Now they are all dead while Hockney continues to smoke and paint wonderfully at 82.)

The actual war began with greed and too many tobacco companies adding artificial ingredients to their cigarettes, making them much more addictive than nicotine. Such additives are very harmful, but have nothing to do with the sacred plant.

Today merciful doctors and scientists who honor the truth rather than dogma have dared to highlight data that shows a positive quality to tobacco, and they are starting to test nicotine patches as a possible preventive. They even consider the tobacco plant as fundamental to the discovery of a vaccine.

Perhaps this will change the fashion of demonizing tobacco. Make your vices work for you.

(The article in its original Spanish immediately follows.)

Doctor Nicotina

En medio de tanta histeria y propaganda del miedo es un placer encontrar algo de serenidad y sentido común en las declaraciones de unos médicos galos sobre las bondades del tabaco. Sus investigaciones indican que los fumadores podrían ser más resistentes a la nueva peste. Eso es algo maravilloso para los amantes del tabaco, que llevan decenios de persecución yihadista por sus virtuosos vicios.

Muchos doctores se llevan las manos a la cabeza al comprobar la variante estadística de enfermos, según sean fumadores o no. Ya estamos con el strip-tease matemático: “Las estadísticas son como un bikini: muestran algo importante pero esconden lo más interesante.”

En el Nuevo Mundo, paraíso que no pecaba de ir demasiado vestido, los indios panteístas ya sabían de los poderes curativos del tabaco y consideraban su fuma como una comunión del ser humano con los divinos elementos. El arte de fumar se extendió muy pronto por España, gracias a Rodrigo de Jerez y Luis de Torres, quienes habían acompañado a Cristóbal Colón. En Inglaterra su gran embajador fue sir Walter Raleigh, pirata galante y hombre de letras que perdió su cabeza con ese primer talibán anti-tabaco que fue Jacobo I. En Francia fue Catalina de Médici (experta en venenos y elixires) su gran valedora, gracias a los consejos del médico Jean Nicot, quien consideraba al tabaco como una panacea. Por cierto que el Dr. Nicot patentó con su nombre el alcaloide nicotina.

Desde su exportación americana la mayoría de artistas, sacerdotes y médicos del resto del mundo fueron siempre grandes aficionados al tabaco. Solo en el mundo anglosajón se pasaba del amor al odio fácilmente. Durante el largo reinado de Victoria, el tabaco estaba tan mal visto que el embajador francés tenía que tumbarse en el suelo y meter la cabeza dentro de la chimenea para poder echar una calada. Luego vino su hijo Eduardo, que afortunadamente era un bon-vivant amante de la paz y los placeres de la vida. Su primera orden fue un amable permiso: “Caballeros, ya pueden ustedes fumar.”

Los recientes estudios del hospital La Pitié-Salpêtrière hacen referencia a que las células impregnadas con la nicotina pueden luchar con más efectividad contra el coronavirus. Ah, ¡si Donald Trump hubiera recomendado a sus compatriotas una buena fumada o un potente whisky en lugar de desinfectante! Hubiera demostrado estar al día de la ciencia y habría ganado un plus de popularidad irresistible para las próximas elecciones. Tal vez el presidente americano debiera rodearse de más fumadores y menos amas de casa.

Por supuesto que la comunidad médica internacional ha puesto el grito en el cielo por tales estudios favorables al tabaco. ¡Es una revolución! (pero una amable, para variar). La campaña anti-smoking lleva invertidos miles de millones con histéricos eslóganes. Los gobiernos progresistas (a menudo poco tienen que ver con el progreso) han vulnerado la propiedad privada de bares y restaurantes, colocan la más aberrante publicidad sobre su consumo en los paquetes de tabaco y demonizan a los fumadores como criaturas sin derechos de salud por sus malos hábitos.

Pero no siempre fue así. Durante siglos el tabaco ha sido cantado no solo por médicos sino por los mejores poetas, pintores y músicos a lo ancho del mundo. (En una entrevista a ABC el pintor David Hockney cuenta que ha tenido cuatro médicos, todos más jóvenes que él, recomendándole dejar de fumar. Hockney los ha sobrevivido a todos y sigue fumando y pintando a sus 84 años.)

La guerra se inició al descubrir la codicia de demasiadas compañías tabaqueras que añadían a sus cigarrillos ingredientes artificiales mucho más adictivos que la nicotina. Tales añadidos son muy dañinos, pero nada tienen que ver con la sagrada plata solanácea.

Y ahora unos médicos misericordiosos, científicos que hacen honor a la verdad antes que al dogma, se atreven a dar unos datos que resaltan una cualidad positiva del tabaco. ¡Ya empiezan a probar parches de nicotina como posible preventivo! ¡Ya consideran a la planta del tabaco como fundamental en el descubrimiento de una vacuna!

Tal vez así cambie la moda que demoniza al tabaco. Make your vices work for you.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: coronavirus, Jean Nicot, smokers, tobacco | Leave a Comment »

Inclusivity, Diversity, and the Coronavirus – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2020

I tried to look up white male scientific discoveries, as I did these others, and got this, instead.

Scientists and mathematicians aren’t all white men—but you …

qz.com › scientists-and-mathematicians-arent-all-white-…

Oct 13, 2015 – A lack of visible role models can discourage young women from pursuing careers in STEM.

Race, Gender and Science – Jstor

http://www.jstor.org › stable

by A Fausto-Sterling – ‎1991 – ‎Cited by 18 – ‎Related articles

scientific workforce, we can no longer rely on white males as our major resource. Yet we have not coped with the tasks of attracting women and minorities to the …

White men’s voices still dominate public science. Here’s how …

phys.org › Other Sciences › Social Sciences

May 28, 2018 – So whose role is it to improve the visibility of scientists who are not white men? I found that journalists have different opinions about their role in …

It’s time to take the ‘great’ white men of science off their pedestals

http://www.theguardian.com › commentisfree › sep › white-sup…

Sep 19, 2017 – Of course the Oxford statue of Rhodes should fall but what about novelist HG Wells, and ‘father of gynaecology’ J Marion Sims, too, asks …

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/walter-e-block/inclusivity-diversity-and-the-coronavirus/

By Walter E. Block

In the United States, and all around the world, there are scientists in laboratories, busily working on finding a medicine to cure those afflicted with the coronavirus, and/or a vaccine, to prevent others from contracting this dread disease.

All well and good you say? Not so fast. There is a problem here, a big one. Our precious tenets of inclusivity and diversity are not being adhered to. Virtually all of the chemists, biologists, STEM PhDs and others of that ilk are straight white males! This is intolerable. This must not be allowed to continue! Are we fair weather supporters of inclusivity and diversity, or do we seriously uphold these crucially important principles? If the latter, we must do all that we can to dismiss, not all, we’re reasonable here, but many of the evil straight white males from these laboratories. We must replace them with lesbians, homosexuals, bisexuals, blacks, gays, bisexuals, the transgendered, the intersex, queer/questioning, asexual, the non-binary, the pansexual, Hispanics, women, Eskimos, Native Americans, the disabled and other denigrated and deprived groups.

What’s this you say? That members of these other groups are less qualified than the cis-gendered white males presently occupying these positions? Yes, true, but that is only because of rampant discrimination on the part of the aforesaid evil white males. Had admission to these STEM Ph.D. programs been fair in the first place (that is, based on inclusivity and diversity), we would have had laboratories filled with people who look just like the rest of us.

What, you have another objection to my modest proposal? (People who question or disagree with me are Fascists, and you’re beginning to sound like one. However, we live in unusual times, and I’m willing to consider yet another objection of yours). You claim that we are less likely to find a cure or a vaccine for Covid 19 if we ferret out white males, not all of them to be sure, just many of them, and replace them with salt of the earth folk (that is, everyone except a straight white cis gendered male)? Nonsense. Nonsense on stilts! You only make this objection because you have been taken in by the propaganda of the evil straight white cis gendered males. You want some proof? Black people have in the past accounted for numerous and important scientific discoveries, as have women. Go look it up if you doubt me. Or, see below for evidence that will make your head spin.

But let us consider your point arguendo. It is totally wrong, as the evidence I just adduced amply demonstrates, but let us consider the contrary to fact conditional: to the extent we kick out of the nation’s laboratories many of the evil straight white cis gendered males, and replace them with members of downtrodden groups, we will reduce the probability of finding cures and vaccines for the coronavirus. (This mere contention of yours makes me so angry I could scream. It emanates, only, from the fascist side of the political economic spectrum. Nevertheless, I will condescend to respond to it, even though what you so richly deserve for raising this point is a punch in the nose, and banishment from any university, whether as a professor or a guest speaker; and if you dare show up in one of these venues, a punch in the nose is what you’ll get. We’ve treated Charles Murray in a similar manner, and we’ll do the same to you).

The answer to this objection is So What! There are more important things than saving lives; promotion of inclusivity and diversity is one of them. Whenever we promote inclusivity and diversity we do it at the cost of something else (remember, I am still in the arguendo mode; I do not for a moment believe that dismissing evil straight white cis gendered males from the scientific workshops of the nation will have any negative effects on discoveries). This occurs in every field it is applied to: medicine, philosophy, economics, physics, mathematics, whatever.

Another point, now that you are finished with your fascistic whining: disproportionately more blacks than whites are succumbing to Covid 19. Why is this? I know why it is: it is due to the fact that a disproportionate number of evil straight white cis gendered males are now in charge of science departments and laboratories. Don’t ask me how they do it. But we have here a clear case of disparate impact. We can deduce from statistics of this sort, alone, discriminatory practices.

I hope by now I have convinced everyone of my thesis: out with many of the evil straight white cis gendered males, and in with members of groups that have long been victimized by them. I feel so strongly that I am now announcing a pledge: we will not avail ourselves of any medicine or vaccine guaranteed cure or prevent this virus until and unless our non-negotiable demands are met.

I’ll soon be circulating a petition to this effect on these pages. If you have even a modicum of social justice in your hearts, you’ll be ready to sign up. I’m going to ask my high school buddy Bernie to co chair this effort. Surely, he’ll agree to do so.

Wait, I forgot all about evil straight white cis gendered Jewish males. Surely, Jews are disproportionately responsible for this present evil, too.

Here are some interesting facts to ponder:

* In 2017 not a single black person earned a Ph.D. in “a dozen academic fields—largely STEM related”

* “… the proportion of black men at the Ph.D. level more than doubled between 1992 and 2012, but from a very low base of only 1 percent to 2 percent of all STEM degrees…”

* Women earn about 40% of all STEM Ph.D.s while men account for roughly 60%

St. Olaf College in Minnesota has the right idea. They are holding ceremonies for all graduating seniors except for white males. This policy should be applied far more widely.

Pegs:

Male female differences in STEM phds.

No black stem related phds in 2017.

Black STEM phds doubled.

On disproportionate deaths of black people from the virus.

Female scientific discoveries.

Black scientific discoveries.

Jewish scientific discoveries.

I tried to look up white male scientific discoveries, as I did these others, and got this, instead.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: cis-gendered, coronavirus, diversity, inclusivity, PhD, STEM, straight white males | Leave a Comment »

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.

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

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Children Play, Christ, constant fear, coronavirus, courage is contagious, Gospel, Lockdown | Leave a Comment »

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

Sam Spence

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.

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.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Barbados, coronavirus, Forced Closures, Overlords, Santia Bradshaw, Supermarket | 1 Comment »

Essential, Yet Illegal? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 24, 2020

I am serving a sentence of life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. In 2002, I was convicted of conspiring to distribute marijuana. I ponder that one quarter mile from here, in Illinois, marijuana distributors are not restrained by the lockdown orders. Instead, they are “essential businesses.”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/no_author/essential-yet-illegal/

By Craig Cesal

The US federal government does a bunch of things that mystify me. They cannot discriminate in conferring benefits based on race, oh, unless it is affirmative action. Government agents cannot search you or your home without first earning a warrant, unless they think they should. I’ve even accepted there is alternative truths; you can keep your doctor; and Bill didn’t inhale. But, in the last few days, it seems they overwhelmed my imagination.

In these days of coronavirus lockdown, mine are spent in cell #107 at the federal prison at Terre Haute, Indiana. I am serving a sentence of life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. In 2002, I was convicted of conspiring to distribute marijuana. I ponder that one quarter mile from here, in Illinois, marijuana distributors are not restrained by the lockdown orders. Instead, they are “essential businesses.” My indictment reads: “The People of the United States of America versus Craig Cesal,” agreed or confederated to distribute marijuana. The final judgment reads life imprisonment. Who got it wrong—the People of the United States or Craig Cesal? The rules governing that review are quickly evolving.

The thirty-three states that consider marijuana marketing an essential business, they carry on without any intervention by the US government, or even by the People of the US. How can I accept this from my vantage point of being locked in a seven feet by eleven feet prison cell?

While the marijuana purveyors carry on in their marijuana stores, the local county jails are busy identifying prisoners they can release if they determine they are not a danger to the community. Local jails are working to reduce jail populations to staunch the spread of coronavirus. All but violent offenders, including marijuana slingers, are being released, since they are not a threat to anyone. If marijuana proprietors are not a threat to the community, a community made up of the People of the US, why are taxpayers spending over $50,000 per year to keep me in this box?

A guy recently left here. He had been caught dumping his “Honey Wagon,” a tanker truck that sucks out septic tanks, along a dirt road in Kentucky. Wouldn’t you know it, that road was next to a dried up creek bed, and therefore a federal waterway. The US court sent him here for 30 months. Okay, the People of the US don’t want 10,000 pounds of poop lying next to their road. I get that.

Next, a guy down the corridor from me was playing with his new laser pointer one night and pointed it at a helicopter. He later learned it was a Homeland Security helicopter, and the fancy night vision equipment within recorded him standing in his backyard doing it. He’ll be here for the next 40 months. Even though the folks don’t want a pile of poop along their road, others don’t want a flash-blinded helicopter pilot over their houses. In contrast, though, depositing roadside excrement and illuminating helicopters are not essential businesses.

I’m not surprised that all these things are being done or by what the media says about it. Instead, I am befuddled over what is not asked. Thousands of prisoners awaiting trial have now been released from jails because they are of no threat. The truant query is why were taxpayers shelling out hard earned cash to hold them there in the first place? Indeed, if they are no danger to the county, why is so much effort being expended to send them to prison?

A sober peek at who is being held in our jails has resulted in thousands being released. Okay, some will commit new crimes upon being freed, but not the bulk of them. If they never really needed to be held in jail, why were they there? As a prisoner, I know most were jailed simply to keep them from having too much access to resources to prepare a vibrant, and too often poignant defense. Jail is a weapon wielded by the government. Until last month, by and large, the People of the US weren’t allowed oversight as to who is held in jail and why. The outside attention and review has resulted in massive changes to the US jail population.

The same who, what, and why questions should be cut and pasted atop the prison inmate population. About half of the 174,000 federal prisoners are drug offenders, and 17% of those are serving sentences related to marijuana distribution. Those 24,000 inmates conducted essential business—even if they didn’t have the opportunity to pay the requisite tax. This 60-year-old marijuana offender has consumed over $50,000 per year worth of housing, food, insulin, medical care, and more for over eighteen years. Aggregate the cost of prosecution and the People of the US have spent over a million dollars of their tax payments to keep this essential businessman in prison and away from his family and his tax-paying job.

When the People of the US are done scouring the jails for people better off released, I suggest they look closely at the 24,000 essential business people in federal prison.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: coronavirus, essential businesses, Lockdown, marijuana distributors | Leave a Comment »

Cakes and Ale for Shut-ins – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 20, 2020

The cultural carnage of coronaphobia will hit hardest in places where people once felt at home—in no few cases more at home than at home—when they are not there. By the time regular haunts are ready for haunting again that barkeep who made the place might be found under the bridge. What is likely to remain standing when this gale subsides will look familiar—in ten thousand or more locations around the continent—a board room will decide what is good enough for you. Pre-programmed, depersonalized and bland to the level of your highschool cafeteria may be the next phase. Soylent green brought to you by a kitchen with shares traded on the NYSE.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/tim-hartnett/cakes-and-ale-for-shut-ins/

By Tim Hartnett

“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” Samuel Johnson

Hermitic homebodies might not go along with Boswell’s drinking buddy. It’s the wayfarers who can all agree: Johnson is as right in 2020 as he was in 1791 when his life story hit stands. Cabin fever is about the next worst thing to the coronavirus. Card-carrying true believers in hitting town and throwing down would even say that that order is reversed. There are healthy herds in every hamlet who’d be willing to take their chances bellying up to the bar tonight. In the meantime, no one has got a clue how long going out will continue to seem like a distant fantasy. People who used to get every meal at a public table are learning mysteries of the microwave. George H W pegged it 28 years too early when he said: “We are enjoying sluggish times and not enjoying them very much.”

Roadhouses have staged English-speaking culture’s rowdy animation for centuries. Prohibition and government goons could only drive communal boozing slightly underground. The American Revolution got a lot of it’s rolling steam in The Green Dragon of Boston. Places like it all over the original 13 served a similar function. Chaucer begins his tales in the seedy and sordid Tabard Inn. Henry Fielding’s rascals and anti-heroes, from Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones and elsewhere, were constantly conniving ways to fund another pub crawl. Their escapades would deliver a lot less color without louche dives as backgrounds.

Languid hours in front of laptops, even when bottles are on hand, supply sorry substitutes to fancy French joints, pretentious bistros, greasy gin mills and everything in between. Friends, strangers, and often foes, provide a lot more entertainment, not to mention potential adrenaline, in the flesh. Meanwhile, as the shutdown continues, George III’s henchmen’s successors, in a federal snoop center near you, are in on every conversation.

Public eateries, like everything else on the planet, are always going through changes. Since the ‘70s shifts have accelerated and not necessarily by popular demand. Computers frequently stand in the way of ease in communication. Culinary trends and exorbitant rents have driven places that thrived for decades out to be replaced by others, more “conceptual,” that never make the first penny before closing shop. Government intrusions and litigious havoc place elements of fear into environments designed, theoretically, for relaxation.

Dietary alarmists don’t improve the climate selling faddish myths that accuse commonly consumed foods of being poisons. Their hypochondriacal disciples tend to arrive in packed houses, otherwise, tyrannical demands don’t get the full effect. Ravenous—and emotionally healthy–guests, placing naïve trust in a kitchen running at full tilt, will just have to wait. Pompous patrons who enjoy throwing weight around were once allowed only so much leeway. Social media sites, that put cranks on a par with the Michelin Tire Co., enable pathological vipers’ free shots at victims that can’t strike back. It’s a modern convenience that allows everyone–from proprietors to the dishwasher—to be a subject of anonymous sadistic humiliation.

In some ways the dining out scene has been trending towards one size fits all without Wall Street’s help. Before the turn of the latest century, lively debate—between strangers or regulars–was thriving in public spaces—including ones that served alcohol. A stirring level of civil confrontation was a reason to go in. Shrill, sensitive personalities felt social pressure to restrain themselves rather than everybody else. Bartenders could be erudite souls with wry punchlines…and some patrons might object. Other options were just steps away. It’s getting harder all the time to find places where witlessness is not a requirement of welcome. The moment an exchange becomes interesting you’ve crossed a line. Among other things, a good tavern can be perpetual performance art. Why go to the Bauhaus gallery when you’re keen on Norman Rockwell?

Restaurateurs are suffering waves of pressure to be all things to all people. It isn’t just the political correctness and creative angles of taking offense. Receipts barely keep pace with bills, particularly the landlords—on that count South Manhattan is not necessarly guiltless—so management begins to bend to all comers. The demands of eccentrically insecure people paint the experience gray for customers who know why they are there and what they want. If you don’t know the Barbizon School from the Ashcan, maybe Olive Garden’s “hospitaliano” will hit your special spot.

In a high-stress environment like a restaurant, wherein a clutch things must stay in rapid motion, one dunder-head–and that head doesn’t have to start with “dunder”–goes an enormously long way. That’s something to keep in mind if there’s any hope that our once rich nightlife culture might revive. Never invent a problem that doesn’t exist.

Informal public spaces to convene—coffee shops, pubs, dining establishments—are vital to healthy society not just for the commodities they purvey but because they help make people think. If the British really recognized what they were up against their dragoons would have torched the Green Dragon—before Sons of Liberty mobs sparked the homes of Crown revenuers. East India company tea would have steeped at 212 degrees Fahrenheit instead of floating in the icy December waters of Boston Harbor. Anyone finding happiness basting in his own unconfronted thoughts makes a subtle distinction with misery.

While everyone is stranded the truth will founder in clutches of algorithmists at Google, Facebook, Twitter and their kindred. An isolated population makes an ideal audience for central sources of propaganda. Virtual human contact is a recipe for virtual human happiness. In that stage of civilization, Dr. Johnson’s notion of bliss may come to resemble poetry from an untranslatable dead language.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Ale, Cabin fever, Cakes, coronaphobia, coronavirus, Public eateries, The Green Dragon | Leave a Comment »

Death in Slow Motion – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 16, 2020

Now, we have become a nation of sheep. We have elected officials with constitutionally assigned duties — and constitutionally imposed limitations — who have assumed to themselves dictatorial powers and have falsely claimed that they can interfere with our personal choices. Who are the governors to decide which human activities are essential? Abortion is essential but Mass is not? No constitution gave them that power.

Closing churches meets no constitutional standard. There is no question that fighting a pandemic is a compelling state interest, yet there are far less restrictive ways to address it than preventing worship.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/andrew-p-napolitano/death-in-slow-motion/

By Andrew P. Napolitano

During the past month, as Americans have been terrified of the coronavirus, another demon has been lurking ready to pounce. It is a demon of our own creation. It is the now amply manifested inability of elected officials to resist the temptation of totalitarianism. And it is slowly bringing about the death of personal liberty in our once free society.

It is one thing for public officials to use a bully pulpit to educate and even intimidate the populace into a prudent awareness of basic sanitary behaviors — even those which go against our nature — to impede the spread of the virus. It is quite another to contend that their suggestions and intimidations and guidelines somehow have the force of the law behind them.

They don’t. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Bill de Blasio, Constitution, coronavirus, executive, First Amendment, judicial, legislative, Madison | Comments Off on Death in Slow Motion – LewRockwell

« Previous Entries

Next Entries »

MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Murray Rothbard

Columnists

Subscribe

E-mail Martin Fox

Counter

Favorite Sites

Information Liberation

Alex Jones’ Prison Planet

Gary North Specific Answers

Antiwar

The Daily Bell

Tenth Amendment Center

Economics Policy Journal

The American Thinker

The New American

Lew Rockwell

Posts Tagged ‘coronavirus’

It Wasn’t The “Virus” That Crashed The Economy, It Was The People Who Obeyed

CNN to feature teen climate activist Greta Thunberg in coronavirus town hall | TheHill

CNN to feature teen climate activist Greta Thunberg in coronavirus town hall

America the Victim: Are Enemies Lining Up for Revenge in the Wake of the Coronavirus? — Strategic Culture

Doctor Nicotine – Taki’s Magazine

Inclusivity, Diversity, and the Coronavirus – LewRockwell

Race, Gender and Science – Jstor

White men’s voices still dominate public science. Here’s how …

It’s time to take the ‘great’ white men of science off their pedestals

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

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

It Gets Worse

Lack of Transparency

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.

2. People are outraged at those who broke curfew.

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.

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

The Government Eventually Walked Back Its Strict Closures

Essential, Yet Illegal? – LewRockwell

Cakes and Ale for Shut-ins – LewRockwell

Death in Slow Motion – LewRockwell