Topic: Crisis

What Will America’s 250th Birthday Look Like?

– July 7, 2021

“Today, America’s putative leaders care nothing about liberty and want to preserve America only to the extent necessary to extract rents from it. That has to change, and soon, or July 2026 will be no time to celebrate much of anything.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Crisis, Government, Science

Why Did Traffic Deaths Spike As Drivers Left Roads?

– July 5, 2021

“Perturbations, large or small, and whether deriving from natural or manmade interposings may and do lead to upheaval. The social fabric is pervasive but shockingly attenuated, and there are inevitable human and economic costs to deranging it.” ~ Peter C. Earle

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government

A Declaration for Anti-Lockdown Reforms

– July 4, 2021

“If we do not do something to prevent the gross abuses of power that have transpired over the past year and a half, the Fourth of July will cease to have any real meaning in this country and to all those abroad who look to us for inspiration.” ~ Ethan Yang

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government

Should Anything be Prohibited in a Free Society?

– July 3, 2021

“Leonard Read laid out the massive chasm between the few prohibitions—of what we all agree is wrong—necessary to liberty and the panoply of prohibitions already part and parcel of imposed collectivism over a half-century ago. But their exponential expansion under the banner of Covid has multiplied that gap, making the issue even more important.” ~ Gary M. Galles

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Government, Public Choice and Public Policy

The Covid-19 Ratchet Effects Are Becoming Clearer and More Concerning

– July 2, 2021

“Creating the best post-covid world possible involves more than eradicating the virus. It also requires returning to pre-covid levels of government involvement in our lives. The ratchet effect stands in the way, and it lasts much longer than a pandemic.” ~ Raymond J. March

Crisis, Government, Socialism

Federal Farm Policy Is Corrupt Regardless of the Latest Uproar

– July 1, 2021

“Lamentably, this ethical gold standard vanished from American public life long ago. Or maybe politicians simply ‘defined down’ robbery? Regardless of the results of any investigations into the former Secretary of Agriculture, the only way to fix federal farm subsidies is to abolish them.” ~ James Bovard

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Science

Healthy Societies Prioritize the Young

– July 1, 2021

“We required children and young adults not just to put their lives on hold, but to mortgage their futures, when a system of focused protection like that advocated in the Great Barrington Declaration would likely have achieved better outcomes at much lower cost to the young. We are going to have to grapple with finding a way to make it up to them – and fast.” ~ David McGrogan

Crisis, Education, Socialism

The Politics of “Resilience”

– July 1, 2021

“The ethics of prioritizing some groups over others clearly do not concern her any more than the shift away from individual concerns. Ms. Walton is clearly unaware that she is taking her city down the well-trodden road to serfdom.” ~ Caroline Breashears

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Public Choice and Public Policy, Science

The Truth about Excess Deaths

– June 30, 2021

“Ultimately, these early findings reinforce the core difficulty that policy planners face. Planners can never know enough to plan for every eventuality, nor can they accurately predict what their plans will actually do. As a result, plans often end up based on a ‘pretense of knowledge’ rather than real-world evidence or understanding.” ~ Amelia Janaskie & Ryan M. Yonk

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Science

Censorship Kills

– June 30, 2021

“In 1644 John Milton wrote, ‘He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself.’ Today, acknowledge the destructive consequences of censorship. Speak out now or we risk allowing Big Tech’s algorithms and community guidelines to continue to destroy reason, hinder science, and undermine hope for humanity.” ~ Barry Brownstein

Art and Culture, Crisis, Science

Quacks in the Ivory Tower: How Conspiracy Theorizing Took Over Lockdown Science

– June 19, 2021

“With no small irony, many of the same scientists who frequently attack skepticism of lockdowns by labeling it a ‘fringe’ and ‘unscientific’ position have not the slightest compunction about taking their own cues on the GBD from an unmistakably fringe source of their own.” ~ Phillip W. Magness

Crisis, Government, Science

The Origin of SARS-CoV-2

– June 18, 2021

“Based on what we know, the lab leak theory better fits the evidence. Even if this particular virus didn’t escape from a lab, government-funded bioweapon experiments are playing with fire and the next time a dangerous virus escapes, which will eventually happen, we may not be so ‘lucky’ as to escape with four million dead.” ~ Charles L. Hooper & David R. Henderson