Thomas Friedman Remains Rather Smitten With Authoritarianism
“Better than Friedman’s authoritarianism is choice. Really, who needs to be told to be careful if a virus is spreading that might make us sick, or if we’re very old (according to the New York Times) might in very rare circumstances kill us? If something threatens, the logical answer is yet again freedom. Sadly the U.S. failed there, but even then the failure had a local quality to it.” ~ John Tamny
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The World Health Organization in 2011 Warned Against a “Culture of Fear”
“What we see in this remarkable memo is identical to the ethos and import of the Great Barrington Declaration, which since its release has been treated like some kind of radical and controversial statement. Actually, the World Health Organization said the same thing in 2011 with much tougher language and more biting analytics, essentially warning that the world is being trolled by interest groups with a vested stake in panic over rational public health measures.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker
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The Strange Advent of Lockdown Denialism
“As the latest repackaging of this epidemiological bill of goods gains traction in our public discourse, the world has but one viable pathway out of the present social, economic, and medical hellscape. And that is to meet the lockdowners with a resounding no.” ~ Phillip W. Magness
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“Superstition in the Pigeon”: Can Lockdowns Really Stop Death?
“We are faced with a virus with a 997 out of 1000 survival rate. We have done harder things before. We can only be free of this plague by remembering something we have always known: neither we, nor our favorite politicians, have control over death.” ~ Stacey Rudin
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Is Cowen Right about the Great Barrington Declaration? Part 2
“Cowen is right that governments have reacted by scaring people. That’s one reason the Great Barrington Declaration is important. It seeks to tell people not to be so afraid unless they’re particularly vulnerable.” ~ David R. Henderson
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Will Things Ever Go Back To Normal?
“Fast forward ten or twenty years and everyone forgets that the invasive powers we transferred to the state were ever temporary in the first place. Higgs is the intellectual champion we don’t deserve, but so desperately need. Let’s just hope that I am wrong, and that progress wins out in the end.” ~ Joakim Book
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The Absurdity of Ad Hominem
“The fact that Nafeez Ahmed, Sam Hammond, and some others dismiss anti-lockdown arguments with ad hominem accusations is evidence as powerful as evidence gets that these people have no idea what an intellectually respectable argument is.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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A Much Needed Reminder About Life in the Soviet Union: The Strange World of Ivan Ivanov
“The book reminds us why such principles are so important and highlight the drastic extremes humans are capable of. The extent of which we are capable of creating a society characterized by freedom and prosperity or arbitrary domination and despair. In times like these, with freedom under siege from every angle, a book like this is badly needed. If not to remind us of where authoritarianism will take us, to show us how precious our liberty is.” ~ Ethan Yang
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What’s Behind The WHO’s Lockdown Mixed-Messaging
“Tedros aligned himself not with democracies and their fundamental principles but with an autocratic dictatorship, the same dictatorship that helped him assume power within the WHO. Together, using logical fallacies and pseudo-science, they betrayed international law governing human rights, the WHO’s own stated principles, and committed crimes against humanity on a massive scale.” ~ Stacey Rudin
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Coronavirus Counterfactual: A True Enemy Would Have Alerted Us In 2019
“Needless to say, the high survivability rate for the virus doesn’t square with some of the anger directed at China. The anger contradicts the survivability number, plus it excuses politicians, experts and pundits for their role in what’s easily the biggest unforced error of the 21st century; one that has hundreds of millions rushing toward starvation. All for what?” ~ John Tamny
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Frankenstein 2020: An Economic Horror Story
“It is time to heed the warning of Frankenstein, time to acknowledge the Monster at our national door and the hubris that led intellectuals to create it. For make no mistake, it seeks not only ‘treats’ but the thrill of perpetuating nasty ‘tricks’—to ‘blow up’ or ‘burn down’ our country to achieve the false promise of ‘equity.’ And in that game, we are all losers.” ~ Caroline Breashears
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The Political Circus and the Court
“Rather than wondering on what rationale political candidates such as Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, or Joe Biden and Donald Trump can have the audacity to offer themselves for any election consideration, since they insist that they need our votes so they can then lord over us according to their political prerogatives and caprices, we, instead, express our chagrin that Biden and Harris won’t say if they will pack the court if and when they are elected, and we show focused amusement that a fly takes a rest in Pence’s hair even as he reassures us that Trump is in planful control of our lives in the trying times of a pandemic.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling
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