Topic: Authoritarianism

Defining Despotism Down

– October 27, 2020

“The failure of iron fist policies should be the storyline of the 2020 election but instead Biden and much of the media want to double down on repression. Can the votes that are cast in the coming week close the authoritarian Pandora’s Boxes that have opened across the nation? Or will conniving invocations of ‘data and science’ suffice to blight Americans’ rights and liberties in perpetuity?” ~ James Bovard

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government

Who Deserves Your Trust in the COVID Debate?

– October 26, 2020

“Ask yourself, who deserves your trust? I would argue that anti-lockdowners are today’s abolitionists — people willing to take up an unpopular cause at incredible risk. Lockdowners may currently be ‘popular,’ but they are on the wrong side of history.” ~ Stacey Rudin

Authoritarianism, Government, Regulation

Minority Rights

– October 26, 2020

“With ballots no longer secret (and hence again alienable) in many states, the Electoral College under siege, and the independence of the Supreme Court threatened, minorities tremble with trepidation. Barring disunion or a return to states rights, the only real question now is, who shall be the next minority? Besides our heroic Covid-19 survivors that is.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Authoritarianism, Regulation

A Comprehensive Case Against Lockdowns: How Dr. Ari Joffe Changed His Mind

– October 23, 2020

“We must open up society to save many more lives than we can by attempting to avoid every case (or even most cases) of COVID-19. It is past time to take an effortful pause, calibrate our response to the true risk, make rational cost-benefit analyses of the trade-offs, and end the lockdown groupthink.” ~ Ari R Joffe

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government

“Choose Your Liar” Democracy

– October 22, 2020

“In the short run, the political game is rigged so that winners capture far more power than many, if not most, Americans would willingly cede to them and vastly more than the Constitution permits. But citizens can reduce the hazards they face by remembering that winning votes never redeemed a rascal. The winner of next month’s presidential election will be a clear and present danger to Americans’ rights and liberties regardless of his margin of victory.” ~ James Bovard

Authoritarianism, History

The Return of the Flagellants

– October 21, 2020

“In England in the 14th century, when the marauding Flagellants came to town, good members of the community found these people amusing and rather ridiculous, and otherwise they went about their lives, having fun and building a better and more prosperous society. Let those who desire to suffer to be free to do so. As for the rest of us, let us get back to having good lives, including partaking in actual fun.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Free Markets

The Death and Life of the Great Third Place

– October 21, 2020

“We might also emerge from this bizarre Orwellian dystopia with a renewed appreciation for Main Street, community, and the third spaces. These places define normal and make us who we are. We support them because they support us in more ways than we realize. Perhaps we took these places for granted. Never again.” ~ Brad DeVos

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Economic Education, Government

Mindlessness Fuels Tyranny

– October 21, 2020

“The Great Barrington Declaration demonstrates a willingness to consider new information and broaden the context for setting policy. Those who want to sell us centralized ‘hatchet’ solutions prefer a public lulled to mindlessness by one narrative. The mindless will follow instructions. If many people continue to look towards one perspective only, without broadening the context, the natural consequence is that experts and politicians on ‘automatic pilot’ will lead us further down the road to tyranny.” ~ Barry Brownstein

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Economic Education

Thomas Friedman Remains Rather Smitten With Authoritarianism

– October 20, 2020

“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

The World Health Organization Was Against Quarantines Only Last Year

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Regulation

The World Health Organization in 2011 Warned Against a “Culture of Fear”

– October 20, 2020

“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

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Media, Public Choice and Public Policy

The Strange Advent of Lockdown Denialism

– October 20, 2020

“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

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Science

“Superstition in the Pigeon”: Can Lockdowns Really Stop Death?

– October 19, 2020

“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