Two years after leaving the EU Britain has made almost none of the promised progress towards economic liberalisation. While Brussels hasn’t been helpful, libertarian ministers in the Tory government have been both conquered by the bureaucracy of the civil service and even turned into high spending statists. There has been no attempt to reduce the state’s suffocating dominance over the economy.[1]
Forget the sophistries of left-right, socialism, fascism, capitalism, trickle down, stimulus, free trade, cheap labor and the like. All topics that stimulate the lizard brains of grasping, conniving, race-baiting, grifting, spirit cooking midgets to be sure. But here is a issue of the ages staring us right in the eyes: We’ve allowed massive power to drift into unaccountable hands that have brought the West to its knees.
Roughly 50% of our income, give or take, goes to fund the most asinine, poisonous, and destructive stuff imaginable yet there’s only position that ever prevails in the politics of this garbage — the government’s. Day in and day out, month after month, we hurtle to disaster because government has got the bit between its teeth, screwed the pooch, circled the wagons, and flown the coop.
Productive people see the money they work hard for turned over to contemptible buffoons, liars, and demagogues. But it’s ALWAYS steady as she goes. Defiticts to the moon and lesbian storybooks in the schools. And old Mitch is red hot on anyone’s messing with the filibuster. Theft of a presidential election? Not so much.
So there’s a campaign issue for the ages, if not a way of life. Remove evil, conniving, goofy, dishonest swine from power. Make it impossible for them to jimmy elections, profit while in office, or silence our voices. Destroy their sinecures, unearned privileges and immunities, and their intolerable, liberty-destroying, vicious laws, regulations, and court decisions that turn free people into serfs and destroy our families and the peace and security of our neighborhoods. Destroy the Department of Justice, disband the FBI, and repeal the United States Code. Have Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ron Paul be in charge of what statutes get re-enacted.
No more welfare and no more civil rights law for damn sure. Turn federal offices into condos. Have the Supreme Court hold hearings in the Dollar Store parking lots. Appoint at least one veteran, one cop, one victim of violent crime, and one truck driver to the Court. Expel all students who can’t read or solve simple mathematical problems, or who are disruptive. Destroy the Fed.
“Clean fucking house” in words of few syllables. Can you bastards who mewl about the rule of law and preserving [stuff] actually do something for a change? America — the entire Western world — is unrecognizable. A cowardly, whimpering, helpless shadow of its former glory, terrified into silence and immobility lest the cry of bigotry and meanness be heard throughout the land. You disgust us.
But oddly, if you dare to point out fascists in Ukraine you’re told that such people are a small minority, that most of those on Maidan, and then supporting the post-Maidan government, were normal, decent, democratic folk, and you shouldn’t allow the presence of a “few extremists” to taint the “revolution of dignity” as a whole.
Now, if it were different people saying these different things, then it wouldn’t be a problem. But as we’ve seen with the case of Amnesty, it’s not. Nor is it in the case of Canada’s political elite, including the ruling Liberal Party. Fascists in Ukraine? That’s Russian disinformation, they tell us. When the mob attacked the police and toppled the [Ukrainian] government, they saw only democracy. But a bunch of truckers sitting around in Ottawa honking their horns – fascism! A threat to our most cherished values.[1]
The reference to Amnesty is about its conclusion that the Ukrainian government’s actions in 2014 were not justified as they did not “pass the test of being a ‘pressing social need . . . .’” The disturbances in Maidan Square were the start of a coup d’etat and tens of people were murdered by snipers. No pressing need to shut that down, I see.
Well, it’s just another day in the joke that Western civilization has become. Who knew that mild-mannered Canada, brash Oz, and Krazy-Kat/rock-and-roll/Route-6 America would embrace state repression with such glee. Question mark.
Notes [1] “Fascists in ottawa. None in kiev!.” By Paulr, Irrusianality, 2/4/22. The sappy bleating in this article of one Alex Neve about the fwightful Canadian truckers’ protest is a classic of manufactured snowflake outrage and airiness about the truth, shall we say.
The push for total censorship is relentless. You can’t say THAT and you certainly can’t say it THERE.
WikiLeaks was a threat and they took care of that.
The Drudge Report was a threat and they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Facebook, Twitter, etc. were potential threats and they got these “private companies” to implement their programs to end “misinformation” and “dangerous” content.
They always had the mainstream media, but they are subsidizing their continued existence so they can continue to run cover and protect the authorized narratives.
Joe Rogan and Spotify were becoming a threat …
This Trucker protest is a threat and so they have mobilized all their assets to make sure this threat doesn’t spread world-wide.
Substack citizen journalists are becoming a threat so there is now a “campaign” to shut them down.
I see a pattern here. I see an effort to neutralize any threat that might prevent the Powers that Be from fully implementing their complete agendas.
‘I don’t understand your viewpoint,’ she said. ‘You broke his nose, yet he had done you no harm of any sort. You expect me to approve that?’
‘But Persephone,’ he protested, ‘you ignore the fact that he called me a most insulting name.’
‘I don’t see the connection,’ she said. ‘He made a noise with his mouth-a verbal label. If the label does not fit you, the noise is meaningless. If the label is true in your case—if you are the thing that the noise refers to, you are neither more, nor less, that thing by reason of some one uttering the verbal label. In short, he did not damage you.
‘But what you did to him was another matter entirely. You broke his nose. That is damage. In self-protection the rest of society must seek you out, and determine whether or not you are so unstable as to be likely to damage some one else in the future. If you are, you must be quarantined for treatment, or leave society-whichever you prefer.’
‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’ he accused.
‘Crazy? Not the way you mean it. You haven’t paresis, or a brain tumor, or any other lesion that the Doctor could find. But from the viewpoint of your semantic reactions you are as socially unsane as any fanatic witch burner.’
[Robert A. Heinlein, “Coventry”]
“Mr. Rearden,” he had said once, “if you feel you’d like to hand out more of the Metal to friends of yours—I mean, in bigger hauls—it could be arranged, you know. Why don’t we apply for a special permission on the ground of essential need? I’ve got a few friends in Washington. Your friends are pretty important people, big businessmen, so it wouldn’t be difficult to get away with the essential need dodge. Of course, there would be a few expenses. For things in Washington. You know how it is, things always occasion expenses.”
“What things?”
“You understand what I mean.”
“No,” Rearden had said, “I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
The boy had looked at him uncertainly, weighed it in his mind, then come out with: “It’s bad psychology.”
“What is?”
“You know, Mr. Rearden, it’s not necessary to use such words as that.”
“As what?”
“Words are relative. They’re only symbols. If we don’t use ugly symbols, we won’t have any ugliness. Why do you want me to say things one way, when I’ve already said them another?”
If I were to recount all the words and phrases the Left has striven to render unspeakable, I’d run out of breath long before I got to the pronouns. These days, they act as if they hold an absolute veto power over our locutions. But I didn’t award them any such. Did you?
Thing is, they censor us selectively, according to political / tactical considerations. They allow their favored and protected ones to get away with what they forbid to others. That, of course, is in harmony with Leftist thinking generally. A concise exegesis was provided by chekist Martin Latsis, way back in the early days of the USSR:
We are not making war on individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class…. Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what is his origin, education, profession. These questions should determine his fate. This is the essence of the Red Terror.
Today, the Left identifies its targets by their politics more than by their “class.” This article is on point.
There is a theory beneath it, of course. It’s expressed in the Atlas Shrugged quote at the top of this piece. It’s equally well expressed by the famous Syme quotation from 1984:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it….The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak….”
“By 2050 — earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron — they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ”freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
(Why yes, I could make up an essay entirely from quotes. Especially if I were allowed to quote myself. But not today.)
While perusing my archives, I ran across a Curmudgeon Emeritus essay I first posted at the Palace of Reason in 2004. Rather than repeat myself still further, I’m going to post the relevant snippet of it below. Read it – preferably securely seated; it’s rather rough – and reflect. Reflect particularly upon what our unwillingness to defy the would-be censors has wrought upon us and our nation.
***
With regard to the anathematization of the words colored,Negro, and nigger — is your Curmudgeon the only honky in America willing to spell that last word out in its entirety? — a confluence of forces was at work. One of these was a genuine contrition among white Americans for the racial sins of prior generations, and a willingness to overcompensate for them as a gesture and proof of good will. Another was the rise of black racial-identity politics, which used undeserved guilt as its principal weapon, and reinforced it cleverly with the continual reassignment of words to and from the “taboo” category, so that whites would always be off balance and hesitant about what they could say.
Because of the circumstances of the Sixties and Seventies, in particular the complete dependence of the whole country on the ideologically uniform newspapers and broadcast media for news about the war, it took a long time before the typical American learned that Tet had been a huge, bank-breaking victory for our forces in Vietnam. Though the media’s duplicity wasn’t the whole of the reason for our ultimate withdrawal from Vietnam, Miss Coulter is quite correct that the misrepresentation of Tet was a major factor in the public’s disaffection from the war, for which popular support had never been better than lukewarm in the first place. The media crowbar was strong enough to pry the government and the electorate apart.
Because of the willingness of white America to overcompensate for the racism of prior generations, the black racialists of the Sixties and Seventies succeeded at conditioning the overwhelming majority of whites into self-censorship. The main significance of this result was not a reduction in offense offered to blacks by whites; that was already about as low as it was going to get. It was a stutterer’s hesitancy among whites: a nervous, self-doubting reluctance to address race-related subjects at all, no matter how extravagant the claims of exploitation and victimization offered by black racialist leaders. One could not know what word or phrase black race-shouters would fix on as a pretext to attack one’s motives, objectives, or character, thereby destroying the preconditions for discussion.
Truly, words have power. But sound, consistent ethics have even more power, as recent developments have demonstrated.
The black racialists have revealed their real agenda by their ceaseless maneuverings for money, power, and prestige, in pursuit of which they’ve repeatedly sacrificed the well-being of those they claim to represent. As a result, white Americans have grown calluses over their sensitivities, and have largely cast off the undeserved guilt in which the racialists have tried to swaddle them. More, the racialists have been countered effectively by a new set of black voices of great integrity. The racialists are stunned by the power of these new voices. To this point, they’ve managed no response other than increased stridency and volume, which isn’t working.
But what of the desire not to give offense?
A prime tenet of the old Gentleman’s Code was that a gentleman never gives offense unintentionally. But a gentleman is also supposed to speak truth and shoot the arrow straight. More, though noblesse oblige commands him to show generosity toward the less fortunate, and patience toward those less well reared than he, he is not required to apologize or make reparations to those he has not harmed, nor to kowtow to the insincerely “sensitive” sort who seeks pretexts for offense in the innocent behavior of others.
What’s this antiquated nonsense about a “gentleman’s code,” you ask? Why trouble about gentlemen when the species has been extinct longer than the dodo? Why hasn’t your bloodthirsty pale-assed mick-wop Curmudgeon staked out a position of his own on the thing? But he has:
The Curmudgeon’s Code:
Try not to annoy others without cause.
Try not to be too easily annoyed.
Assume sincerity, decency, and good will in others until they demonstrate otherwise.
Once they’ve demonstrated otherwise, cut them no slack at all.
Support and defend America in all dealings with other countries and their governments, unless it is absolutely and indisputably in the wrong.
Not quite what you’d have expected of a fascist war-mongering ofay from the privileged white capitalist patriarchal ruling class, is it? Well, we tophatted oppressors expend most of our energies on maintaining iron-fisted control of our dark Satanic mills, so we tend to be easygoing about everything else except our bank balances, our coupon-clipping, and our ius primae noctis. But to those who find it noxious even so, a parting word of advice: If you decide to shoot at your Curmudgeon, don’t miss.
In contrast to the idea that a globalist depopulation agenda would be the result of the die-off of billions and billions of people across the world, the actual realization of this pursuit appears to be much more subtle. That realization is also becoming harder and harder to deny. This is demonstrated in part by recent revolutions from England and Wales from the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics (“ONS”). The ONS recently found that more than 50% of women in England and Wales born in or after 1990 were childless by the time they turned 30 in 2020. The literal majority of 50.1% drastically increased from a rate of just 18% measured in 1971.[1]
Just like millions of high-fertility, third world invaders just “ended up” in the ghettoes, banlieus, Sensitive Urban Zones, and assorted other no-go areas of Western countries?
And tens of thousands of American factories just drifted across the Pacific to the shores of a communist country without a peep from the unions or the Commerce Deptartment? Stuff happens, lads.
If salus populi is a consideration that seems to you to be strangely missing from the calculations of our “leaders” you are not alone:
Why wage a war in furtherance of interests not our own? ask paleoconservative patriots like Messrs. Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson. The question, alas, is a non-sequitur, as it is incorrectly premised on the false notion that the United States government and Department of State conduct foreign policy in the interest of the American people. The assumption of congruity between US foreign policy and the interests of the American people is utterly false.[2]
Ms. Mercer’s last sentence there warrants a separate “pearls of expression” treatment all by itself.
“Tell your men to sheathe their blades, my lord. Else I shall collapse the whirligig upon them, and Anam will be once more without a balance.”
The baron’s eyes lit with understanding. His hand retreated from his sword. “Practical considerations, sorcerer?”
“Just so.”
“Will you take my realm from me, then?”
“I will not,” Gregor said. “I leave upon the instant. My word, you see, is good.”
Semmech’s jaw clenched. He raised a hand, and his men returned their swords to their scabbards.
Would you like to know what gets a freedom weenie’s blood pressure up to moonshot levels? The sort of thing he simply can’t cope with no matter how hard he may try?
Practical considerations.
Yep. That’s it. That’s all. Tell a liberty-minded guy that “we can’t have that” because “it’s not practical” and watch him turn the most amazing shade of purple. And would you like to know why?
It’s simple, really. It’s because sometimes there’s no counter-argument. Some things, however desirable they might be in theory, are unworkable in practice. In operational terms, the cost of the thing would outweigh the gains from having it.
Of course, people can argue about costs and gains: how they’re assessed, in what coin they should be counted, the extent of the costs and gains spread over time, and so forth. But such arguments are by nature interminable. They eventually run down, and the decisions involved are made by a majority or supermajority consensus.
Here follows an old favorite essay. It first appeared at the Palace of Reason on June 5, 2002.
I can’t imagine why not. The above are a fair sample of some of America’s most potent magic numbers. If they don’t cause you to swell with mystical potency like Gandalf facing the Lord of the Nazgul, at least they ought to make you tipsy.
Each of those numbers is part of a written statute, at the federal, state, or municipal level. The number controls what certain persons may do with the blessing of the law.
Twenty-one years is the legal drinking age in much, if not all of the country. A person below that age who knowingly imbibes alcohol has committed a misdemeanor. A person over that age who serves him alcohol has committed a felony.
Seventeen years is the minimum age of a capital offender in the state of Texas. Recently, Napoleon Beazley, who had murdered in the process of a carjacking just before his eighteenth birthday, discovered this to his dismay. The authorities put him to death despite protests that, at the time of his offense, he was “only a child.”
Eighteen years is the nationwide age of commercial consent, and of the franchise. An eighteen year old may enter into binding contracts, including labor contracts and contracts that would commit him to military discipline. He is deemed fit to help select our representatives in Congress and the state legislatures, and the occupant of the White House as well. His judgment doesn’t extend to the responsible use of intoxicants, but toting an automatic weapon and hurling grenades? Choosing the men who’ll run the country? Hey, who could be hurt by that?
Sixteen years is the legal age of sexual consent in the state of New York. A sixteen year old is deemed by New York law ready to decide about when, how, and with whom he’ll copulate, with neither parental veto nor legal consequence.
Fourteen years is the minimum age for a young woman to marry in several Southern states. A subset of those states require parental consent to the match; a few do not. I haven’t checked the statutes of those states for their ages of sexual consent. If any have it set higher than fourteen, it would have interesting implications for the child brides and their grooms.
We’ll get to the others in a bit. For the moment, I hope I’ve conveyed to you some sense of the ubiquity and incoherence of these magic numbers. They control access to many aspects of life, but neither they nor their rationales show any degree of consistency.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask for rational consistency in such things. Each of the numbers above is the product of a continuous, ongoing political struggle. The statute ages typically satisfy no one; in any particular case, about half the agitators wanted it to be higher, and the other half wanted it to be lower. Such processes are the reverse of rational, and cannot fairly be expected to yield rational results.
But what would a rational result be?
When the law partitions the citizenry into a portion that’s deemed responsible enough to exercise certain choices, and another that’s deemed unready, it’s making an arbitrary choice. There is no science behind a voting age of eighteen. There’s no study to reassure us that an eighteen year old will possess the necessary mature judgment to exercise the franchise. Considering how so many of them drive, the evidence is against it.
We are largely agreed that some of us are too young to be allowed independent choices about certain matters, such as sex and intoxicants. But when we get down to specifics, the final decision will always be a matter of political pressures rather than reasoning. There can be no reasoning on these matters; the varying rates of individual mental and emotional development guarantee this.
We are largely agreed that, after a certain age, individuals must be held to answer for the consequences of their deeds. But when legislatures and courts try to make rules, we reach the edge of our agreement. Political pressures take over. Some states will execute a murderer at age sixteen; others insist on a minimum of eighteen. Of course, still others won’t execute at all.
This is not an argument against these statutory ages. I cannot claim that any of these numbers “ought to be” other than what it is. Nor can I argue against the use of statutory ages in general. This is merely a reflection on the way they’ve proliferated and diverged, according to the topic they address.
It is in Man’s nature to study himself, and never to be satisfied that he knows himself adequately well. If it were otherwise, we could argue, as someone once did with the Patent Office, that the legislatures had completed their work and could be adjourned sine die. I regret to inform you that this has not occurred, not even in Rhode Island.
Part of our self-study is, of course, the study of our process of maturation, and the consequences of allowing the young access to the privileges and perquisites of the adult. From this, we produce statutory age thresholds, and adjust them over time. When our legislative process is working well, the adjustments are responses to the lessons of experience. When it isn’t, they’re determined by which pressure group has the largest PR budget.
Now, as to the last three numbers:
Six months is the age of a developing fetus at which a mother’s decision to abort can be regulated by an act of a state legislature.
Twenty-five years is the age in the state of New York at which a driver must be removed from his insurance company’s Assigned Risk pool, that he may keep a greater sliver of his laughably trivial earnings.
Eight is the number of cats permitted to a single-family dwelling in the City of Yonkers, by court decision.
Didn’t expect that last one, did you?
***
I called them “magic numbers” out of whimsy, back then…but upon reflection there’s a deeper meaning to be had from the term, even if I didn’t grasp it at the time. The magic in them is twofold: first, they reduce contention; second, they excite dissension. The consensus that agreed to them was sufficient to give them legal staying power, which made them sound as practical considerations. However, no consensus is perfect; unanimity is unknown among us quarrelsome humans. And while it may seem paradoxical, it’s often the smallest dissenting minority that can excite the biggest noise.
Allow me two examples. Time was, a certain Peter Singer, who billed himself as an ethicist, tried to argue that “abortion rights” ought to extend beyond the womb. If memory serves, he thought a new mother should have the right to kill her baby for thirty days after birth. Why thirty days? Why not fifteen or sixty? Beats me. But that’s what he argued.
Singer’s notion didn’t get a lot of support, but it did get some. He got at least one quasi-favorable interview with a regionally important media organ. Since then – it was a number of years ago – we’ve heard little to nothing more from or about him.
For a more recent numerically based contretemps, we have this:
Stephen Kershnar is a professor at State University of New York at Fredonia, and a pedophilia apologist.
Here’s Kershnar on video saying that an adult male having sex with a 12-year-old girl is not obviously wrong, and that calling it wrong is a “mistake.” In the same clip, he refers to pedophilic rape as “adult-child sex,” another euphemism that, just like “minor-attracted person,” is being used in an attempt to run cover for evil.
It gets worse. Twelve isn’t young enough for Kershnar. He continues to defend pedophilia, remarking “The notion that it’s wrong even with a one-year-old is not quite obvious to me.” He goes on. “I don’t think it’s blanket wrong at any age.”
Note that, in the “Magic Numbers” essay, I admitted that the states have differing ages of sexual consent. This highlights the matter in a fashion that Kershnar and his fellow travelers would appreciate. Yet it doesn’t win the argument for them. There is an essential consensus that takes precedence:
Consent is essential to sex.
Sex without consent is rape.
Some persons cannot validly consent to sex.
Ergo, to impose sex upon them is rape.
The argument over who can and who cannot validly consent to sex gives rise not only to age-of-consent laws, but also to laws that protect adults who are deemed unable to consent: the comatose, the mentally ill, and the mentally feeble. Note that parts of this argument are still in progress, for example over whether a drunken or semi-drunken person can validly consent to sex. But more important still is this: The core of the argument is over practical considerations: i.e., how to design the laws so as to minimize the amount of harm done while minimally interfering with individuals’ rights.
When there’s no other way, we must fall back on consensus. Of course, a claim that “there’s no other way” is itself a trigger for dispute, but that’s an argument for a much, much longer essay.
Fran the Freedom Advocate has long wrestled with certain “practical considerations.” As I’m horrified by the evils to which governments give birth, I’ve strained for decades to find a way to defend a country without resorting to a government with the power to tax, or a way to enforce a uniform standard of justice in such a country without a unified system of courts, or a way to enforce acceptable standards of decency in public places without creating municipal police forces. These are the “public-goods problems” that have frustrated thinkers ever since the Enlightenment. And as much as I love Spoonerite anarchism in theory, I can’t find a way to provide for those things without exciting the very political processes that give rise to majorities imposing their will upon minorities…in other words, to governments.
Perhaps someone far wiser than I can solve those problems. In the meantime, we must use consensus…which means enduring the clamor from noisy minorities that scream that their rights and prerogatives are being trampled thereby.
Sen. Josh Hawley questioned the lust for war with Russia whereupon Jen Psaki accused him of “digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points” and not being in alignement with “long-standing, bipartisan American values.”
A ZeroHedge commenter had the perfect response:
Soviet politics pure and simple. If you ask about the problem, then you are the problem. We’ve been living under these rules for two or more decades, from government down to the corporate workplace to the school board meeting. Time to give them the collective middle finger.[1]
Where did so many nimrods and dimwits in America suddenly develop this uncanny ability to detect misinformation, disinformation, and Russian talking points delivered with an American accent?
Notes [1]Comment by Fishtowner on “War Mania Leads White House To Condemn US Senator As Russian Propagandist.” By Joe Lauria, ZeroHedge, 2/4/22.
No natural barriers divide Russia from the rest of Europe. Its defence against all four invasions from the West over four centuries was, therefore, vitally dependent on its ability to trade space for time and to exploit enormous distances—as well as brutal climate—to wear down attackers. Having a solid buffer zone along the country’s western frontiers is still perceived by Russian leaders as strategically imperative.
This is the context in which the latest crisis over Ukraine must be seen.[1]
Russians’ understanding of the concept of strategic depth is thus rooted in bitter experience. Foreign invasions have been existential threats to them; WWII losses were hideous. Americans’ experience of foreign military invasion is virtually nil. Even our WWII losses were far, far fewer than Soviet losses.
Our elites’ fanatical desire to expand “NATO” to the very borders of Russia is thus arrogant and reckless. They ignore the Russian experience and the bedrock realities of their survival. America’s political elites play at war with our asinine female Rangers and affirmative action hires on the bridges of naval vessels.
By way of contrast, the Defense Minister of Russia, Gen. Shoigu, who is fluent in nine languages and a student of the French invasion of Russia, does not look like he is a great kidder.
I downloaded the bill’s text (don’t forget, Thomas.gov is now Congress.gov – the old links don’t work). Some of the provisions are very interesting:
4 Members of the Commission “shall be survivors of online child sexual exploitation, or have current experience in providing services for victims of online child sexual exploitation in a nongovernmental capacity;
In other words, there will be FOUR members that either ‘out’ themselves as a sexual abuse survivor, or have worked for an NGO (is there ANY doubt in your mind that those will be Leftist NGOs?)
2 Members “shall have current experience in matters related to consumer protection, civil liberties, civil rights, or privacy;” (and, we all know that the experience of non-Leftists will not be accepted as valid)
2 “shall have current experience in addressing online child sexual exploitation and promoting child safety at an interactive computer service with not less than 30,000,000 monthly users in the United States;” (am I wrong in thinking that those numbers are tailored to making sure that the FAANGs will be part of this?)
And, if somehow the Commission gets “stuck” with non-Leftists (residual members, oddball appointments), never fear, there is a solution!
“QUORUM.—A majority of the members of the Commission shall constitute a quorum, but a lesser number of members may hold a meeting.” So, just don’t invite those NLDs to the meeting!
They will, should this pass, also amend other legislation already passed – “HOMELAND SECURITY ACT OF 2002.—The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 101 et seq.) is amended— (A) in section 307(b)(3)(D) (6 U.S.C. 187(b)(3)(D)), by striking ‘‘child pornography’’ and inserting ‘‘child sexual abuse material’’;
Other legislation that would be amended include:
Immigration and Nationality Act
Small Business Jobs Act of 2010
Broadband Data Improvement Act
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
Title 18, United States Code
Tariff Act of 1930
Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965
Museum and Library Services Act
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974
Victims of Crime Act of 1984
Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990
Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006
Protect Our Children Act of 2008
Social Security Act
Privacy Protection Act of 1980
Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990
Communication Act of 1934
Adds an Amendment to Federal Sentencing Guidelines
“EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section to title 18 of the United States Code shall apply to conduct that occurred before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that SPECIFICALLY prohibited by the Constitution?
The bill makes sections of it severable – that is, if one part is held to be unconstitutional, all other parts of it will survive. That’s a common provision of these “Comprehensive” bills; they ask for the moon, and eventually, settle for most.
So, what does “Sexual Child Abuse Material” mean?
AMAZINGLY, they do NOT define what that offence IS. Which would lead a suspicious person to conclude that they intend to classify online discussion and opposition of medical treatment of children for “TRANSformation”, childhood sexualized activities promoted by the Left, pedophilia promotion, abortion services and other vile activities of the Batshit Crazy Left, as fitting under this definition, if not following the Leftist Line. In other words, if you OPPOSE sexualizing children, YOU are the offender.
The Sponsor is Rep. Sylvia Garcia – (D-TX). Co-Sponsors include Rep. Ann Wagner – (R-MO), Rep. Tom Rice – (R-SC), and Rep. Byron Donalds – (R-FL). I’ve included their links, so you can express your displeasure personally. If you would also contact other legislators from that state, and ask for their assistance in delivering a B!tch-Slap to those members, that would be great.
If you’re not aware of them, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the few organizations actively fighting for freedom of communication in today’s media, especially the Internet. They’ve made the unearthing, publicizing, and combating of threats to communications freedom and privacy their sole priority. They’re very good at it.
A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have re-introduced the EARN IT Act, an incredibly unpopular bill from 2020 that was dropped in the face of overwhelming opposition. Let’s be clear: the new EARN IT Act would pave the way for a massive new surveillance system, run by private companies, that would roll back some of the most important privacy and security features in technology used by people around the globe. It’s a framework for private actors to scan every message sent online and report violations to law enforcement. And it might not stop there. The EARN IT Act could ensure that anything hosted online—backups, websites, cloud photos, and more—is scanned.
The bill empowers every U.S. state or territory to create sweeping new Internet regulations, by stripping away the critical legal protections for websites and apps that currently prevent such a free-for-all—specifically, Section 230. The states will be allowed to pass whatever type of law they want to hold private companies liable, as long as they somehow relate their new rules to online child abuse.
The goal is to get states to pass laws that will punish companies when they deploy end-to-end encryption, or offer other encrypted services. This includes messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage, as well as web hosts like Amazon Web Services. We know that EARN IT aims to spread the use of tools to scan against law enforcement databases because the bill’s sponsors have said so. In a “Myths and Facts” document distributed by the bill’s proponents, it even names the government-approved software that they could mandate (PhotoDNA, a Microsoft program with an API that reports directly to law enforcement databases).
Please read the whole article. (Try to stay calm during and after the ordeal.) So you thought the invasions of digital privacy would halt with the discovery of the NSA’s massive call-recording setup, eh? Think again.
Note that the EARN IT bill has support both from Democrats and from Republicans. Despite its plain unConstitutionality and its apparent unpopularity the first time around, it appears ready for a rematch.
EARN IT should be a wake-up call for anyone who’s assumed that the Republicans are reliable friends of freedom and Constitutional government. The indications are that the GOP is as interested in these new surveillance powers as the Democrats. Many will scratch their heads over this, though the underlying dynamic appears plain enough.
Knowledge of what people are thinking and saying is valuable to the maintenance of power generally. This is especially true today, when any comment can result in being besieged by the militants of “cancel culture.” (Anyone who doubts this should consult James Watson, Lawrence Summers, and Gina Carano.) Don’t imagine that the Establishment Right is less interested than the Left in such an ability. Just now, the GOP looks set to regain control of Congress; the ability to peer into anyone’s communications stream would allow themselves to cement themselves into Congressional hegemony. The Democrats are probably thinking that that ability could help them to maintain their grip on power, as well. That one or the other must be mistaken doesn’t really matter.
In our post-Constitutional era, gambits such as EARN IT are beyond enumeration. Everyone in politics is looking for a “wonder weapon” the possession of which would guarantee enduring dominance in Washington. What usually retards them is suspicion. When the Democrats propose a new power for the federal government, the Republicans will normally suspect their motives and form a wall against it. The same is true with the parties reversed. But with some proposed powers, such as those in EARN IT, both can take an interest, especially when control of Congress appears up for grabs.
Just as the repeal of Prohibition didn’t do away with federal oversight of alcoholic beverages, should EARN IT be enacted and signed by whoever is sitting in the Oval Office, the power it creates will never, ever go away. Both parties would find it too useful. What remains of communications privacy will vanish. Surveillance America would be here at last. And of course, it would all be “for the children.”
Say, how about a bill that would make proposing new federal powers “for the children” a capital crime? I could get behind that one.
“The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
I sometimes envision History as a teacher standing before a classroom filled with squalling teenagers. The kids are entirely uninterested in what Miss History has to say. Who cares about all that old crap? This is today! We know better now. Yet she stands up there, chalk in hand, facing a sea of eight billion desks, while the spitballs fly, the gigglings and gropings continue, and the din of voices raised in senseless defiance of her wisdom swells unbounded. Undaunted, she goes on mercilessly telling her class – that’s us, Gentle Reader – stuff that we all really ought to know…but which the majority of us refuse to acknowledge.
If anyone should have an absolute and unabridged right to say I told you so to Mankind, it’s Miss History.
***
Foremost of all History’s lessons is that we should pay attention to History. But when we do, we quickly become aggrieved, for it tells us things we don’t want to hear…things that would make us question our own wisdom. So we prefer to ignore it.
History tells us innumerable things about the perniciousness of government. Brilliant men have written extensive chronicles of what follows when men turn to the State: for protection from others…for the elimination of conditions they dislike…for things they ought to provide to themselves, by their own intelligence and sweat. A record six thousand years long of oppressions, predations, and slaughters, conducted by and through governments, is available to anyone who takes an interest. Yet we go on as if what men do when awarded power over others is an unexampled, utterly mysterious thing.
So the parade of horrors continues.
Why? Why are we so resistant to the lesson? Can we really be that vain of our own wisdom? After so many failures, can we sincerely believe that “we’re smarter than they were; we can do it better” — ? And when we fail yet again, how can we exculpate ourselves in the face of so much accumulated knowledge – knowledge sufficient to convince anyone with eyes to see that what we’ve attempted is by its very nature impossible?
***
There are many who “think” with their desires instead of their reason. He who lusts after power will appeal to these with a promise of riches for submission: Give me power over you and I will fulfill your dreams of avarice. The lie must be properly packaged, of course. It must include at least one devil-figure. That figure must somehow be connected to the ills and unfulfilled desires of the Great Unwashed. But The People’s Champion will do battle against the devil and cast him down…and thereafter riches will flow forth from the cornucopia the devil had seized for himself.
There are others who are consumed by envy of others of greater ability or effort. The power-luster will promise to reave them of their “ill-gotten gains” and distribute them among his beloved People. Thus will he relieve all misery and want, while simultaneously assuaging The People’s desire for “justice.” For it is unjust that some should have more than others, is it not? After all, we didn’t ask to be born stupid, or shiftless, or careless! We deserve redress!
There are others who are filled with fear. The power-seeker will promise them protection. It is a need most urgent, for The Enemy is everywhere. He’s poised to strike and could do so at any moment. We may not know his name or face, but his ubiquity is certain. What’s that you say? Let the commoners possess the arms required for the job? Unthinkable! They might harm one another, or themselves. Look how much damage they do to themselves with paper cuts alone!
The lies are many. All of them have been used before. The would-be tyrant’s chief skill is in the packaging.
***
Yes, I’m in a mood. I’ve been an aficionado of history all my life. Hegel was essentially correct: we learn, if not nothing, then very little from history. The power-mongers fool even the best of us more often than not. All it takes is a more colorful, more glittery wrapping for the Lie of the Moment.
But what is the Lie of the Moment? What deception has been used to fasten today’s yoke upon our necks? Systemic Racism? COVID-19? Fear of Russia? Mean Tweets?
The lies have broken down among our neighbors to the north. Canadians have decided that they’ve had enough. They’ve gotten up on their hind legs and roared a mighty roar, and the powers-that-be are cowering in terror.
What of us? Are we still prisoners of the Lie? For there is really only one Lie, you know. It changes costumes frequently enough, but the body underneath remains constant:
We know better than you.
Trust us.
We’re here to help.
It hasn’t been believable since Solon of Athens. But to learn that, we’d have to pay attention to History…and we won’t.
Time was, soldiers had a saying: “There are three ways to do anything: the wrong way, the right way, and the Army way.” It was facetious, of course; an Army that refrains from doing things the right way as a matter of policy wouldn’t last very long. But the saying expresses some of the frustration soldiers feel – especially new recruits – at the regimentation Army life demands.
In point of fact, “the Army way” is as rigid and demanding as it is for very good reasons. First, it conditions the soldier to taking orders. Second, it habituates him to doing things in one, specific, maximally precise way. That way, certain actions will become “muscle memory,” and will be executed immediately upon command and exactly as taught, even under the pressures of lethal combat. These qualities are vital to a fighting man in an Army that could see combat at any time.
It has its downside, of course. It can impede other qualities, such as flexibility and spontaneity, that are of greater use to a soldier who’s left the military. It can also get in the way of “outside the box” thinking. But those are unavoidable side effects of the mental conditioning required of the man at arms.
Mental conditioning isn’t unknown outside the military. You’ll find it at work in several other venues, especially quasi-religious cults. We refer to the specialists who rehabilitate cult followers to normal life as “deprogrammers” for a reason.
Left-wing activists exhibit the mental rigidity and programmed behavior patterns characteristic of cult members. This is especially noticeable in their verbal behavior and reactions to others’ statements. It’s a great part of why it’s usually profitless to argue with a leftist.
***
Just now there’s a wee contretemps in progress over a recent faux pas by television personality Caryn Elaine Johnson, who usually goes by the name “Whoopi Goldberg.” If you’re unacquainted with the details of “Whoopi’s” misstep, here’s a brief Newsbusters report on it.
This is an excellent illustration of leftists’ programmed reactions, in this case specifically about race. In starkly factual terms, the Holocaust was not a racial pogrom, as European Jews were and are almost all racially Caucasian. Yes, the Nazis “racialized” their campaign against the Jews for the purposes of effective propaganda. But neither the bare facts nor the racial character of Nazi rhetoric were genuinely germane to “Whoopi’s” reaction. As a leftist, she is programmed to react harshly against any use of the concept of racism when Negroes aren’t on the receiving end.
That programming – the absolute prohibition against allowing that racism against whites is even possible – caused “Whoopi” to depart from the path of prudence. The reactions of her co-hosts ought to have put her on notice. Since then, after a massive counterblast from “The View’s” audience, “Whoopi” has issued a terse admission of error. Apparently ABC has penalized her mildly for it, as well.
But I doubt severely that “Whoopi’s” behavior will be any different in the future.
“Whoopi’s” behavior was in obedience to “the Left Way.” We could summarize it as an absolute adherence to rhetoric that expresses the Left’s certified positions. That includes an immediate contradiction – usually in unsparing, even insulting terms – of anyone who infringes on a Leftist issue, even in a metaphorical sense. The Left will permit no one to speak of “racism” in any setting or terms that don’t specifically involve Caucasians’ abuse of Negroes. It shall not pass!
The tactical value of such rigidity would strike most reasonable persons as dubious. It forecloses factual discussion. It certainly prevents reasoned argument. (I no longer cross swords with leftists for this reason, among others. Should I ever feel a need to be insulted…well, I am married, you know.) But its true value is in the reinforcement of leftist attitudes and adherence. It “keeps ‘em in the church.”
***
Leftism cannot be defended with reason and evidence. Therefore it must rely on other forces to maintain its grip on its adherents. This is a subject on which many commentators have held forth. I shan’t duplicate their efforts here, except to note once again that the inability to defend a proposition with reason and evidence marks it as a matter of pure faith.
All faiths involve premises whose acceptance is utterly necessary to the rest of the faith’s propositions. You can’t argue with a man’s premises, unless they involve direct and verifiable contradictions of observed or observable facts. The Left’s premise is that leftists are intellectually and morally superior to the rest of us. In Thomas Sowell’s formulation, this constitutes an assumption of differential rectitude, with the implication that he who contradicts the Left is stupid, evil, or both.
It is in expressing that assumption, whether in maintaining some position or as a blanket matter, that the leftist reinforces his conviction of superiority. Logically, it’s circular: To hold leftist beliefs is to be intellectually and morally superior to others. Why is that? Well, it’s because those are the Left’s positions, and the Left is intellectually and morally superior to the non-Left. But breaking out of that circle is painfully difficult. It requires a frank admission that you’ve been duped.
***
“Whoopi’s” misstep won’t cost her much. She’s a card-carrying leftist whose fellows have all been programmed the same way. They won’t question her bona fides. The major media are wholly owned by such persons. They don’t normally act against their own. They do so only when the Left suffers intolerable damage from the errant allegiant’s words or deeds.
However, the incident is instructive. It illuminates the course decent persons should follow: Draw attention to the stratum of programmed behavior beneath it. If we in the Right can get enough others to take it seriously, the Left Way will doom the Left itself.
One of the giveaways that an authority – of whatever kind – is evilly motivated is an attempt to suppress divergent convictions. George Orwell’s 1984 expressed this through its motifs of doublethink, its motto “Ignorance is Strength,” and Oceania’s Ministry of Truth. That last organ of the State labored continuously to “correct” the record by destroying anything that might cast doubt on the Party line. Supporting its labors was the Ministry of Love: Oceania’s not-quite-secret police, which worked to “correct” individual dissenters.
Things are bad just now in America, if not quite Oceania-level bad. Our “authorities” are straining to suppress certain information and opinions as antithetical to their aims. They’ve had only limited success – limited principally by the World Wide Web, the First Amendment to the Constitution, and Americans’ attachment to freedom of expression. But there’s no denying the strenuousness of their efforts. They’ve succeeded in enlisting most of the major media in their campaign.
Consider this matter of Joe Rogan. As it happens, I’ve yet to hear one of his shows. Indeed, I’ve only been aware of him for a few weeks. But our “authorities” are so savagely determined to shut him down that through their efforts alone, millions of Americans, including myself, have become interested in his work. We’re a horde of potential new Rogan listeners, whether for good or for ill…and the “authorities” are frantic about it. So they’ve enlisted CBS in the effort to suppress him:
Watch as ‘CBS Mornings’ suggest Joe Rogan is killing people via his podcast when talking about Covid, implying he’s responsible for their deaths.
They add they SUPPORT free speech & the First Amendment — just not for Rogan to have *A* platform, calling his show “dangerous.” pic.twitter.com/dzONwcPhVh
There’s no question of rights here. The producers of CBS Mornings are free to express their opinions. “Journalism professor” Jeff Jarvis is free to refrain from patronizing Joe Rogan’s sponsors. But the agenda could hardly be clearer or more distasteful. That distaste is having an effect the would-be suppressors did not anticipate.
***
I wrote recently that We the Not-Stupid are aware of what’s being done to us. The topic then was election law; today it’s the suppression of information and opinion. When an “authority” tells us that “You mustn’t listen to that; it’s dangerous,” it triggers a priceless national asset: American defiance. Among the phenomena of the time that lifts my spirits, this one is near the top.
“Our safeguards prevent the relay of any physically dangerous transmission—the computer is interposed, remember—but they can’t protect our minds from dangerous information….[W]e know that this alien signal caused a mental degeneration involving physical damage to the brain. All this through concept alone. We know the hard way: there are certain thoughts the intelligent mind must not think.”
The story is replete with all the other left-wing notions current in the late Sixties, so the above doesn’t startle at first…until it becomes the linchpin of the entire 480 page novel. End of digression.]
Until quite recently the Left has been making inroads, largely by exploiting our aversion to confrontation. Leftists would scream “This is offensive! It oppresses / demeans / belittles / marginalizes someone or other! Shut it down at once!” and until recently rather than flipping them off, we’d scurry to unruffle notionally ruffled feathers. However, the approach has been weakening, owing to several factors, foremost among them our aforementioned national trait of defiance and after that the burgeoning suspicion that what we’ve been told not to listen to is a better articulation of reality than the Left’s preferred narrative.
The whole post-fascist period is one of clear and present danger. Consequently, true pacification requires the withdrawal of tolerance before the deed, at the stage of communication in word, print, and picture. Such extreme suspension of the right of free speech and free assembly is indeed justified only if the whole of society is in extreme danger. I maintain that our society is in such an emergency situation, and that it has become the normal state of affairs. Different opinions and ‘philosophies’ can no longer compete peacefully for adherence and persuasion on rational grounds: the ‘marketplace of ideas’ is organized and delimited by those who determine the national and the individual interest. In this society, for which the ideologists have proclaimed the ‘end of ideology’, the false consciousness has become the general consciousness–from the government down to its last objects. The small and powerless minorities which struggle against the false consciousness and its beneficiaries must be helped: their continued existence is more important than the preservation of abused rights and liberties which grant constitutional powers to those who oppress these minorities. It should be evident by now that the exercise of civil rights by those who don’t have them presupposes the withdrawal of civil rights from those who prevent their exercise, and that liberation of the Damned of the Earth presupposes suppression not only of their old but also of their new masters.
Note all the red flags in that paragraph: “clear and present danger;” “emergency;” “false consciousness;” “small and powerless minorities;” and the like. Thus Leftist cant is adapted to the conditions of a free society. It’s pure swill, laughable when analyzed rationally. Yet historically it has worked well, because a great many people respond in a predictable way to a shout of “Emergency!”
With the federal government and the major media behind it, it has some prospect of success. The key to defeating it is to stay calm, recognize the motivations, and insist on knowing the facts – the ground truth – the reality.
***
When a great many voices, some of them deafeningly loud, are screaming multiple versions of “the facts,” the burden of deciding what’s real and what’s not falls on the individual listener.
It’s not enough to rely upon established records for veracity. A liar can tell the truth occasionally, just as a resolutely honest man will lie if he perceives a sufficiently serious need. Neither is it enough to discern motivations that would cause the speaker to prefer one version over another. Motivations are powerful but not irresistible. The sole trustworthy source of real-world data is one’s own sensorium…and there are ways to deceive even that.
But most of us are separated from direct perception of the facts – at least, when we need them in quantity. Consider the COVID-19 vaccine controversy. You may know someone, or a few someones, who’ve suffered harm plausibly caused by the vaccines. But how many people do you know who’ve been vaccinated, and how many people do you know who’ve been harmed? Is it a large enough and random enough group to be statistically significant? For most of us, the answers don’t – or shouldn’t – inspire confidence.
So we fall back on factors such as established trustworthiness and inherent motivations. These things are not to be disparaged, especially when the sources under consideration are institutions with known dynamics and substantial histories. One institution in particular has a record so bleak that to extend it one’s trust verges on lunacy.
When an institution insists that it is The Authority and demands that you ignore all other sources as non-authoritative…when it does its best to keep those other sources from being heard…when it cajoles or coerces other institutions into compliance with its demands…there are good reasons to deem it dubious. An authority may dislike reality. It may hope that it will “go away.” But it cannot “trump” reality – and the overt attempt to insist that it cannot be wrong, and thus to suppress opposing voices, is sufficient grounds to ignore it.
It’s really NOT like me to sleep in. I generally beat the birds out of bed.
But, my sleep has been strewed with woke-in-the-night moments for the last several days (NO idea why), so, I didn’t get up until around 8:30.
I checked the fridge (most of the things I planned to make were held up by the limiting ingredient – the milk is finito – so I put on some coffee and sausage, and sat down to catch up on news – well, KINDA news, as most of network TV is.
Now, a person NOT believing in conspiracies might think “How TERRIBLY convenient the timing of this ‘accident’ was!”. Such a person would assume that the Left, as is their wont, jumped on a human tragedy for political reasons, and plan to jump-start the BBB bill, with frills and MUCHO, MUCHO more demands on our hard-earned money. There are, in fact, coincidences in life, hard to distinguish from planned action, and leading the more suspicious of us to feverishly work to connect imaginary dots.
OTOH, it truly wouldn’t take much to weaken a bridge with little traffic, and wait patiently for the inevitable fall. With Trump out of office, it might seem that at least a few of the people working in 3-letter agencies have a little time on their hands before they gear up for the next election. You might even say that this could represent a desperate effort to salvage a failing administration, by giving them at least ONE ‘success’ to brag about.
On to COVID fears and misconceptions. The forcible jabbing is deeply unpopular, both with Americans who have a spine, and, now, Canadians.
The actual numbers of unvaxxed truckers aren’t all that high; in percentages, it’s around 10%.
Yet, somehow, those few men and women will ABSOLUTELY prove to be a risk, despite their prior work before a shot was available, was NOT a risk (well, it was, but mostly to THEM). If you had to come up with a percentage that represented ‘herd immunity’, 90% comes awfully close.
So, it’s not the danger those truckers pose to the public. It’s their defiance of the government that cannot be accepted.
People who’ve never met Canadians won’t understand this. By and large, despite Canadians being near-genetic twins of Americans, their culture is VERY different. The most fervent wish for a Canadian is to get along with others. The government makes insane mandates non-negotiable – that EVERY communication between organizations (public or private) and the public be bilingual (English and French). That was brilliantly mocked in Canadian Bacon.
Still makes me chuckle.
The Canadian Left is used to imposing their demands by fiat. And, to getting little to no pushback. Canadians just don’t like to make waves (well, other than the damn French-speaking ones). That a small group of truckers are saying, not just “Hell,NO!”, but taking direct action is causing the Trudeau administration to “mouiller leur culottes” (if that’s not a good translation, blame Bing).
CBC – the Canadian national broadcasting station – is merely covering the “few thousand” who showed up at the Ottawa government offices. They aren’t even mentioning the truck convoy.
This protest is VERY popular with the public. Average people worldwide are getting tired of being pushed around.
The ones that died during COVID were living on borrowed time. OK, a few were helped on to their Final Reward by the vicious actions of some of the Democratic Left, but most of the deaths, other than that, occurred to people who had exhausted their lifespan, and just needed a small nudge to start the slide into death. Only a tremendous expenditure of money and resources could keep many of them going.
Now, there was some degree of medical/nursing malpractice involved. The widespread practice of putting those patients with respiratory distress on their backs may have made things worse. I know I do resist my husband insisting on dragging me out of bed, sitting up in a chair, and clapping me on the back when I’m having a bad respiratory infection. All I want to do, at that point, is lay down and close my eyes.
That natural desire has to be challenged, lest the excess fluids not get expelled. To do otherwise risks severe complications, and even death.
The alternative to assisting the ill, sequestering those who are actually ill, and letting rest of us just get on with our lives, is destroying the economy, handicapping our children’s education and normal development, and furthering a fearful, isolated society.
Regular Gentle Readers have noticed that I’ve been indirectly touting this novel recently. A couple have expressed curiosity about it: “If you’re going to sneak pitches for your novels into your op-eds, why that book? It’s one of your oldest.” One, whom I know more personally than most of my other readers, went even further: “Why did you write this? It seems unlike you.”
The conversation that followed was interesting, to say the least. Apparently, my interlocutor, aware that I’m a retired engineer who’s been steeped in the sciences and technology practically from the cradle, expected that a science-fiction novel from my pen would involve a lot more whiz-bangery: i.e., the speculative scientific and technological motifs that characterize what’s usually called “hard” SF. Which Art In Hope contains practically none of that. It concerns itself with the society of a world without any government whatsoever. Moreover, it depicts that society, and the lives of those within it – with a few notable exceptions – as orderly, even tranquil.
That is exactly why I wrote it, and why I’ve decided to push it at this time, though the explanation might take a few words more.
***
Lately, the foremost of the topics on my mind has been habituation. It’s well known among cognitive scientists that human adaptability includes the ability to accommodate oneself to conditions one cannot change, as long as they’re not utterly unsurvivable. Other things being equal, people generally dislike certain conditions and try to avoid them: intense heat or cold, isolation or crowding, and others. Yet people sometimes choose to endure those conditions. He who chooses to live in the Sahara Desert will accommodate himself to the heat. He who chooses to live in Oymyakon will accommodate himself to the isolation and the cold. He who chooses to live in Calcutta will accommodate himself to the crowding. And so forth.
Note that people choose – usually – to live in those places despite conditions they would otherwise strive to avoid. Such people have priorities that put other considerations higher than avoidance of the disliked conditions…possibly much higher. And as the saying goes, what can’t be cured must be endured. So they accommodate themselves to the disliked features of their chosen locales. Perhaps, after a while, some of them cease to notice them. In any case, they “make their peace” with them.
This is the case with government – all government. Centuries of habituation have persuaded us, subconsciously at least, that government, however noxious typical instances of it may be, is inevitable. Centuries of habituation worked their magic on the Founding Fathers. Thus, rather than abjuring government a priori, they strove to detoxify it with a Constitution that sharply limits what it may do. That arrangement worked very well for a while, then fairly well for a while more, then haphazardly for a couple of decades more. Today it no longer works at all.
But the dominant premise was and remains that government is inevitable. For centuries the contrary idea has largely gone unexamined. Some writers have examined it:
The other writers in that list are, of course, far better known than your humble commentator. (One or two of them are almost as good 😁.) But our tales differ widely in scope and focus. Theirs were largely about clashes between governed and ungoverned societies. Mine was about the achievability of normality without government.
I had a mission, you see: to open a path in the reader’s mind to dishabituation from government. If those other writers shared that mission to some degree, nevertheless the stories they told emphasized other considerations.
In my opinion, government is no more inevitable than acne, overweight, or rheumatoid arthritis, to name just a few other unpleasant conditions. We have been habituated to it over many generations by persons with an innate interest in persuading us of it. The interest was usually a desire for power over others who had no such aspiration. And because those who captain governments and proclaim their inevitability are unusually good at deceiving others, they’ve almost always had their way.
***
The Spooner Federation Saga is about the requirements of individual freedom, about the progression by which it gives way to government, and the historical remedy for government’s ascent to tyranny. That remedy is not revolution. As many commentators have noted, revolution almost always results in worse tyranny. Rather, they who were determined to be free had to flee: to seek a frontier across which they could escape. Until about 1900, frontiers of that sort existed on the land surface of the Earth. They exist no longer.
The closing of the land frontiers has led many to believe, whatever they believed beforehand, that at long last government has become inevitable. After all, there’s no patch of habitable land that remains unclaimed by a government of some sort. (Some are claimed by several entities claiming to be governments, but that’s a topic for another tirade.) While there is a prospect of a “high frontier,” which entices many to believe that Mankind might reach for freedom once again, few imagine that it will open in their lifetimes. Indeed, governments have done all they can to control access even to low Earth orbit – and while that’s a generally inhospitable locale, it’s a necessary “first step” to more agreeable real estate elsewhere in the Solar System.
But however remote the possibility of escape might seem, the spirit of freedom – the fervent desire for individual liberty and the conviction that government can be dispensed with, whether in whole or in large measure – must be kept alive. Many labor to sustain it. We don’t all agree on methods, current directions, ultimate destinations, or what specific issues to engage. The method I chose is fiction.
Fiction has proved more persuasive than any other method of communication. The reasons are well known. The demonstration is the extraordinary influence the great stories of freedom have had throughout the years. Probably the best known today is Atlas Shrugged, which for all its flaws awakened more minds to the requirements of freedom than anything written in a century or more. So I mention it whenever the context makes it relevant…which, given my proclivities, is pretty often.
But I have a couple of advantages over Ayn Rand and her magnum opus. For one, I’m still alive and writing. So I tout my own stuff as well. Given the threat of ever-expanding, ever-encroaching government, which even here in the Land of the Supposedly Free has eliminated de facto the concept of inviolable individual rights, I consider it a moral obligation. Perhaps it’s even a religious one, for did Our Lord not tell His disciples that “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32) – ?
Have you ever seen the phrase above? I’ve encountered it only once, and that was in a fictional context:
“What made you think that I’d accept a gift of this kind?”
“It is not a gift, Mr. Rearden. It is your own money. But I have one favor to ask of you. It is a request, not a condition, because there can be no such thing as conditional property.”
Is that assertion factually correct? Or have developments in the sixty-five years since it was published replaced true, unconditional property that’s yours by right with conditional property – property that can be withdrawn from you like a government-issued license?
It’s worth a few minutes’ thought.
***
Ever since the infamous Kelo v. New London decision, in which the Supreme Court ratified a Connecticut city’s seizure of a whole neighborhood to turn over to a private developer, it’s been clear that there is no such thing as “real property” in these United States. Frankly, it was a belated recognition. What about property taxes? “Your” land and home can be take from you for not paying those levies, right? So how “real” was your “real property” before the Kelo decision?
The stories of cash seizures by police on absurd pretexts are now too many to enumerate. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the citizen thus victimized never gets any of his money back, despite never even being charged with a crime. Ironically, the usual reason is the amount it would cost the citizen in lawyer’s fees to sue successfully. However, there’s also the little matter, once the suit has been won, of forcing the government to issue the refund…which can take months or years after the refund is ordered.
Then there’s the banking system. You may feel secure about your savings, but how real are they? In the usual case you can’t touch them. No one could, for they consist of entries in a digital ledger. Under “normal” circumstances you can draw on them – once again, digitally – to pay various bills and other obligations. You can withdraw some of them as pieces of paper with steel engravings on them, whether through an ATM or at a bank teller’s window…for the moment. But the entire system is digital – virtual – and under the control of the Federal Reserve Board, whose members are political appointees and whom you probably couldn’t name.
I could go on. I could talk about cryptocurrencies, stocks and bonds, 401(k) and IRA accounts, town and county emergency-seizure ordinances, eminent domain…. The number of rationales under which a government can seize “your property” is sufficient to give anyone who reflects upon the matter a nice little chill. Perhaps you’re feeling that chill about now.
***
If Ragnar Danneskjold was correct, and there can be no such thing as conditional property, then does property exist at all?
There’s a good argument that it doesn’t. Property, in the original American conception, involved an individual right rather than a grant of permission. To seize it required extraordinary circumstances and specific actions. First, a case for the seizure had to be presented to a judge of the appropriate jurisdiction. If the judge deemed the case valid, he would issue an order of condemnation. But he would also order the relevant government to pay “just compensation” for the property seized. In no case could a man’s property – real or movable – be taken from him without all those steps first being taken and approved.
It’s not that way today. Eminent-domain proceedings have become a farce. Worse, “emergency” and “proceeds of crime” rationales are rubber-stamped in nearly every case. Even when it’s paid, “just compensation” seldom bears any resemblance to actual justice.
Those who find the state of affairs acceptable strive to dismiss the many documented injustices as infrequent “excesses,” exceptions to an otherwise acceptably just system. Susette Kelo’s “little pink house” was merely an unfortunate casualty of one such “excess.”
The matter of money and currency is more difficult for the statists to defend. Money was not the invention of any government. It came into existence through spontaneous order. Persons who traded in barter markets sought a way to refine their commerce and preserve some portion of what they had gained. Over the centuries one form of money would last for a while, then give way to a superior form, until the practical optimum – the precious metals – came to hold sway. When governments got involved, they swiftly substituted currencies for money, and contrived to seize the money metals for themselves. As banking blossomed and extended its scope, governments seized upon it as well. Eventually they replaced even the greater part of their irredeemable paper currencies with virtual systems entirely under their control. Thus we arrived at the state of affairs we endure today.
As for other forms of “property” such as stocks and bonds, have they any greater reality – or reliability – than the speedily devaluing pieces of paper in your wallet? Be prepared to show your work.
***
Just now, the Freedom Convoy of Canadian truckers opposed to the Trudeau Regime’s imposition of vaccination mandates upon their industry is the biggest news on Earth. Needless to say, the Mainstream Media are determined to avert our eyes from it. Nevertheless, it is so – so much so that Trudeau has fled Ottawa out of fear. But while we can and should celebrate this stroke in the cause of freedom, there are a few “grace notes” along the edges that deserve a moment’s attention.
The provincial government of Nova Scotia has threatened the truckers and anyone who supports them with massive fines. Canadian federal politicians have threatened to imprison the truckers and seize their trucks. And of course today’s most prominent enemies of freedom, AntiFa, are doing their best to incite actual violence that the government can blame on the Convoy. That would create a rationale for treating the Convoy members as terrorists – and these days that means the sky’s the limit. The January 6 protestors can tell you all about it.
If a political protest – merely a dramatic expression of dissent from a dictatorial policy that threatens the livelihoods of the protestors in particular and the well-being of Canadians generally – can be shut down in this fashion, the system will have triumphed. At this point in events, the outcome cannot be known.
***
“A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun.” – Don Henley
The men with briefcases are many…but we are many more. Their predations are made possible by our compliance with the system they’ve erected. They think it’s inescapable. Ask any one of them! “Give up,” they say. “It’s a closed system,” they’ll tell you. “You’re in it from the day you’re issued your Social Security number right up to the day you die. There’s no escape.”
We could put an end to their hegemony simply by refusing to participate in it. The reason they’ve succeeded to date is by offering us convenience. And there’s no question that their system makes things convenient…especially for them.
The price for that convenience has been staggering…and it increases daily.
Private property is essential to freedom.
Freedom is not given.
It is not legislated.
It is not permitted, licensed, or approved. It is taken.
It’s time to give some thought to withdrawing your consent.
The corporate media in Canada is largely homogenous, liberal and unabashedly globalist. To them, anything outside of Toronto or Ottawa is “flyover country”. Anything that happens there doesn’t matter unless it’s some issue that can wrapped within a narrative of victimhood to shame the populace into believing their country is a structurally racist, carbon spewing abomination.
I feel certain that my Gentle Readers have all, at some time, heard the acidly funny line, “What are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?” It’s not really funny, of course. Nevertheless, it alludes to a condition that has become almost as pandemic as the Kung Flu: the determination of politicians and their media handmaidens to convince us that what we see and hear isn’t really happening.
I’m sure any reader could cite a dozen instances of such behavior off the top of his head. The current federal regime provides new examples daily, as do the many Organs of State Media that posture as clear-eyed, candid, and fearlessly independent seekers of truth. For me, it recalls to mind one of the most poignant statements I’ve ever encountered, from a man who was at one time regarded as the ultimate exemplar of economic analysis and financial understanding:
There is no need in human life so great as that men should trust one another and should trust their government, should believe in promises, and should keep promises in order that future promises may be believed in and in order that confident cooperation may be possible. Good faith — personal, national, and international — is the first prerequisite of decent living, of the steady going on of industry, of governmental financial strength, and of international peace.
If you’ve been reading my drivel for long, you’ve surely seen that statement before, whether here or at Liberty’s Torch V1.0. Dr. Anderson believed that trustworthy government is possible. His experience had persuaded him of that proposition. The years of the Hoover and FDR Administrations persuaded him of the contrary proposition as well.
Myself, I’m inclined to view trustworthy government as a fleeting departure from the norm – and on this subject, no positive connotation should be attached to “the norm.” Whatever the case, people who are accustomed to trusting have a hard time withdrawing their trust. They tend to cling to it, sometimes in a future-facing way: “It will get better. Just wait for the next elections to come around. You’ll see.”
But even the most optimistic such persons will not trust forever. There’s a breakdown-level of credulity abuse that no amount of happy-talk propaganda from the Mainstream Media can salve. When that point arrives, all bets are off.
***
Just now, a lot of attention is focused on the Freedom Convoy that’s just arrived in Ottawa. There isn’t much of genuine importance in Ottawa. Strike off the Senators – the hockey team, not the parliamentarians – and you’ve rendered the city irrelevant to the typical Canadian. However, the parasite class – I can call them that; most Canadians are too polite – that infests that otherwise inoffensive burg has issued decrees about vaccinations for the Kung Flu that have angered a very large number of truckers. And that, Gentle Reader, is a class of men no sane person would deliberately anger.
Wait. Stop. Check that. I had American truckers in mind as I wrote that last. I don’t know any Canadian truckers. I’ll have to watch for a bit. Will they extract the totalitarians from their hidey-holes, tar and feather them – warmly, I hope; it’s rather cold up there at this time of year – and go back to the business they’ve practiced for decades, no longer fettered by political nonsense? Or will they merely exercise their air brakes and air horns a bit, then go home with their ire slaked, and comply with the parasites’ ukases?
And what about American truckers, whose livelihoods are just as threatened by political insanity as their Canadian colleagues? Can we expect anything from them, or have the Usurpers and their tin god Fauci broken them to harness?
It’s a matter of trust. Some people trust the current regime to attend to their grievances. Others trust that the upcoming elections will compel the Usurper Regime to cease and desist. Perhaps at one time, there were grounds for such trust. But while trust can help to perpetuate the tenure of a floundering regime despite repeated “failures,” it cannot put goods on store shelves. Neither can it lower the prices of necessities nor pay the bills of a man who’s lost his job because of a mandate from Ottawa or Washington D.C.
***
I could go on, but I shan’t. Matters are becoming too grave to blather about. From the machinations of the Deep State and the stunning theft of the 2020 elections has flowed more political malice and deceit than I, a notable pessimist about the behavior of politicians and governments, dreamed in my darkest nightmares. People have already suffered and died in large numbers because of it. More will do so, and no one knows how to prevent it.
As for trusting that all will be made right after “the next elections,” I refer my readers to the circus of November 2020 and what has followed thence.
(I don't endorse any of these sites. I list them to marvel at how many people and organizations want to run a "news site," but have no idea what that entails. -- FWP)
