If we want to know what really limited the regime’s power during the Covid Panic, we must look to the “do-not-comply” activists who were willing to lose jobs and social status as a result of their opposition to the regime. It was primarily the people portrayed as crazed malcontents by the regime who stood between the regime and the full use of its power. The US constitution and the Bill of Rights played virtually no role in limiting the state’s power during the emergency.
This month marks the fourth anniversary of one of the most disastrous assaults on human rights in American history. It was on March 16, 2020 that the President Trump issued “guidelines” for “15 days to slow the spread” which stated that “Governors of states with evidence of community transmission should close schools in affected and surrounding areas.” The administration instructed all members of the public to “listen to and follow the directions of your state and local authorities.”
It was at this time that an American president, for the first time in American history, introduced the idea that it was possible—and perfectly legal—for government institutions to “close down” the economy by forcibly shutting, en masse, countless businesses, schools, and churches. Trump stated repeatedly in press conferences that it was up to government officials to decide “if we open up.” It quickly became standard procedure for health bureaucrats, governors, and media figures to casually speak of “closing the economy” or “opening up” as if we were talking about a coffee shop deciding on closing time.
Meanwhile, across the country, local law enforcement officers willingly worked to arrest or harass business owners, worshipers at church, soccer moms at the park, and anyone else with the temerity to venture outdoors for activities not approved by the ruling class.
The small minority of Americans that remained committed to human rights and private property soon discovered how powerless they really are. Many dissenters were dismayed by a lack of action from the courts, and how elected officials were apparently unwilling or unable to rein in the vast new powers of “health” officials. Was there nothing that could limit the state’s power? This was confusing for many people because many have been (and remain) enamored of the idea that written constitutions limit state power when it matters most.
Many dissenters learned a valuable lesson from the experience, however: during the Covid Panic of 2020 and 2021, it became abundantly clear how little constitutional government and the so-called “rule of law” actually limit a regime’s power in times of perceived emergency. It is during emergencies, in fact, when we learn who really holds political power, and how ineffective are constitutional measures designed to limit it.
True Power Is Revealed by Emergencies
As the Covid Panic revealed to us, the real, de facto ruling class is the executive state which effortlessly ruled by decree during the covid crisis. This ruling clique—an oligarchy of governors, academic “experts,” media billionaires, and countless nameless and faceless unelected bureaucrats—has illustrated in recent years how irrelevant elected lawmakers can be to the use of political power.
This problem is not new, nor have scholars only recently noticed it. Libertarian political scientists Carlo Lottieri and Marco Bassani have noted that the problem of emergency power has long been a concern for radical free-market liberals, especially those of the Italian school of elitism. These scholars recognized that political power in times of emergencies is exercised by individual persons who are unconcerned with abstract limits on their power. This fact is fundamentally at odds with the abstractions of the constitutionalists who imagine that the state monopoly on coercion can be rendered relatively harmless via written constitutions. That is, the constitutionalists believe the written law will somehow restrain the ruling class, even in emergencies.
In practice, however, this doesn’t happen. Lottieri and Bassani explain what the constitutionalists get wrong:
The constitutionalist claim to justify the State’s monopoly of violence has been challenged directly by the radical libertarian tradition (Molinari) and by individualist anarchists (such as Lysander Spooner). However, an important role in bringing the modern State into perspective has also been played by European political realism and, in particular, by Carl Schmitt and the Italian elitist scholars (Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto).
Schmitt’s importance rests very much on his intuition that in every State there is first a political dimension and then a decision, which cannot be obscured by the so-called “impersonality” of law and the “super-individuality” of orders. Beyond the apparent abstraction of the State … Schmitt uncovered choices, interests, and, in short, people that impose their will on others.
The constitutional thought of classical and contemporary liberalism has constantly tried to neutralize politics, but it has failed. … [T]he real sovereign is the political group that has the final decision about the critical situation, in the state of emergency. The locus of sovereignty thus becomes the political entity (which in our time is the State), and the decision on the state of emergency is the ultimate test of sovereignty. Legal positivism tried hard to refute the importance of this notion, but critical decision making is paramount in the development of human relations.
Lottieri further notes that the fantasy of a neutral regime constrained by mere legal barriers is “simply impossible.” Yet, the naive view has often made the state appear less dangerous and has convinced many to accept the state’s monopoly of violence.
This is illustrated in the fact that the efforts to implement lockdowns in the United States were thoroughly bipartisan. Opposition to lockdowns was virtually nonexistent within regime institutions themselves. The Trump administration, the CDC, the legacy media, social media, state medical boards, state governors, and local health officials were all more or less in lockstep in March and April 2020.
So if it sometimes seems as though the US has no actual morals or values regarding human rights, it’s because that is precisely the case. You see things like White House spokesman John Kirby crying about civilians dying in Ukraine yet shrugging indifferently at civilians dying in Gaza because his tears are cynical weapons used to advance US interests on the world stage, not a normal empathetic response to human suffering.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has been repeatedly refusing to tell the press whether he believes Israel has been following the laws of war in Gaza.
Here’s a transcript from an exchange with The Hill’s Niall Stanage at a White House press conference on Tuesday:
Stanage: You said today, as you’ve said a number of times, about the importance of the laws of war being upheld. Israel has killed around 11,000 Palestinians. Around two thirds of those are women and children. The situation in the hospitals is dire. Israel has dropped an astronomical amount of ordnance in very built-up areas. Is Israel, in your view, abiding by the laws of war? And if it is, how do you come to that conclusion?
Sullivan: Well, as I said yesterday, I — Jake Sullivan, standing here — am not in a position to be judge and jury to make that determination. It’s a legal determination. What I can do is state for you the clear policy of the Biden administration, which we have been unequivocal about from the beginning of this conflict. And that is that even though Hamas is using civilians as human shields, is burrowing into civilian areas with its rocket emplacements that they are continuing to launch every single day at civilian areas in Israel, that puts an added burden on the IDF but it does not lessen their responsibility to act in ways that separate terrorists from civilians and does everything in their power to protect civilian lives.
Stanage: But the —
Sullivan: That is — that was the case. That remains the case today. That is the message that we’ve said publicly and we communicate to our Israeli counterparts privately —
Stanage: But —
Sullivan: — and we do that on a daily basis.
Stanage: I’m just trying to be clear, though. The administration’s view is that the IDF is doing that?
Sullivan: What I’ve told you is that I am not in a position to give you a legal determination to your question. I am not in a position to do that. What I’m in a position to do is to state the U.S. government position on how Israeli operations should be conducted. And that is what I have done. That is what I continue to do. That is what I can do from this podium.
President Biden and his administration have said that Israel *should* abide by the laws of war.
But, as the death toll mounts, does the White House think Israel *is* doing so?
I asked National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan today.
Sullivan performed the same evasive dance routine during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, telling host Dana Bash “I’m not going to sit here and play judge or jury on that question” when asked if Israel is operating according to the rules of war.
It was funny because Bash’s question arose from Sullivan’s own assertion that Israel has a “responsibility to operate according to the rules of war”; Sullivan asserted that this was Israel’s responsibility on his own, but then immediately refused to say whether or not that was actually happening.
Of course, Sullivan has only been performing these freak show contortions with regard to questions about the criminality of governments which align themselves with the interests of Washington; he’s been directly and repeatedly accusing Russia of war crimes in Ukraine without the slightest bit of hesitation from the early days of the conflict.
You see this glaring inconsistency over and over again in US foreign policy, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office or which party is in control. The criminality of US allies gets ignored, downplayed and frantically obfuscated, while the criminality of US enemies gets spotlighted, exaggerated, and pushed to the forefront of international attention.
We’re seeing this inconsistency illustrated today by Hillary Clinton, who just published a think piece with The Atlantic war propaganda outlet forcefully defending Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza, after spending the last two years tweeting things like “If Russian leadership would rather not be accused of committing war crimes, they should stop bombing hospitals.”
Speaking of former US secretaries of state, it’s probably worth mentioning here that a leaked 2017 State Department memo addressed to then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson explained that this inconsistency regarding the criminality of US allies vs US enemies is actually a standing policy within the inner workings of the US government.
The leaked memo from the early days of the Trump administration showed neoconservative empire manager Brian Hook teaching the political neophyte Tillerson that for the US government, “human rights” are only a weapon to be used for keeping other nations in line. In a remarkable insight into the cynical nature of imperial narrative management, Hook told Tillerson that it is US policy to overlook human rights abuses committed by nations aligned with US interests while exploiting and weaponizing them against nations who aren’t.
The media tells them: Claim it on “climate change” and help reduce your carbon foot print, do not eat meat, do not drive cars, do not fly, stay home, adapt to a modern lockdown. The new 15-minute cities are ideal for you, the commons.
Such an arrogant statement – humans making the weather with their sheer lifestyles – should already ring a strong bell in a clear-thinking mind of normal humans, but it doesn’t
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About a week ago, the UN Human Rights Czar in Geneva issued a stern warning – “Up to 80 million people will be plunged into hunger if climate targets are not met”.
These are the words of Volker Turk, the head of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. He spoke at a Human Rights event, and highlighted as principal cause for this coming calamity – what else – “climate change”. He said,
“extreme weather events were having a significant negative impact on crops, herds and ecosystems, prompting further concerns about global food availability.”
This is immediately proven by never-before-in-history extreme floods in Vermont, USA, by extreme droughts in Europe and Central – Western USA and by enormous, never-before experienced – forest fires in Canada. More is already announced – extreme Monsoon rains in India, and possibly Bangladesh. What a coincidence. Except, there are no coincidences. Droughts and gigantic flashfloods, in calculated interchange. No coincidences.
Most people of this globe just simply cannot believe how evil some non-people are. The Covid crime and the vaccination genocide was not enough to open their eyes, that their governments cannot be trusted, that they are sold, either by money or by threats, to an extreme evil power, a Depopulation, a Eugenics Cult which is behind it all.
Mr. Turk went on claiming,
“More than 828 million people faced hunger in 2021, and climate change is projected to place up to 80 million more people at risk of hunger by the middle of this century.”
Further contributing to the drama, he added, “Our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying”; and that these factors will combine to lead humanity towards a “dystopian future” unless urgent and immediate action is taken by environmental policymakers.
And then came the MUST reference to the 2015 (COP) Paris Agreement often referred to as the Paris Climate Accords, which were adopted by 196 parties at the time. COP means “Conference of the Parties”. Adding to the confusion of UN jargons, it refers to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose signatories agreed to cap global warming below 2 degrees celsius above the 1850-1900 levels – or to 1.5 degrees celsius if possible. Does anyone understand the language to carry out this easy task?
Such an arrogant statement – humans making the weather with their sheer lifestyles – should already ring a strong bell in a clear-thinking mind of normal humans, but it doesn’t, because our pineal gland for logical thinking and perception of emotions has been gradually dumbed, reduced, even killed in some people with chemicals we eat regularly und imperceptibly in our daily food, chemicals sprayed from the air via chemtrails, “disinfectant” chemicals in the water, the uncountable PCR tests, with absolutely scientifically proven unnecessary sticks up the nose, to the thin separation between nose and brain – and pineal gland — and more.
To dull our sentiments and perception is a long-term goal that “our Masters” have been working on for the last at least hundred years – or longer.
Dulled minds are easier to manipulate. Add to this DARPA’s MK-Ultra and Monarch mind-manipulation program and we know why we are where we are.
The New York Times confirmed this week what we’ve long suspected, that American forces don’t properly vet proxies fighting on their behalf.
Promoting human rights is not only a moral imperative; it is also a security imperative. Nations that use U.S.-supplied weapons to repress or kill civilians sow instability, prolong conflicts, and create an atmosphere that makes it easier for extremist groups to recruit new converts.
Two developments this week underscored the fact that U.S. programs that provide arms and training to foreign military forces are out of control, to the detriment of human rights, regional stability, and U.S. security.
First, the New York Timesreported that two programs designed to train foreign proxy forces to act on America’s behalf do not engage in human rights vetting of the personnel involved. The article noted that under the first program, known as 127e or 127 Echo, “American commandos pay, train and equip foreign partner forces and then dispatch them on kill-or-capture operations.”
The second program, known as Section 1202, funds activities short of war, from propaganda to sabotage. It had long been suspected that the two programs ignored human rights concerns, but the Timesconfirmed it for the first time via official U.S. government documents, which were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), who has promoted legislation to introduce human rights screening into the programs, underscored what is at stake.
“We need to make sure that we are not training abusive units to become even more lethal and fueling the conflict and violence that we’re aiming to solve,” she said. “And that starts with universal human rights vetting.”
Rep. Jacobs plans to introduce a bill later this year to close the human rights loophole in the 127 Echo and Section 1202 programs.
Meanwhile, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken pointing out the deep flaws in U.S. efforts at “end-use monitoring,” which primarily involves verifying the physical security of U.S.-supplied weapons in theory in an effort to ensure that they do not end up in the hands of unauthorized third parties, from militias to terrorist groups to countries that would not otherwise be approved to receive arms from the U.S.
What current end-use monitoring efforts do not do, as noted by the senators in their letter, is actually track how U.S. weapons are used by the recipient nation. This opens the possibility that U.S.-armed nations can commit severe human rights abuses or kill large numbers of civilians with impunity.
For example, in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have killed thousands of civilians through air strikes and contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more by enforcing a blockade that has hindered the import of essential supplies. Yet, other than a suspension of one sale of precision-guided munitions late in President Obama’s second term and a pause of two bomb sales early in President Biden’s term, they have suffered no consequences, and U.S. sales to both nations have continued.
In fact, in its response to a September 2022 letter from Sen. Warren regarding the use of U.S. arms to commit possible war crimes in Yemen, the State Department acknowledged that “[s]ince 2012, the Department has not paused, reduced, or canceled any Foreign Military Sales cases or deliveries as a result of its investigations into reports that a foreign government used U.S.-origin or U.S.-provided defense articles for purposes other than those for which the items were furnished by the U.S. government.” This is astonishing given how brutally Saudi Arabia and the UAE waged the war in Yemen, and the harshly repressive conduct of other U.S. arms recipients such as Egypt, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
The Dubai Expo, launching on Friday, promises “the world’s greatest show” according to spokesperson Chris Hemsworth in a commercial featuring a flying subway train, “opportunity, mobility, sustainability, the finest examples of human ability,” ballroom dancing androids, and flying whales.
The CGI-infused-circus might not reflect the reality of the United Arab Emirates’ problematic human rights record, backing of the Saudi-led war in Yemen, or its alleged efforts to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Republican Party, according to an indictment against Trump fundraiser Thomas J. Barrack. But it is a concise example of the full-court-press branding campaign surrounding the Expo, a six month extravaganza reportedly costing the United Arab Emirates $7 billion.
And what’s the Expo’s special weapon in selling its whitewashed version of Dubai and the UAE? CNN. The cable news giant is, according to a CNN press release, the Expo’s “official broadcaster.”
“As the eyes of the world turn towards the UAE from October-March for Expo 2020 Dubai, CNN will be an Official Broadcaster for the event, bringing unrivalled coverage to global audiences and staging a prominent presence at Expo itself,” said CNN.
CNN doesn’t specify whether the Expo is paying for the extensive coverage. But the press release boasts the network is planning live coverage on its “flagship shows Connect the World with Becky Anderson, Quest Means Business, and CNN Talk.”
Ambiguity about CNN’s role in covering the Expo, a track record of producing sponsored content for Dubai and publication of a slew of articles profiling Dubai and promoting tourism in the emirate raise ethical and legal questions.
“CNN’s relationship with the dictatorship that rules the United Arab Emirates lacks transparency,” said Sunjeev Bery, Executive Director at Freedom Forward, a group leading a boycott effort against the Expo. “The UAE’s rulers have long used propaganda campaigns to hide their horrible human rights crimes, and CNN appears to be playing a role in supporting this dictatorship’s PR agenda.”
The news network appears to have a longstanding financial relationship with Dubai to promote the emirate. Responsible Statecraft asked CNN for clarification about its role as the “official broadcaster” of the Dubai expo, whether the network continues to produce sponsored content for Dubai, and what controls clients in Dubai hold or held over the network’s production of sponsored content.
RS also asked whether CNN’s production and distribution of sponsored content for clients in Dubai falls under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a statute requiring registration for entities within the United States serving as “as a foreign principal’s public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee, or political consultant,” according to the Department of Justice.
Neither CNN nor its parent company, Turner Broadcasting, are registered.
CNN did not respond to the questions.
“These ‘news articles’ read like propaganda or, at best, tourism brochures,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy. “Many foreign governments’ tourism promotion boards are registered under FARA, and their work doesn’t seem to be much different from what CNN is doing for the UAE.”
CNN promotes its paid work for Dubai in a case-study on the reach and impact of its commercial work for clients. “Dubai sought to expand on their reputation as a leading destination for business, commerce and events, specifically targeting those who had never been to Dubai and those who had only ever used Dubai as a stopover,” says the study.
“Utilising the reach of the CNN platforms, a series of 10 videos were put together, highlighting Dubai’s broad culture using their trademark cinematic storytelling to inspire,” said CNN.
CNN’s labeling of sponsored content for Dubai appears inconsistent and, in some cases, downright confusing.
“CNN’s series often carry sponsorship originating from the countries and regions we profile,” said an “editor’s note” at the top of the article. “However, CNN retains full editorial control over all of its reports.”
CNN did not specify whether the article or video promoting the Expo were, in fact, sponsored content.
On Facebook, a series of videos were prominently labeled “sponsored by Visit Dubai” but at least one of those video segments was published on CNN’s website with no disclosure that it was sponsored by Visit Dubai.
Earlier this month, journalists Gabe Levine-Drizin and Adam Johnson flagged that “CNN has a travel vertical called ‘Dubai Now’ that focuses exclusively on how wonderful, fun, progressive, tolerant, and innovative the Gulf dictatorship of the United Arab Emirates is, and the outlet won’t say if the articles are paid PR for the Emirati regime.”
They cataloged 105 articles appearing to promote Dubai tourism since the beginning of November 2020 containing no disclosure of CNN’s creation of sponsored content to promote travel to Dubai or CNN’s role as the “official broadcaster” of the Expo.
The six-month-long Expo begins on Friday and, according to CNN, its coverage of the event is only ramping up. If the network’s opacity about its relationship with the Expo and Dubai tourism continue, it may pose an ongoing challenge for efforts to distinguish its independently produced journalism from state-sponsored content promoting a sanitized image of an undemocratic nation with a problematic human rights record and a history of seeking illicit influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
In the end, the fact that the notion of a people not needing a government to have their freedom of religion and speech seems absurd represents the devastating extent to which the statist mentality has been cemented in the minds of the men, women, and children of this country.
“You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.” – Mark Twain
Since its rebirth as an independent state in 1968, this paradisaic island has been touted as a paragon of democratic political institutions promoting rapid economic growth and motivating its citizens to overcome divisions of religion, language, ethnicity, and region of origin. It is looked up to as an example of thriving democracy and constitutionalism in the aftermath, most recently, of Dutch, French, and British colonization.
One benefits greatly from venturing beyond a cursory look at this small island republic’s admirable history and digging into the respect for institutions borrowed from its Western overseers. In doing so, it becomes painfully transparent that proselytizing about the virtuous and egalitarian character of a representative democracy has been little more than another shrewd but effective tactic of the state to maintain its essentially illiberal nature with the end goal of enthralling the ancestors of present-day Mauritians and ensuring that their descendants are born under its yoke.
The Lack of Preexisting Cultural and Societal Institutions
Unlike a select few of its fellow African entities, such as Botswana or Madagascar, Mauritius has not had the advantage of precolonial institutions or cultural frameworks to promote resistance against the state’s encroachment on property rights or to provide guidance for development following the departure of the colonizers. With regard to Madagascar, several Malagasy tribes, specifically the Merina, had such institutions. This society, descended from Southeast Asian settlers, adhered to a legal code instituted by its Hindu aristocracy, which l’Estrac describes in Mauritians: Children of a Thousand Races, his 2004 work, as outlining a basic social order, the organization of justice, the status of the family, property rights, moral values, and territory. However, this lack of precolonial institutions or frameworks did not prevent the spark for an anarchic society from coming forth.
Beginning in the late seventeenth century, the incumbent Dutch colonial administrators witnessed not only the ruthlessness and violence they could inspire in rebels and runaway slaves, but also how this diverse group, comprising Malagasy and Indian slaves, could achieve peaceful coexistence. Taking refuge in the uncharted Mauritian wilderness upon their escape, this seemingly disparate group of former slaves, miles away from their respective motherlands, established a society in which each individual’s land was demarcated and neighbors’ property and individual rights, as well as their freedom to practice whichever faith they belonged to, were respected. The commonalities that transcended their differences were their love of freedom and willingness to take any measures necessary to defend their liberty. No measure was so drastic or immortalized as their arsonist massacres of the Dutch establishment in 1677 and their escape to Bourbon Island (present-day Réunion).
Thus, if we are to lament the loss of a truly voluntarist spirit among the island’s modern-day citizens, as well as its diaspora, we can pinpoint the departure of its anarchic ancestors, in the pursuit of their own freedom, as the downward turning point in the fight against the state. The fight for freedom by any means necessary did not end here; uprisings and revolts became increasingly frequent over the following years, manifested by Malagasy and Indian slaves who saw slow, excruciating deaths as free men and women as preferable to lifetimes spent chained and shackled.
The State Wises Up
Under no colonial administration were the state’s attempts to keep disenfranchised groups pitted against one another more beautifully executed than under the French (1715–1810). The legal codes and governmental practices that their bureaucracy left behind were fundamental to keeping the freedoms and aspirations of the island’s inhabitants in check.
However, to understand how these manifestations of statism in their colonial incarnations function, it is crucial to gain an accurate picture of who stood where in the social hierarchy of the day. At the dawn of French rule, the elite consisted of French-born inhabitants who had arrived in service to the East India Company. Whites born on the island were directly beneath them. Then the Creoles, foreigners (Englishmen and Dutchmen), and, finally, the slaves, the latter of which were separately categorized as black, Indian, or Malagasy. At the turn of the century, this hierarchy had remained more or less unchanged, perhaps with greater diversity in the middle class (the “people of color”), which at this point consisted of free Indians and Creoles.
With specific regard to the Indians, a singularly ingenious strategy by the French colonial government to gain better control over them was the creation of the “chief of the Malabars” (chefs de Malabars) office1 in 1784. The position was created in response to frequent intracommunal feuds.
The position was filled by Denis Pitchen, a wealthy Tamilian Catholic born to free Indian parents. At a superficial level, Pitchen’s elevation to a position of authority as a nonwhite resident would be lauded as a milestone for the representation of nonwhites, particularly by apologists of colonialism or advocates of reform through bureaucratic channels. However, l’Estrac provides us with two wrinkles that undermine this milestone’s glorious sheen:
Pitchen was a slave owner, and among his possessions were other fellow Indian Christians. This drew the ire of the Catholic Church, which expressed its indignation at the enslavement of Christians.
Rather than serving any meaningful diplomatic position, the office of the chief simply served as a conduit for the Franco-Mauritian plantocracy to infiltrate the Indian camp and ensure that their internal troubles would not affect the administration’s hold over them.
Pitchen’s performative elevation was a crippling blow to the self-determination of the inhabitants. This tactic was a common one for rulers: elect an elite or a committee of them from the disenfranchised classes and grant them a few privileges to convince them of the benefits of retaining the present system of governance. The efficacy of this strategy is evident in the resignation of the future generations to the legislative and executive tools of the French and, later, the British as the best pathways to improve their condition and environment.
The state’s decisive blow to freedom and liberty came in 1886, when the revered reformist Sir William Newton began the electoral tradition of the Council of Government. Newton was very careful to restrict the franchise to those who met the criteria of earning a certain income and owning a certain amount of wealth in the form of assets or land. Despite this discriminatory restriction of the franchise, the masses’ adoration of democracy would soon grow into a general culture of leaving the responsibility of governance in the hands of “elected” officials. This contract, however, is merely symbolic, as their own constitution only recognizes three groups (Hindus, Muslims, and Chinese), with the remaining communities being lumped together under “general population.”
Conclusion
As the politicians and lawmakers of the Mauritian political structure have become more diverse (only with regard to ethnicity and religion, as opposed to diversity of thought and philosophy), the Mauritian population has convinced themselves that their fight for liberty and self-respect as a nation is behind them, remaining ignorant of the pyrrhic nature of their “victory.” In the end, the fact that the notion of a people not needing a government to have their freedom of religion and speech seems absurd represents the devastating extent to which the statist mentality has been cemented in the minds of the men, women, and children of this country.
1. In the colonial context, “malabar” was a generic term used to describe Indians brought to the island, some as slaves and some as indentured laborers. The term refers to the Malabar Coast of the Tamilnadu state in south India.
Despite all the lip service about democracy, justice, human rights, freedom, equality and so forth—the entire Washington establishment exists for the sole purpose of perpetuating the empire.
How do I know?
Because the media response to the January 6th attack at the Capitol reveals the Washington establishment’s true nature.
The political class has commenced Operation Destroy Trump. The Washington machine will stop at nothing to expose every character flaw, every incompetency, and every authoritarian tendency of Trump.
Except one thing; if I wanted to prove that Trump was a dangerous racist dictator with no regard for human decency I could do it pretty easily, and I wouldn’t even have to search for subliminal messages in his bumbling speeches.
Trump has been complicit in a genocidal war waged by Saudi Arabia that has killed over 200,000 Yemeni civilians.
Trump illegally assassinated a high ranking member of the Iranian government—a sovereign government that the United States is not at war with—risking a conflict that would certainly produce more casualties than any other war this century!
Trump has dropped more drone strikes on Somalian civilians in 2020 than Bush and Obama did in 10 years combined! He also killed more Afghan civilians via airstrikes in 2019 than any other year in that war!
Where was mainstream media? Where was Congress? they must have been combing through speeches and tweets for racist dog whistles and subliminal calls to violence because they certainly weren’t monitoring the American drones dropping bombs on the heads of black children in Somalia.
Trying to prove Trump is the most dangerous president in U.S. history, while not attacking him on the worst atrocities he has committed is criminal, maybe even slanderous in a morbid way.
Why are the media and congress silent on these war crimes, especially at a time when they will stop at nothing to destroy President Trump?
Because the media is complicit—they exist to serve the empire.
Nothing that substantially challenges the presumption of U.S. global hegemony ever makes the airwaves. Yes, every once in a while the media will toss a low ranking soldier under the bus for war crimes, but those crimes are never presented in a way that challenges the policy. And to their credit, the media did create a hoopla over the assassination of Iranian General Qassam Soleimani, but again, they never asked the critical questions that would challenge U.S. policy in the region.
The mainstream media is state media in all but name. Journalists enjoy relationships with various anonymous sources within the intelligence community who leak cherry-picked intelligence for news rooms to gobble up in exchange for writing news stories that parrot the regime’s official lines.
After the lines are repeated enough times to satisfy Joseph Goebbels, a litany of retired generals who sit on the boards of defense contractors (which is never disclosed) make their rounds on cable news networks as they pass the ready-made sermons of the empire along to the people without a bit of skepticism from the host. In other words, the American people are exclusively inundated with the opinions of so-called experts who all stand to financially or professionally benefit from war.
The formula is rather simple. The think tanks create the policy; congress implements the policy; the network news manufactures your thirst for war; and the defense contractors fasten the weapons and buys everyone else off. Ultimately, money is moved from your pocket and is used to line the pockets of the whole cabal.
That’s why no one on network news, despite their real hatred of him, will ever dunk on Trump with the phrase “Trump is a war criminal.” Because even taking out Trump is not worth the American people wondering for even a second what exactly they mean by war criminal.
The mainstream media is not just complicit with the empire, in fact, their sole job is to protect the empire against any threat to it, such as Trump. Trump was the first candidate in recent history to make it into the Oval Office without the approval of the Washington establishment. He cracked the code of American politics by circumventing the filters of the corporate media and spoke directly to the American people through social media. The recent social media purges against Trump and his inner circle was not spontaneous, it was premeditated. The Washington machine was merely waiting for a catalyst event to occur so it could reassert its stranglehold on American political discourse.
Before Trump broke the system, the presidential primary elections were designed specifically for the corporate media to weed out unacceptable candidates. What constitutes unacceptable? Anyone who opposes the American global empire. The media gatekeepers successfully scuttled every campaign that advocated radical foreign policy change. Tulsi Gabbard spent her 2020 primary season getting ridiculed on TV for allegedly being a friend of dictators, which is an impressive way to spin her anti-war platform. Gabbard was simply getting the Ron Paul treatment, who was also lambasted by the elites during his presidential runs (2008, 2012) for having the gall to point out the evil hypocrisies of American foreign policy. The Washington machine conspired to steal the democratic nomination from Bernie Sanders twice – not because of his democratic socialism – but because he wasn’t an empire zealot either. The message is clear: anything goes in American politics except questioning the empire.
In 2016, on a Republican debate stage Trump openly called the Iraq war a mistake, criticized our wars in Afghanistan and Syria, and questioned our role in NATO. The media worked overtime to ensure a Trump defeat, but Trump proved to be bulletproof because of his cult-like following on social media. Of course, Trump never quite lived up to his promises of an America First foreign policy as he perpetuated the criminal wars of his predecessors. However, it was clear that the Washington establishment was terrified of what he might do, which is why most of his administration was plagued with a ridiculous investigation of a Russian collusion hoax that nobody believed, followed by an impeachment based on the flimsiest of pretexts. They were grasping at straws to get rid of Trump.
Trump’s improbable victory caused a panic in 2016 until the establishment realized that Trump had very little understanding of his own America First ideology. A Trump presidency could be managed by the Washington machine as long as Trump didn’t appoint anyone who could implement his campaign promises. For the most part, the Washington establishment was able to control the Trump administration with well placed neocons such as Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Jim Jeffrey who worked tirelessly to undermine Trump’s vision at every foreign policy turn. The only redeeming quality the Washington establishment saw in Trump was his hawkishness on China, which the media has been happy to help propagandize the American people into supporting a trade war and military posturing in the South China Sea.
As the Trump movement comes to an end the chickens are coming home to roost. Washington was so worried about controlling and eliminating Trump that they neglected his base, which has become increasingly radicalized due to the media’s deranged hostility towards them.
The anger of Trump’s base came to head on January 6th when protesters stormed the Capitol building because they believed the election had been stolen from Trump. Of course the violence at the Capitol was inexcusable, but why was the Washington outrage machine cranked up to level 11?
Washington is panicking because they see the unfolding events as an existential threat to their stranglehold on the American people and their global empire. The Washington machine was unable to stop Trump’s 2016 insurgent campaign, and Washington’s damage control strategy only worked to contain Trump’s policies but failed to control his growing popular base. Here’s three reasons why panic is suddenly setting in in the Imperial city.
First, the ruling class recognizes that their power is waning. George Bush’s Global War on Terror was truly a global war fought on two fronts, international and domestic. The national security state was given a shot in the arm with the Patriot Act, and Americans have been taking their shoes off at airports ever since. After twenty years of war, it’s undeniable that the war abroad has been a miserable failure (Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria). But despite the empire’s failures abroad, the American people could always be counted on to stay in line. Now it seems the population is spiraling out of control of the Washington handlers.
Second, the violence is finding its target. The ruling elite has always tolerated violence as long as it stays on the peripheral and is directed at factions within the population, such as the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. Although their cause may be misguided and their legitimate anger has been manipulated, the Capitol protesters have at least identified the proper source of all their frustrations, Congress. Congress has robbed all of us blind in pursuit of their maniacal vision of global dominance, and now—to their surprise—the war has come home.
Finally, whether the claims of the protesters are true or not, this event exposes American democracy for the sham that it is. The assumption of U.S. global hegemony is derived from the belief that America has a uniquely exceptional system of government. When an angry mob storms the Capitol building because 34% of voters believe the election was fraudulent, America’s exceptional system appears to be a myth. Therefore, the foundation of America’s global empire is nothing but a house of cards on display for the world to see.
To the empire zealots, this wasn’t just an attack on a government building, this was an attack on a religious structure, which should raise red flags. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi both referred to the Capitol as a “temple to democracy.” Joe Biden called the process of ratifying the election “sacred.” The Capitol is their vatican, their religion is American democracy, and their salvation is fighting evangelical wars to spread their religion far and wide. To these true believers, only America’s government is sacred. No one was referring to Muammar Gadhafi’s government buildings as sacred when Schumer, Pelosi, and Biden all supported Obama bombing those buildings to spread the blessings of American democracy to Libya. Trump and his supporters have exposed America’s favorite export, democracy, as a rotten product. For Washington’s empire lackeys, such as Republican Liz Cheney, this attack on America’s religion can not be tolerated.
In response, the domestic War on Terror, which previously relied on spying and government psyops, is now being fought in plain sight. Congress immediately moved to impeach Trump with just days to go in his administration to make sure that he never gets near the strings of power again. The Capitol protestors are labeled as “domestic terrorists” to clear the road for a new domestic terrorism bill in the upcoming Biden Administration. Big tech has been co-opted to do the government’s bidding by removing anyone deemed a dangerous subversive from the internet. Take out their leaders, label them terrorists, and disrupt their lines of communication. Sound familiar?
The Republican base, which has always been loyal to the Empire, has lost its faith in American Exceptionalism. The Past 12 months of impeachments, lockdowns, corporate bailouts, left-wing riots, mandatory white privilege training, and censorship has pushed a large segment of Republicans into a corner where they feel like they have nothing to lose. Despite all the nonsense rhetoric about right wing militias, the reason the Capitol police was so unprepared for this moment was because the right doesn’t normally act like this. Now Washington realizes they have a full on insurgency on their hands that isn’t going away no matter how bad they want to wish it out of existence.
It’s tempting to interpret the empire’s employment of its awesome powers against the American people as a sign of its overwhelming strength. But that’s false. This is a sign of weakness. This is how empires die, like a wounded beast lashing out as it takes its last gasps. The war on the home front is failing. The people are rejecting the government which increasingly feels as if it’s being forced upon them. The government response is merely the domestic surge (like Iraq’s in 2007, and Afghanistan’s in 2009) that puts a bandaid over an infection that will continue to spread underneath. That infection is our lack of consent. Washington is now recognized for what it is, an occupying force that hardly anyone consents to anymore. After the last 4 years of the left declaring “not my president,” the right will share that same sentiment for the next 4 years.
People are finally waking up and realizing that the federal government stopped caring about its citizens long ago. The beginning of the end was when President Truman stood up the national security state after World War II and declared that the U.S. government would counter the Soviet Union in every country on the map, including our own. After 70 years, the United States has morphed into a rogue military state hiding behind a facade of democracy that exists only to feed its own lust to dominate the globe at the expense of the American people. While the empire spoiled over $6.4 Trillion in the last 20 years looking for other countries to fix, America was slowly crumbling and stood woefully unprepared to respond to domestic emergencies, such as a pandemic or a fedup American population that has begun to reject government legitimacy.
There is no putting the genie back in the bottle. The system is exposed. The empire can not be reigned in, it’s a cancer that has metastasized to engulf the entirety of the beltway. The only solution is secession and a peaceful dissolution of the federal government. If that sounds crazy to you, consider the alternative: a perpetual cycle of hatred and violence that may end in a bloody civil war.
Kenny MacDonald is a former Navy SEAL and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in history. Follow his Youtube channel here.
Why anyone still accepts the official accounts on every mainstream narrative is difficult to comprehend. Too many people are “still taking at face value” all the misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies our newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters. Because lies have turned into the truth, we are heading into times that will be catastrophic for the whole world.
The story of human freedom is coming to an end. We are in a great crisis as a species with madmen (public health officials) believing that we humans need to be controlled to control a virus that has killed few. The head honchos of the world are having a field day with the rest of us. They are letting the air out of the bag of freedom and laughing all the way to the bank.
That is just the beginning of the story. In France, a teacher is beheaded for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a freedom of speech seminar. It was a clear warning for the teaching staff who will have to shut up or perish. In the Muslim order of things, infidels have no rights, no freedom, and they make sure of that when in power.
In terms of freedom of the press, this week’s hottest scandal is the Hunter and Joe Biden disgrace that last week was published by the New York Post. Lies and treason are now exposed due to a hard drive that Hunter Biden left abandoned, showing the world the ugliest side of politics. Rudy Giuliani said. “There’s some pretty disgusting things this family was involved with. Really disgusting.”
The immediate censorship by social media giants Facebook and YouTube of a mainstream newspaper shows everyone how out of control Silicon Valley oligarchs are. Twitter and Facebook took third-world style steps to limit the distribution of the story of a crime family whose head is running for president.
Calls for the shutdown and even arrest of Zuckerberg and Jack Dorcey are starting to be heard. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced on Oct. 19 that the committee will consider subpoenas for the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook for testimony about the recent censorship. Chris Martenson says, “Social media has now been revealed to be run by petulant sociopaths, whose goal is for you to see what content they want you to see.”
For America and the world, the days leading up to the election will be telling. Nothing is certain except the overreach of social media dead set on shutting down conversations about the Biden family’s involvement with communist China. The problem is the internet is no longer run like the free market. There has been a corporate takeover of the web, as it’s become an oligopoly controlled by a handful of Big Tech companies. What it comes down to is, “Most American citizens don’t want a future where elections are decided by a Google search algorithm, where Mark Zuckerberg can render your business unprofitable with the push of a button, and where Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey decides whether you’re allowed a voice in the public square.”
But alas, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Twitter’s crackdown “nearly doubled” the story’s visibility. “When Twitter banned, and then unbanned, they managed to do the opposite of what they intended,” triggered a massive spike in interest in the story. Want to understand your health situation and learn what best to do to feel better? Schedule a free 15-minute Exploratory Call. »
However, everyone has been concentrating on the COVID-19 scandal that is crushing human freedoms and destroying life as nothing in history ever has. People worldwide are giving up their freedoms without a peep following pandemic policies that are not based on scientific research but on politics and ridiculous assumptions that have proven false.
More than 34,000 medical doctors and health scientists from around the world have signed a declaration against lockdowns put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, saying the measures are causing “irreparable damage,” according to an online petition initially created by three epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.
The loss of freedom during this pandemic is profound. We have even lost the freedom to breathe freely. Dr. Margarite Griesz-Brisson MD, Ph.D., a Neurologist, and Neurophysiologist, says, “The rebreathing of our exhaled air will without a doubt create oxygen deficiency and flooding of carbon dioxide. We know that the human brain is very sensitive to oxygen deprivation. There are nerve cells, for example, in the hippocampus, which can’t be longer than 3 minutes without oxygen – they cannot survive. The acute warning symptoms are headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, issues in concentration, slowing down of the reaction time – reactions of the cognitive system.
“However, when you have chronic oxygen deprivation, all of those symptoms disappear because you get used to it. But your efficiency will remain impaired, and the undersupply of oxygen in your brain continues to progress.” Meanwhile, Twitter has censored a White House coronavirus adviser for suggesting that widespread mask mandates were not a magical defense against the coronavirus.
Ultimately the pandemic will bring out the absolute worst in human nature as Nazism and Bolshevism did. Today even capitalism, the right kind that stimulates the individual spirit, has been replaced by big corporate fascism that crushes as many people as possible. No one has the courage or power to stop the slide into the darkness where freedom and human rights no longer exist.
The gang of health authorities is deliberately and maliciously taking the world by storm. Politicians ride the wave of this maliciousness, going way beyond their right to tell people what to do. Organizations like Facebook and Twitter do not care about freedom of speech. They are shutting down the free press. Democracy is being destroyed in western countries.
Those Who Are Used To Freedom Will Suffer The Most
In Hong Kong, where a previously free society is being taken over by Communist China, the reports are dire. Hong Kong is in the grip of an alarming rise in the number of young people struggling with emotional distress and suicidal ideation, while an increase in the suicide rate that predated COVID-19 appears to have worsened.A newspaper (infamously controlled by a Communist Party member and billionaire Chinese tech entrepreneur) attributed these conditions to the pandemic. Still, we suspect that Beijing’s brutal crackdown on dissent with its new national security law has contributed to general feelings of malaise in the tiny but densely populated metropolitan area.
Things are getting so bad along many fronts that we hear that Civilization Won’t Decline – It Will Collapse. It has certainly brought us to the point where truth is treason. It seems at least half of people prefer lies over truth, as the man-made global warming story continues to illustrate.
Our top health authorities have shown that they care more about creating the next massively profitable drug than they do about actually saving lives. Chris Martenson
Dov Fox, director of the Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics at the University of San Diego, said if a vaccine for the coronavirus is developed, you could be fined and even jailed for not getting it. “States can compel vaccinations in more or less intrusive ways. They can limit access to schools or services or jobs if people don’t get vaccinated. They could force them to pay a fine or even lock them up in jail.”
According to the elite, you have no right to earn a living, run a business, or exercise any other basic freedoms if the government arbitrarily decides a particular virus floating around is bad enough. Joe Jarvis
It’s a difficult time for anyone who clings to the idea that freedom means the right to think for yourself and act responsibly according to your best judgment. Freedom is trashed as health officials and politicians take it upon themselves to save the world by destroying it.
The question each of us needs to ask ourselves, and one another, is why do we get so much misinformation about Covid from public health authorities, political authorities, and press prostitutes? Paul Craig Roberts
With COVID-19 cases (not actual infections, most are false positives) surging in much of Europe, governments continue to impose greater measures aimed at curbing a second wave. Switzerland announced mask mandates and banned large-scale public gatherings, while Belgium tightened restrictions and curfews, with its health minister warning of a “coronavirus tsunami.” Elsewhere, Italy approved fresh anti-coronavirus controls, Ireland was set to approve its tightest measures since April, and tougher U.K. lockdowns are likely coming to Wales and Manchester.
Freedom is saying what needs to be said.
Even though the actual disease had been contained, health officials need more and more crude falsifications to prove the opposite; their drive for control is just increasing. The criminal medical cartels are censoring all treatments and cures that work to save lives meaning they are letting people die until the holy grail of a vaccine arrives.
At what point in the loss of your freedom do you speak up?
“Millions of lockdown opponents won’t make their position known even to their closest family and friends; taking a position publicly is unthinkable — they would lose social standing, clients, and possibly even their jobs. Thanks to this dynamic, the pro-lockdown crowd enjoys the appearance of majority consensus, and everyone gets…more lockdown. If we all spoke freely, the result would be different,” writes Stacey Rudin.
Why anyone still accepts the official accounts on every mainstream narrative is difficult to comprehend. Too many people are “still taking at face value” all the misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies our newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters. Because lies have turned into the truth, we are heading into times that will be catastrophic for the whole world. But many aware and awake people sense the horror that is coming.
In this exciting video, Larken Rose says, “For whatever reason, Covid-19 is very nice to infants and children, compared even to the common flu. Way more children and infants die of the flu every year. Statistically speaking, Covid-19 is not a significant threat to children and babies.”
“If you are young and healthy, your chance of dying from this thing is statistically about zero. At no point did the government ever claim that standing six feet apart and wearing masks and staying home and shutting down businesses would reduce the number of people who get this disease. All of those measures were designed only to slow down the rate of spread, not how many people get it.”
Dr. Mark Sircus AC., OMD, DM (P)
Professor of Natural Oncology, Da Vinci Institute of Holistic Medicine Doctor of Oriental and Pastoral Medicine Founder of Natural Allopathic Medicine
As a legal matter, of course, I have no doubt that federal judges and supporters of federal meddling could find a way to slice and dice the Constitution so as to make it say whatever they want. As a moral and historical question, however, it is clear that sending in federal troops without an invitation from local leaders is blatantly contrary to the provisions of the Declaration of Independence and is contrary to the Tenth Amendment.
It’s a safe bet that the authors of the Declaration of Independence would say that a scuffle in Denver clearly lies within the authority of the government in Colorado.
The violence and the utter disregard for basic human rights displayed by the Left in recent years—combined with its support for war crimes when a Democrat is president—have made me inclined to play nice with conservatives these days. At least conservatives aren’t planning to torch my neighborhood any time soon, and at the moment they’re no worse than the Left on foreign policy.
On the other hand, sometimes even the relatively less bad guys (for now) come to some very dangerous conclusions.
Specifically, some authors at conservative publications are now demanding that the president send in federal agents and troops to make arrests and intervene in local law enforcement to pacify rioters in Portland and other American cities. These pundits are claiming that since local officials allegedly aren’t responding with sufficient alacrity to rioters, it’s time to send in federal troops.
It is questionable that the president has the legal authority to do this. But even if he does have this power—legally speaking—basic commonsense principles of subsidiarity and decentralization inveigh against federal intervention. In other words, a basic respect for the principles behind the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence ought to cause one to reject the notion that it’s a good idea to send in federal troops to “solve” the crime problems experienced in American cities.
Here’s one example: in an article titled “It’s Time to Crush the New Rebellion against Constitution” at Real Clear Politics, author Frank Miele claims “the president is designated as the commander in chief” and therefore “shall be expected to act during a crisis of ‘rebellion or invasion’ to restore public safety.”
Miele addresses two legal questions. The first is whether or not federal troops or agents can act independently when protecting federal property—such as a federal courthouse. The second question is whether or not federal troops can intervene even when no federal property is under threat.
Arguably, in the former case federal agents would be well within their prerogatives to protect federal property as a security guard might do. This, however, does not necessarily empower them to make arrests or assault citizens outside the federal property itself, on the streets of a city well outside the federal compound. The so-called constitutional sheriffs movement—which the Left hates—has it right on this. Local law enforcement ought to be the final authority when it comes to making arrests.
Clearly, however, Miele will not brook such limitations, and he supports the idea that federal troops can intervene “where no federal property is involved.”
And what are the limitations on this federal power? Basically, there are none, in Miele’s view. So long as we define our adversaries as people fomenting a “rebellion” nothing is off the table. Not surprisingly, Miele strikes a worshipful pose toward Abraham Lincoln’s scorched-earth campaign against the Southern states of the US in the 1860s. Those people were “rebels,” you see, so the president was right to “tak[e] bold action” even if it meant “skirting the Constitution.” Because “there was never any doubt where [Lincoln’s] allegiance lay,” it was perfectly fine when he abolished the basic legal rights of Americans, such as the right of habeas corpus.
The use of the word “rebellion” is central to understanding the profederal position here. Authors like Miele (and Andrew McCarthy at National Review) have routinely used words like “insurrection” or “rebellion” in order to support their claim the current unrest requires a Lincoln-like response, including a Lincolnesque abolition of half the Bill of Rights.
The Moral Case for Local Control, Made by American Revolutionaries
As a legal matter, of course, I have no doubt that federal judges and supporters of federal meddling could find a way to slice and dice the Constitution so as to make it say whatever they want. As a moral and historical question, however, it is clear that sending in federal troops without an invitation from local leaders is blatantly contrary to the provisions of the Declaration of Independence and is contrary to the Tenth Amendment.
As I explained here, the Declaration lists that the misuse of the executive’s (i.e., the king’s) troops was a reason for the American rebellion of 1776. These troops must receive the permission of local lawmakers:
The American revolutionaries and those who ratified the US constitution…thought they were creating a political system in which the bulk of land-based military power would rest in the hands of the state governments. Standing armies were to be strenuously opposed, and the Declaration of Independence specifically condemned the king’s use of military deployments to enforce English law in the colonies and “to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.” These principles go back at least as far as the English Civil War (1642–51), when opposition to standing armies became widespread.
Thus, any attempt to send in British troops without the approval of the colonial legislatures was an abuse. This same principle was later applied to the state legislatures in relation to federal power.
Sending in federal troops to override local officials is in direct opposition to the moral underpinnings of the American Revolution. But this doesn’t stop Miele, who then insists that Article IV of the Constitution authorizes federal invasions because the text says “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” According to Miele, the “republican form of government” here “means government of the people, by the people and for the people—not the mob.”
This definition of a republic is something Miele apparently just made up. This is hardly a standard definition of “republic,” especially in the eighteenth century—the context most relevant for our purposes here. In those days, “republic” mostly meant “not a monarchy” and something like a decentralized state ruled by a commercial elite.
The idea that the president can send in troops anywhere whenever we decide that a local government is not guaranteeing a “republic”—based on whatever idiosyncratic definition of “republic” we might choose—is dangerous indeed.
In another example, we find authors Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing insisting that “Because state and local Democrat officials refuse to restore order, the federal government must….Enough is enough. Those responsible for this new wave of insurrection must face the full force of federal law. ”
Note the language about “insurrection”—as if a minuscule clash between some left-wing and right-wing demonstrators in Denver—an example the authors use to justify their position—requires a federal invasion.
Specifically, DiGenova and Toensing want federalism thrown out the window, because Michelle Malkin’s supporters were “battered” by baton-wielding thugs before she could deliver a speech in Denver. Presumably governments are expected to intervene to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
But which government shall do that? It’s a safe bet that the authors of the Declaration of Independence would say that a scuffle in Denver clearly lies within the authority of the government in Colorado. After all, the American patriots fought a war—and many died in it—to ensure local control outside the hands of a powerful executive in command of a standing army thousands of miles away.
It is indeed true that the rights of those who wished to see Malkin speak were violated. But here’s the thing: the rights of Americans are violated every single day in every city of America. Murders, rapes, thefts, and even gang warfare are not unheard of across this nation, year in and year out. Moreover, the data is clear that police agencies are really quite bad at bringing these criminals to justice.
So, should we call in the feds to solve these problems? There were more than fifty homicides just in the city of Denver last year. There were many more assaults and attempted murders. Doesn’t this level of bloodshed constitute a sort of “insurrection” against the decent people of the city? Certainly if we’re going to be free and loose with terms like these, as is now apparently the MO of advocates for federal intervention, our conclusion could easily be yes. We might conclude the local police are unwilling to do what it takes to “establish order” and do something about these terrorists and thugs. Will sending in the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security solve this problem?
Fortunately, cooler heads have somehow prevailed, and “sending in the feds” is not a run-of-the-mill policy option. This makes even more sense when we remember that there is zero reason to assume federal cops are better at bringing peace to a city than the state or local officials. These feds are the same people and organizations that have been running a failed and disastrous war on drugs for decades. These are the people who daily spy on law-abiding Americans, in blatant violation of the Bill of Rights. These are the people who were blindsided by 9/11 in spite of decades of receiving fat paychecks to “keep us safe.” These are the people (i.e., especially the FBI) who have conspired against Americans in order to unseat a democratically elected president.
Unfortunately, old habits die hard and the myth prevails on both the left and the right that if we’re not getting the result we want from politicians, then the answer lies in calling in other politicians from somewhere else to “solve” the problem. But just as it would be contrary to basic notions of self-government and self-determination to call in the UN or the Chinese government to “protect rights” in the United States, the same is true of calling in federal bureaucrats to “fix” the shortcomings and incompetence of state and local bureaucrats. The American revolutionaries created a decentralized, locally controlled polity for a reason. Abolishing federalism to achieve short-term political ends is a reckless way to go.
This raises a question: Why the enormous and extreme reactions to the virus from Western politicians, bringing the entire economy to its knees and severely curtailing the fundamental individual freedoms of millions of citizens? Of course, there is the usual incompetence and herd behavior in the political leadership of many countries to be reckoned with. But other reasons exist for this disastrous and irresponsible behavior. Here are some.
But the strongest pressure on governments probably comes from the media, in particular in the current times of pervasive internet and social media. Politicians are now constantly scrutinized and held responsible in a way that just a generation ago they were not.
An economic cataclysm has been unleashed upon the world by Western politicians and bureaucrats. Unbelievably, economic activity in the West has slowed to a creep, as entire populations have been confined to their homes for weeks, if not months. As a result, millions have had their lives turned upside down. Most entrepreneurs and self-employed persons have had their livelihoods jeopardized.
The EU economy may shrink by 5 percent according to the European Central Bank (ECB), and similar figures have been forecast for the US. The economic devastation wrecked upon Western economies by governments will have consequences for many years to come. It will inevitably lower European and US citizens’ quality of life for a long time, impacting their health as well.
It is important to understand that this disaster is not the result of the coronavirus pandemic, which is a public health problem, but of overzealous government officials reacting to the pandemic. A growing number of researchers and health professionals are suggesting that the total number of cases is far higher than previously thought, which means that COVID-19 is far less deadly than the media and government advisors insist. If correct, these revised death rates put COVID-19 in many places at a case fatality rate similar to that of the flu, which kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year globally, without provoking any notably large political reaction.
This raises a question: Why the enormous and extreme reactions to the virus from Western politicians, bringing the entire economy to its knees and severely curtailing the fundamental individual freedoms of millions of citizens? Of course, there is the usual incompetence and herd behavior in the political leadership of many countries to be reckoned with. But other reasons exist for this disastrous and irresponsible behavior. Here are some.
First, politicians have generally little understanding of how markets work. Steeped in administrative and policy thinking, most politicians have never worked in the private sector or studied market economics. They neither understand nor appreciate the complexity of markets which make our high standard of living possible. This complexity includes an unfathomable number of daily exchanges, myriad commercial relations, and never-ending adaptation to surrounding conditions. The logic of politics, however, dictates that politicians cannot be seen as “doing nothing,” so they seek always intervention in markets. This is not new; it has always been a typical trait of politicians and bureaucrats. The political reactions to the coronavirus pandemic have just dramatically confirmed this truth yet again.
Secondly, politicians naturally make political calculations. Having reelection constantly in mind, they do not want to be held responsible for anything that goes wrong. In a crisis, they always prefer to act than not to act—all else being equal, to show that they tried something. At least then—in their minds—they cannot be accused of idleness, negligence, shortsightedness, or callousness. However deleterious their actions, politicians generally are not held accountable and can present themselves as heroically standing firm in dangerous times, acting forcefully and with determination. President Roosevelt’s harmful economic policies during the Great Depression and World War II are an example of this.
Thirdly, politicians sometimes rely too much on scientists, who generally have no training in social matters at all. Even more so than politicians, scientists often have great difficulty in grasping the concept of the spontaneous order of the market, not surprising given that they are followers of the rigorous scientific process. Albert Einstein’s frankly embarrassing economic proposals are a famous example. Whereas the politician is at least fully aware of the subtle gray shades in policymaking and the fine balancing act of satisfying various stakeholders, the scientist generally means well but sees the world in black and white.
Thus, if a scientist is asked how to stop the spread of a pandemic, he or she would probably answer that the best and most efficient way is to order the strict confinement of the entire population to their homes for weeks. This is what the France’s influential “Conseil Scientifique” has recommended, and it may well be true from a purely scientific point of view (although that is open to debate now). The problem arises when politicians enthusiastically follow such opinions without considering them in the light of their political and economic consequences. The first two reasons mentioned above may explain why politicians tend to place excessive trust in scientists: politicians are not familiar enough with market economics to fully grasp the consequences of acting on purely scientific advice, and it may be in their interest to act on such advice, since to do something—anything—is key.
A fourth reason why politicians have acted so recklessly to counter the spread of COVID-19 is certainly the political pressure that they are under. In times of (perceived) crisis, they are looked up to for guidance, if not for orders to follow, by an unwitting and politically uneducated electorate. But the pressure comes not only from the people, which perhaps is normal in a democracy, but also from foreign politicians. No leader wants to be outdone by his foreign colleagues and be left with the weakest plan to address the crisis. In this case, the UK‘s Boris Johnson reversed his policies, and Sweden‘s Stefan Löfvén has been slowly bowing to precisely this external pressure to act.
But the strongest pressure on governments probably comes from the media, in particular in the current times of pervasive internet and social media. Politicians are now constantly scrutinized and held responsible in a way that just a generation ago they were not. Further, mass media is prone to dramatize and exaggerate events, as this makes for better ratings, but also because journalists are not virologists. Mainstream media often tends to misinterpret and simplify the facts, inadvertently or not. An example of this is the mortality rate of COVID-19, which is constantly reported to be much higher than it is, because only declared cases are used (case fatality rate (CFR)). More generally, the prevailing attitude from the media is that everything must be done to save a small minority of the entire population today, even if that comes at the price of future economic pain for tens of millions of people. This is the classic socialist and interventionist dilemma: Where does it stop? In a world of scarce resources, how much taxpayer money should the state spend to save one life?
Finally, it is necessary to entertain a darker and more cynical explanation for the political reaction to the pandemic: power in a time of crisis. The state never misses a chance to increase its power. Crises are considered great political opportunities, and have thus been used countless times in history by rulers. This was the case during and after World War I and World War II, as well as after 9/11, with the passage in Congress of the PATRIOT Act (Providing Appropriate Tools to Restrict, Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act). But this is also true of smaller crises, such as the current panic. The economic stimulus packages that are now being proposed will again benefit corporatist bankers, as happened during the financial crisis. This is why the big banks have been the first to call for and cheer more “economic stimulus.” They stand to immediately benefit from such “government aid.”
That most Western governments have now decided to emulate the Chinese dictatorship in imposing a severe lockdown of society should be a wake-up call for those innocent souls who still think, even after the show trial of Julian Assange, that the West still protects individual freedom. A dangerous and frightening political evolution is on the way in an already fragile political and economic system. The political consequences of the generalized confinement of millions of people in Europe will be of long-lasting consequence to the balance of power between state and society. Though the Western “liberal democratic” order was never really one except in name, it is clear that a decisive step has now been taken away from it.
This politically triggered economic crisis could then also lead, hopefully, to a clearer understanding among the population that constitutional changes are due in many countries, in order to limit the powers of executive branches everywhere. Let us hope that this will be the lesson learned by the millions confined to their homes by the arbitrary will of the state.
MCViewPoint 