Topic: Authoritarianism

“Governing as Looting” in Washington and Beyond

– May 18, 2021

“Automatic ticketing regimes provide a stark refutation to the illusion that governments automatically serve the people. Especially for policies shrouded in sanctimony, government agencies are almost always more wasteful or oppressive than the media portrays. How much longer will local politicians be permitted to plunder drivers and subvert safety with impunity?” ~ James Bovard

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Will 2020 Prove to Be the Beginning of the End of Modernity?

– May 17, 2021

“Abruptly starting 16 months ago, humanity was encouraged to hold in contempt – even to censor – the relative few persons who refused to abandon liberal sensibilities. Abruptly starting 16 months ago, there quite possibly began the end of liberal civilization.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

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Restricting Freedom Didn’t Defeat Covid

– May 15, 2021

“Even though freedom is its own wondrous virtue, panicky politicians erased it in 2020 on the supposition that personal and economic desperation was the best solution for a spreading virus. Historians will marvel at the abject stupidity of the political class in 2020.” ~ John Tamny

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Frank Knight and the Place of Principles in Economics and Politics

– May 14, 2021

“This counterrevolution can be repulsed and reversed. But it will require the type of defenses of the principle of freedom in politics and economics that Frank Knight called for and reasoned about seventy years ago. We must cultivate a new age of enlightened liberty so as not to fully sink into a new dark age of tyranny and despair.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

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Liberals Turning Against the Lockdown Left

– May 14, 2021

“The left, including the U.S. mainstream media, has always pushed a hysterical approach to both Covid spread and severity. But chinks in the armor are now appearing as it becomes clear that many want a permanent Covidocracy – lockdown forever and ever, amen.” ~ Michael Fumento

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Canadian Doctors Are Being Censored

– May 13, 2021

“This move is fundamentally opposed to the values of liberal democracy which have now been jeopardized on a global scale. With the lights of an enlightened and modern civilization going out across the world, it would be fair to ask, will they ever be turned back on in our lifetime?” ~ Ethan Yang

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Big Brother Depends on Little Brothers

– May 12, 2021

“Resistance starts gently by recognizing our own mental processes that make us vulnerable to the current of conformist thought. With mental alertness we attune ourselves to spiritual strength. With self-study, we prepare for peaceful exchange of ideas with those currently choosing to be little brothers. There is still enough freedom in America that without the support of little brothers, Big Brother will find it has no power of its own.” ~ Barry Brownstein

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Hayek’s Still Relevant Response to Today’s Paternalist Planners

– May 11, 2021

“Majorities can be as intolerant and tyrannical as the worst absolute monarchs of the past, if not even more so. What has failed, in Hayek’s view, has not been the idea of democracy as such, but the particular form of democracy that developed over the last two hundred years, under which fewer and fewer corners of individual life are safe from what coalitions of special interest groups that form majorities on Election Day can impose on the rest of society.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

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Focused Protection Would Have Been the Right Pandemic Response

– May 11, 2021

“As the United States nears the hopeful end of its public health crisis, the mounting evidence domestically and abroad seems to suggest that harsh lockdown policies were not only overkill, they were counterproductive. In light of this information, it is increasingly apparent that a strategy of focused protection which respects the voluntary functions of society while taking reasonable steps to accommodate vulnerable populations would have been the most optimal pandemic response.” ~ Ethan Yang

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Free Expression

– May 10, 2021

“Government can punish those found after due process to have willfully abused tools like speech (or firearms) to the detriment of others but it cannot Constitutionally limit the availability of such crucial tools simply because some people might use them to cause harm. The best policies reduce asymmetries of information or power rather than exacerbate them and that usually means freeing expression, not excluding ideas or the people who espouse them.” ~ Robert E. Wright

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Biden’s “America the Beautiful” Vision Ignores Feds’ Dreadful Record

– May 10, 2021

“Biden’s ’30 by 30′ will likely become simply another pork barrel environmental program which deluges their friends and donors with subsidies. But there is no reason to expect ‘America the Beautiful’ to be less of a debacle than FDR’s farm programs, Eisenhower’s Soil Bank, or the Conservation Reserve Program. If political hot air was all that was required to achieve ‘America the Beautiful,’ the United States would have become paradise long ago.” ~ James Bovard

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The Dubious Premise for Expanding the Regulatory State

– May 10, 2021

“Arbitrary political interests are meant to be enacted by the legislative process where they can be debated, vetted and their architects ultimately held accountable. Looking to the regulatory state, which can essentially act as judge, jury, and executioner, to pass one’s political mandate not only exhibits a disdain for the lives of individual citizens but is also tyrannical in nature.” ~ Ethan Yang

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