Topic: Authoritarianism

New Study Indicates Lockdowns Didn’t Slow the Spread of Covid-19

– January 19, 2021

“Perhaps there is a sort of heroic romanticism about flexing the muscles of the state to stop a fearsome enemy that makes lockdowns so attractive. The only problem with this is that we are dealing with reality, and society is not a playset.” ~ Ethan Yang

Authoritarianism, Classical Liberalism, Government

Trump’s Fall and the Rise of the Tribal Collectivists

– January 18, 2021

“Friends of liberty must gird themselves for an intellectual and ideological battle the likes of which very few of us have experienced outside of a totalitarian state and its campaign of mind-controlling propaganda.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Authoritarianism, Economic History

The Economic Policy Failures of the Trump Administration

– January 17, 2021

“The economic policies of the Trump administration constitute one of the greatest lost opportunities of the postwar period. We’ll be paying the price for decades. The fundamental problem traces most fundamentally to an illiberal philosophy behind the seeming policy chaos. Repairing that problem is essential to laying the necessary groundwork to recover what has been lost.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government

Pandemic Security Theater

– January 15, 2021

“After ten months of lockdowns and shocking degrees of economic and social carnage, millions of Americans have decided that there surely must be some rationale for all the insanity and have signed on to become enforcers themselves, even and perhaps especially when the rules make no sense at all.” ~ James Bovard

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government

First Goes Law, Then Goes Democracy

– January 15, 2021

“If this agenda is indeed to be forced on us by ruse, via the exploitation of a pandemic, one must wonder if its masterminds are remotely trustworthy. Why can’t they openly explain their intentions, if they are so wonderful? Today, they implement a covert replacement for the rule of law, one that subverts our will to theirs with no right of appeal. Tomorrow, they replace democracy.” ~ Stacey Rudin

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Free Markets

Enterprise Perseveres Through the Crisis

– January 14, 2021

“Though many of them are doing so in the shadows, there are entrepreneurs everywhere who are setting to work to solve the most pressing problems of our present and our future. The businesses those innovators introduce to the world will be all the more significant for the hurdles they surpassed.” ~ Peter C. Earle & Fiona Harrigan

Authoritarianism, Classical Liberalism, Government

Congressional Hypocrisy and the Crackdown

– January 13, 2021

“It is possible to condemn both the protestors who rampaged in the Capitol and the career politicians whose perennial abuses have destroyed Americans’ faith in the federal government. It would be especially unwise to confuse last week’s buffoonery with a bona fide coup attempt – which could happen if Washington continues disdaining too many angry Americans.” ~ James Bovard

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Science

What They Said about Lockdowns before 2020

– January 13, 2021

“Significant present-day evidence continuously demonstrates that mass quarantine is both ineffectual at preventing disease spread as well as harmful to individuals. Learning the wrong lesson – assuming that mass quarantines are both good and effective – sets a dangerous precedent for future pandemics.” ~ Amelia Janaskie & Micha Gartz

Authoritarianism, History

In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, They Rejected Lockdowns

– January 12, 2021

“Lockdowns were ruled out in the past precisely so that the damage of a pandemic would be minimized and we could get through it more quickly. This was the science. This was the science all the way through the spring of 2020, when everything changed. Suddenly the “science” favored forgetting everything we’ve learned from the past and replacing it with brutal policies that wrecked the economy and people’s lives, while achieving nothing in terms of minimizing pandemic damage.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Authoritarianism, Healthcare, Science

Lockdowns Don’t Prevent Coronavirus Spread

– January 12, 2021

“What the new study from Northern Jutland shows is that an extreme form of lockdown didn’t work in one of the most law-abiding societies in the world. Why, then, should we expect lockdowns to be effective anywhere else?” ~ Joakim Book & Christian Bjørnskov

Authoritarianism, Classical Liberalism, Economic Education

Witnessing Lithuania’s 1991 Fight for Freedom from Soviet Power

– January 12, 2021

“Personal liberty and political self-government have been rare things in the broad sweep of human history. They have been difficult to establish, often hard to preserve once possessed, and far too easily taken away under the pressures of fear, demagogy, and despotic ideologies. We should remember and appreciate episodes in history like those in Lithuania in January 1991, in which a people oppressed by socialist tyranny said, ‘No,’ and insisted upon regaining their freedom.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Authoritarianism, Government, Science

The Abuse of Science in the Corona Crisis

– January 11, 2021

“The role of science must not be the one of state religion in pre-Enlightenment times: in the present case as in all the other previous cases, there is no knowledge that can be employed to justify a central state planning of society that overrides the freedom of individuals and their constitutional rights.” ~ Michael Esfeld