How long will it take for the thriving economy that President Trump conjured up to get going again?

The Wall Street Journal pleads:

[T]he strict lockdowns were a government policy choice. But the damage is done, and our focus isn’t on recriminations. The issue is what to do now, and the public is wise enough to know that public health can’t be sustained without a healthy economy. Americans can see the destruction all around them. They know the virus will be with us for a long time unless there’s a vaccine, so we have to learn to live with it and have a functioning economy

No politician wants to admit it, but we are moving to a de facto policy that gives people and businesses the leeway to open and make their own risk calculations. Most Americans are smart enough to know they need to take precautions and social distance, and businesses have no incentive to endanger their employees. Meat packers are learning that lesson the hard way.

The tradeoff isn’t between lives and livelihoods. The policy goal has to be to protect both as much as possible. Deploy more personal protective equipment, greatly increase testing, build surge capability to handle flare-ups, and isolate society’s most vulnerable to keep hospitals from getting overwhelmed. But for heaven’s sake reopen the economy so we don’t consign millions to years of poverty.

We expect President Trump to do it again. We say, if anyone can, he can.

We want to hear arguments For or Against our opinion.

A meat shortage is predicted.

There is no shortage of cattle, sheep, pigs or chickens. But the suspension of normal commerce while the coronavirus pandemic rages has meant that the process by which meat gets from farm to market is not functioning. Meat processing plants have shut down. Suggestions that many small “Mom and Pop”  processing businesses could keep the meat coming to our tables, are unrealistic.

To help us understand how the process normally works and how seriously damaging to the industry the shutdown is, we asked our reader Jeanne Shockley, who is a Maryland farmer, to describe and comment on it.

She has obligingly written this:

The meat business in this nation involves not just the growers and the processing plants, but the grain farmers, and on from them: the agricultural equipment companies and their repair shops; the seed companies, fertilizer and chemical companies; the poultry equipment companies; the carpenters that build poultry houses; the electricians and other sorts of repair people who keep the chicken houses in working order. (Our electric and propane companies depend upon the massive and guaranteed income from the poultry industries, and our forest products are used for litter.) Then there are also: the grain and produce truckers; feed truck drivers; live-haul drivers;  chicken catching crews;  all the business people who handle the companies’s organization and other matters; and the people who keep the plants running – mechanics, feed mill operators, electricians, IT techs, sanitation, waste water techs and veterinarians.

The agriculture businesses linked with meat processing plants have more of an impact upon an area, a community, a state than nearly any other business, and the relationship is very critical for rural areas. The industries make our communities, bring Walmarts and McDonalds and malls and community colleges and housing growth for employees.

An average beef processing plant slaughters and processes 4500 head per week. Now plants have cut back to 1500 per week owing to the shutdown. On the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia) the 5 poultry companies combined slaughter and process between 10 and 11 million birds per week. They have cut back to 40 or 50 percent of the weekly kill. Slaughtering and butchering and processing for markets is a major and intensive operation, with continuous costs and upkeep, watched over by full-time inspectors.  

The “Mom & Pop” processing plants that it is hoped can help out if the regulations are relaxed, are what I would call butcher shops.  There is a good-sized one not too far from us in Delaware.  They slaughter five or six steers each weekend for their customers and I would guess as many hogs, and some range chickens, but it is not a processing plant, it is a small family butchering business. As such, they are keeping their own thing going and it is working well. They are now pulling in folks that can’t find meat, milk, or eggs in the grocery stores and are willing to pay extra to get them for immediate consumption or freezing. Why would they use their profits, plus go into debt, in order to expand and pick up a tiny bit of the slack for an indefinite and possibly short period of time? 

The processing plants’ crisis, their struggle to remain open even if they only run 40%, is happening all over the country. It isn’t just about depopulating herds and flocks and wasting eggs, milk and meat.  It is about bringing depression to an area in an already difficult economic time.

The plants are doing what they are capable of doing, which is what the President asked them to do. It is believed that the main reason the Defense Act was implemented is so the companies are protected from lawsuits, should an employee who chooses to work come down with Covid-19.

One idea that we heard was for the companies to rent a hotel and bus transportation in order to house line workers at the hotel. They would not be allowed to return home for the duration of their work period, and would work in shifts. And of course, health care and protocol, etc. would be established. But these are not “expendable” people and none can be conscripted to work the processing lines.

Meat processing plants seem to be a hotspot for outbreaks and maybe this is why; nearly all of the plant workers at the Tyson plant in my area are Haitian and Latinos, with most not speaking English or speaking with very little fluency. They tend to live three families to a single family home or many single people crammed into single family homes. They tend not to be well educated and are of a very congregant culture. Testing and educating about health safety during this time is quite a task in itself, without the language barrier problem. But this is not a job many in this country are willing to do, which is why workers are hired from Latino nations and Haiti.  

The best thing would be to get all processing line workers tested asap, provide safer living arrangements for them and pay them more, although those around here get paid fairly well and enjoy health insurance, on-site clinics, continuing education incentives, English language classes and other benefits. It is a hard and yucky job, but not a bad start for young people or “migrant” workers. The more processing plant workers have testing done, the better for them, for the industry, and for the supply chain to return to normal.

There is encouraging news that the “meat chain” crisis may be averted by measures now planned by President Trump.

Breitbart reports:

United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Wednesday said at the White House that meatpacking plants would return to full capacity in a week to ten days.

Reynolds and Perdue commented during a visit with President Donald Trump in the Oval office as fears of a meat shortage continue [and] processing plants struggle to keep going amid coronavirus breakouts.

Reynolds thanked President Trump for acting quickly to use the Defense Production Act to declare the plants essential infrastructure. She said that [his] action prevented meat producers from euthanizing their stock that could not be sold. …

Resources would be surged to the plants to help protect the workers and put critical infrastructure in place.

Adrian Vermeule is a Harvard professor of Constitutional Law who doesn’t like the US Constitution, is nostalgic for Roman Catholic statist totalitarianism, and proposes a new dispensation for Americans under “authoritative rule for the common good” which, he gleefully declares, requires the “overriding” of “the selfish claims of individuals to ‘private rights’”.

Vermeule is a convert to Catholicism. He does not mention Catholicism by name in this article, but his belief that morality is rightly defined and imposed by a central authority for the “common good” belongs to his religion. And the idea that self-sacrifice is the highest moral good is essentially a Christian teaching. A fear of heresy – people being allowed to voice an opinion that the state-as-church does not approve – suffuses his political philosophy.

“Free speech and free-speech ideology — that government is forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech,” he writes, “should be not only rejected but stamped as abominable, beyond the realm of the acceptable forever”.

The article in which he propounds these views appears in the Leftist journal, The Atlantic, as “part of the project The Battle for the Constitution, in partnership with the National Constitution Center”. (Go there to see how all the contributions to this project are actually against the Constitution.)

It is easy to see why The Atlantic likes his ideas. Stalin would have applauded them.

As for the structure and distribution of authority within government, common-good constitutionalism will favor a powerful presidency ruling over a powerful bureaucracy, the latter acting through principles of administrative law’s inner morality with a view to promoting solidarity and subsidiarity. The bureaucracy will be seen not as an enemy, but as the strong hand of legitimate rule. The state is to be entrusted with the authority to protect the populace from the vagaries and injustices of market forces, from employers who would exploit them as atomized individuals, and from corporate exploitation and destruction of the natural environment. 

The close resemblance between Left statism and Catholic Christianity could not be more candidly displayed.

This Constitutional Law professor would not allow a thread of the Constitution to remain … Oh, wait! He does allow a few threads to remain, useful for the re-construction of the United States of America:

The general-welfare clause, which gives Congress “power to … provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”, is an obvious place to ground principles of common-good constitutionalism (despite a liberal tradition of reading the clause in a cramped fashion), as is the Constitution’s preamble, with its references to general welfare and domestic tranquility, to the perfection of the union, and to justice.

And he could endure the retention of some words, provided they were re-interpreted:

Constitutional words such as freedom and liberty need not be given libertarian readings; instead they can be read in light of a better conception of liberty as the natural human capacity to act in accordance with reasoned morality.

“Reasoned morality” being the “common-good” morality such as was propounded by the Catholic Church and for many centuries enforced by the Papal and Spanish Inquisitions.

This imposed “common-good” morality will be resisted at first, but –

Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods, better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.

Notice that citizens have become “subjects” under this ideal regime. And the state run by bureaucrats has become “the ruler” – more pope than king.

If it can be taken that The Atlantic speaks for the Left – and surely it can? – we are being told in the strongest possible terms that the Left wants and intends to abandon the Constitution – which alone binds the states of America together into a nation – and substitute a federal government with totalitarian policies and absolute powers that would establish Roman Catholicism as a state religion, substitute central planning for the free market, and implement the “green” policies of environmentalists further to restrict our lives as “subjects” of the Moral State.

If it was just one Catholic religious nut pleading for the establishment of this utopia, we could laugh at it and forget it.

But it is not just one. It is millions of – mostly young, school-indoctrinated – Leftist religious nuts wanting dependence on parental government; the drowning of individuals in an ocean of common-good; the implementation of anti-industrial “green” policies with the hard forced labor and poverty they’ll entail; sacrifice of personal ambitions and talents; acceptance of chastisement for sin (you “will come to thank the ruler” for it) and life-long indebtedness for food, shelter, and apportioned health care; total loss of self-determination; obedience.

Obedience. Bureaucrats will tell you what to do. Do it!  It is for the common good.

Above all, obedience. 

We ask an urgent question:

MILLIONS OF OUR ANCESTORS GAVE THEIR LIVES TO SAVE OUR LIBERTY. WILL WE NOW GIVE UP LIBERTY TO SAVE OUR LIVES?

Governors are using fear of the coronavirus pandemic to assume tyrannical powers.

The Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, for example, believes she has the right in such an emergency to issue dictatorial orders.

But the Republican governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, takes a contrary view. She defends the liberty granted to all Americans by the Constitution, in which there is no instruction that it must – or may – be suspended if a pandemic occurs.

We quote from an article by Jodi Giddings from Victory Girls, where “outspoken conservative women” express their opinions:

Americans are growing restless. We’ve done a decent job of doing what we can to help quell the coronavirus outbreak, but some of us are recognizing that many of our governors and other officials are jumping headlong into dictator-status in their efforts to fight coronavirus (or at least that’s the excuse they’re using). In response, a growing number of us are opposing the overreach. We’re Americans; we’re hard workers; we love our freedom; so it’s in our nature to resist anyone usurping our rights. And no two governors in America stand in starker contrast than Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and South Dakota’s Kristi Noem.

You might have heard that Whitmer restricted hydroxychloroquine a couple of weeks back, and most recently ordered that no group of any size may congregate, and has decided for her constituents what is and is not “essential” to their daily lives. … So, no, you can’t buy seeds and plants for which to grow your own food until she says you can, plebes. And to you small businesses: go get a small business loan and shut up.

Except Michiganders are not shutting up.

More than 15,000  cars and trucks “descend[ed] on Michigan’s state capital on Wednesday to protest what they’re calling Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s tyrannical new guidelines to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in the state”.

Why? Because they recognize that freshman Governor Whitmer has governed like a dictator. …

She was forced, by active protest and a lawsuit, to “amend her dictate”.

The media had to report, though no doubt they hated to:

“Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is backing down in t“““he face of a pro-life activist’s federal lawsuit against her and Detroit police.”

… She got caught violating the First Amendment rights of her constituents. But make no mistake, the woman who’s made herself the decider of what is and isn’t “essential” would have continued trampling all over the Bill of Rights had no one punched her in the neck.

“Quarantine is when you restrict movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people,” Meshawn Maddock, an organizer of the protest with the Michigan Conservative Coalition, told Fox News. “Every person has learned a harsh lesson about social distancing. We don’t need a nanny state to tell people how to be careful.”

The other governor discussed in the article has no wish to be a political nanny:

In contrast, Governor Noem of South Dakota has thus far refused issuing a stay-at-home order, or dictates that tell her citizens what they can and cannot buy, or where they can and cannot go….

For which she was subjected to “near-constant slings and arrows from just about every direction”, especially from the media.

She’s issued guidelines [for keeping safe], but Noem, to her credit … remains rooted in the principles of freedom and personal responsibility. …

She declared that she had faith in the people of South Dakota. Which is to say, in their common sense.

The South Dakota Medical Association sent Noem a letter last week asking her to issue a stay-at-home order but there’s no indication she has any plans to reverse course.

And just yesterday, Noem proactively announced a statewide hydroxychloroquine clinical trial to test the malaria drug’s effectiveness on battling, and even preventing, coronavirus.

She said:

“The public deserves the truth. And the truth is all the facts. And I would appreciate it if our media would remember that.”

Jodi Giddings believes South Dakota will gain residents. And we expect it will. Because people move from oppression to freedom.

I predict South Dakota will gain itself some freedom-seeking residents post haste…

The moral of the story is this: we are witnessing in real time what socialism looks like. The bread lines, the joblessness, the freedom-crushing dictates, the withholding of life-sustaining necessities that are inherent in that destructive system are on full display all across our nation. But we are also witnessing what the bedrock, unwavering principles of liberty look like, where a governor with a spine of steel, against massive pressure from all around her, has resisted the siren song of “give up your liberty for a little security”.  Instead she has empowered both her citizens to make their own decisions on how to keep themselves and others safe amid this health crisis, and her state’s medical professionals to make the right decisions for their patients without her interference. … And the [clinical] trial will both save lives and provide further data about the drug’s effectiveness to the country itself in its time of need, all without draconian dictates from the executive.

The contrasts between the two governors amid this crisis are clear: tyranny versus freedom; dependence versus self-reliance.

The shut-downs must end; Americans need to get back to work.

Ninety percent of all the facial plastic surgery performed in America is on women, most of it cosmetic, undertaken and paid heftily for by females wanting to enhance their attractiveness, mostly to males.

Over ninety-three billion dollars was spent on cosmetics in the US market last year (2019), overwhelmingly by women, to enhance their attractiveness, mostly to males.

World-wide, the “beauty industry” is worth well over five hundred billion dollars annually.

From those figures it can be reasonably deduced that in this age of societal transformation, man-hating feminism, intensely advertised transgenderism, and general destruction of our culture and civilization by the political Left, women still want to attract men. Happily for the evolutionary purpose of their biological construction which requires them to mate with a male in order to fulfill its child-bearing function!

Even though millions of women these days choose not to have children – having been given that choice by science and technology – their urge to mate persists. Marriage is out of fashion, but sexual intercourse continues to be popular.

In fact, sexual activity has never, since the earliest establishments of civilization, been as openly and ubiquitously practiced as it is now. Seldom does a movie fail to include at least one scene of copulation, in any of its modi operandi, often close up and prolonged.

As in many other ways, this cultural advance is most visibly led by Californians. In that Democrat-ruled state, on the streets of Democrat-ruled San Francisco, for instance, people can be seen nude and ready for sexual action, and not infrequently engaged in it. And not always just two people. And not always males and females. And not always persons who can be recognized as either male or female. (A quick internet search reveals that various authorities now recognize 33, 58, and 71 “genders”.)

And there is a movement gathering strength in America to normalize “polyamory”, whether in public or in private. (See our yesterday’s post, No to liberty, yes to libertinism, April 30, 2020).

Yet, despite all this, the Left is simultaneously promoting the notion that men should keep away from women. 

A woman may undergo plastic surgery on her face at vast expense, have parts of her body augmented or reduced, spend another fortune on cosmetics for skin and hair and the enhancement of her features, decorate herself with precious metals and gems, steep herself in costly perfume, but declare herself affronted, even outraged, if a man makes appreciative comments on her appearance.

The #MeToo movement encourages – or in Leftist argot “empowers” – women to publicize sexual assaults on them whether they actually happened or not. That is, if and only if the men who make the alleged attacks are Republicans. Preferably prominent Republicans (such as Justice Brett Kavanaugh). Then no proof is needed of the man’s guilt. The woman’s accusation is enough to condemn him. The man must be publicly exposed as a rapist, his reputation ruined, his career destroyed, his shame spread over his family, his name indelibly inscribed in the New York Times record of villains.

According to the protocols of the movement, no Democrat (such as former president Bill Clinton or current presidential nominee Joe Biden) must be accused because no Democrat – which is to say no Leftist – ever assaults women, let alone rapes them. Democrats do not even look admiringly – let alone lustfully – at women.

And yes, at the same time, Democrats are for polyamory. Why not?

Will Leftism, and feminism in particular, survive these “internal contradictions” (to appropriate another revered expression from the Leftist Lexicon)?

Probably. The kings and queens of the enormously lucrative cosmetic and fashion industries are probably mostly Democrat donors and voters.

Yesterday we discussed the Left’s excitement over the prospect of controlling us all by using the internet and a multitude of other surveillance techniques. (See the post immediately below: The end of liberty? April 28, 2020)

Now we note an exception. There is one activity the would-be controllers, or at least an avant-garde among them, do not want to control. Do not want anyone to control. Would not allow anyone to control.

Even – or especially – self-control is to be discouraged. No, forbidden.

The name of this exception?

Sexual intercourse. 

In this vision of lust set free, there are no moral restrictions. No one will be let off because of feelings of shame or modesty. Every body must be ungrudgingly available to every other body.

But has such a vision been actually added to an avant-garde progressive agenda? Is this concupiscent dream being openly expressed?

Well yes – incipiently. There is a slow viscous movement, likely to flow strongly soon, towards normalizing polygamy, polyamory, “non-monogamism”.

Monogamy is above all things hated by its proponents. But they are not just against marriage and the “nuclear family”. They are for …

John Murawski, writing at The Daily Signal, explains what they are for:

Activists are moving to dismantle the legal and social barriers to polyamory, and say their goals are beginning to take shape….

Polyamorists are at present scorned, but the arc of lechery bends towards libertinism:

Not too long ago … marginalized groups [such as homosexuals] were also viewed as unnatural, depraved, or inferior, until negative judgments became socially unacceptable and often illegal.

The aspirations of non-monogamists don’t sound like such a moonshot in an increasingly tolerant society where a transgender man can menstruate and experience childbirth, and Pete Buttigieg, a gay man married to another man, can make a serious run for U.S. president.

As the topic breaks into the mainstream, some churches are beginning to grapple with the issue, and polyamorous students are forming university clubs and organizing events.

“There is plenty of evidence that consensual non-monogamy is an emerging civil rights movement,” said Heath Schechinger, a counseling psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-chair of the Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force, recently created within the American Psychological Association. “I’ve heard from a number of people advocating for relationship structure diversity over the past 20 years who are elated about this issue finally gaining traction.”

What? Is this a satire, you ask? Not at all. The issue is serious and important.

Activists are already working with elected officials in more than a dozen local governments, especially in California, to expand local anti-discrimination ordinances to include a new protected class, “relationship structure,” said Berkeley psychologist and poly activist Dave Doleshal.

Most efforts are at the informal stage but the city of Berkeley did consider a formal proposal to extend protections in housing, employment, business practices, city facilities, or education to swingers, polyamorists, and other non-monogamists.

The proposal stalled last year amid concerns that it would have required employers to provide health insurance to numerous sexual and romantic partners outside of marriage.

Undaunted by that setback, advocates continue to generate a body of ideas and theories that normalize non-monogamy as a form of positive sexuality—and possibly an identity—following a script followed by other marginalized groups.

Their efforts have led to reassessments of non-monogamy in the psychological and legal fields, contending the relationships are emotionally healthy and ethical, and thus forging a social movement with a shared identity, shared vocabulary, shared history, and a shared desire for full recognition.

And, yes, there is already a polyamory pride flag.

 

Over the past two decades, nearly 600 academic papers have been written on the subject of non-monogamy, according to one count, including an assessment of the benefits to children in polyamorous families.

Such research creates a body of scholarship to counteract ingrained social attitudes that poly advocates call prejudices and misconceptions.

At the same time, the field has spawned more than 50 books, mostly written by women, said Kenneth Haslam, 85, a retired anesthesiologist and polyamorist in Durham, North Carolina, who helped create the polyamory history archive at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana.

Brian Watson, author of Annals of Pornographie [sic]: How Porn Became “Bad” (2016), is co-authoring a book on non-monogamy throughout history. He said it will feature 50 to 100 prominent figures, such as Victor Hugo and Virginia Woolf, and is deliberately modeled on earlier works about famous gay people.

Just as women’s rights grew from feminist legal theory and LGBTQ rights from queer theory, non-monogamy is also developing its own historiography, scholarship, and theoretical frameworks.

Still, it’s not easy to pinpoint a polyamorist profile. They are less likely to identify as heterosexual or to conform to gender norms, but academic studies and anecdotal evidence don’t tell a single story.

While some non-monogamists consider themselves neo-pagans, anarchists, or socialists, others are libertarians or outwardly conventional suburbanites.

Some studies say the lifestyle attracts more men, others say more women. Some say it appeals to affluent whites, others say a polyamorist’s average annual income is under $40,000.

(That last sentence does not improve on re-reading.)

In the legal arena, sympathetic scholars are arguing for the extension of legal reforms adopted in family law in recent decades in response to the continued erosion of the nuclear family, which is no longer America’s dominant family structure.

At least a dozen states now recognize or allow for the possibility of a child having more than two parents, an accommodation for surrogate parents, grandparents, stepparents, and other nontraditional families, according to a February legal article by Edward Stein, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York.

These expansions of the legal concept of family are potential pathways for non-monogamous families to win legal rights of their own, Stein said.

Another potential legal opening could be the existing precedents in domestic partnerships and civil unions that were set up locally for gays and lesbians before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in 2015.

In both cases, legal victories for one group could be extended to another group, a common way that legal developments happen, he said.

The first steps would likely have to be decriminalizing of adultery in the 38 states that don’t distinguish between consensual and non-consensual non-monogamy.

The prohibition of adultery is comparable to anti-sodomy laws whose repeal by the Supreme Court in 2003 cleared an obstacle for recognizing gay marriage, Stein said.

The world of polyamory overlaps with the subculture of kink and BDSM, which refers to the erotic practices of bondage, domination, submission, and sadomasochism. …

Conservatives had long warned that redefining marriage to allow same-sex unions would throw open the door to allowing any kind of marriage, from polygamy to incest.

Incest?

Well, clearly polyamorous non-monogamous persons are less likely to know who their own children are than married heterosexual couples. So isn’t there a danger … ?

We anticipate an answer from the Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force or the University of California, Berkeley:

Are your consensual polyamorous copulations to be postponed because of a possibility that the object of your desire may be your own child or sibling? Are you to wait each time for the results of a DNA test? Ridiculous. The time has come to stop viewing incest as depraved or unnatural and make it socially acceptable and legal.

Because moral progress is unstoppable.

“You are all, every one of you human beings living on this earth, threatened by an overwhelming disaster. It is coming for sure. It will mean the end of most of you, a painful end, and acutely difficult conditions for any survivors.”

“Oh, how dreadful! Can nothing be done to prevent it? Can it be mitigated? Can it be postponed? Does anyone have an answer?”

“Well, there are experts who understand this Thing. And yes, they do say that it can be mitigated. But it will take concerted effort. All of you, every single one of you, must join together and agree to take the action that the experts say is essential if you are to stand a chance of surviving and ever finding life tolerable again. Obey the experts implicitly, do what Those Who Know say you must do, tolerate no dissenters, backsliders, rebels, drop-outs, deniers, and there is a chance that the worst effects of this horror can be averted.

“We are the experts. Put yourselves totally in our hands. Do what we say without question. Do that, or suffer and perish.”

“But what is this horror? What is its nature? What is it called?” 

“It is called Global Warming. The earth is heating up and will become so intolerably hot that billions of you will die because YOU have damaged it with your so-called ‘civilized’ way of life, your industrial development, your reckless consumption of resources, your cars and aircraft, your begetting too many children so you have over-populated the planet –  in sum, with your selfish self-indulgence that you like to praise as the freedom to say and do just as you like.

“From now on, put yourselves in our hands, let us rule you, obey us in all things, and we will save you.”

That has been the message from Those Who Know – aka the collectivist Left – for some time now. But it hasn’t worked.

“We don’t believe the earth is burning up. We like our civilization. We still want the freedom to say and do just as we like.” 

But Those Who Know have not finished with their mission to put a stop to that. They speak again:

“We were not telling you everything. There is something worse than Global Warming. There is a Sickness so terrible that it will infect 80% of the world’s population and kill millions. Each and every one of you is threatened by it. You might save yourselves if you all obey us. Now close your businesses. Do not gather together. Keep well apart from each other. If you are sick with any but The Sickness do not seek medical help. If you see any of your neighbors doing anything to defy our rules, inform the police. The police are instructed to arrest the disobedient. Get used to doing what we tell you to do …”

And this time it nearly worked.

We obeyed. We regret that we did. Many among us are the poorer for it, some to the point of despair – and it turns out that The Sickness would not infect 80% of the world’s population. Or even 1%?

So what will be the outcome of this extraordinary historical episode? 

Some of us in America trust President Trump to restore our prosperity.

Some of us in America feel that we have had a taste of totalitarianism, of a police state, of socialism. And it has been horrible. We never again want the heavy hand of tyrannical government holding us down. From now on we want more liberty not less. 

Then there are those – on the Left, of course – who want to build on the success of the Great Obedience. Those Who Know are raising their voices louder than ever.  Only world government will save us, they say. Only socialist world government. A borderless world. The end of the nation-state. The end of the “nuclear family”. The end of private ownership. No great industries. Little travel, only by or with the permission of Those Who Know. The whole Green New Deal. And the end of liberty.

But hasn’t it been shown that not enough can be known for central planning to work?

“Ah,” say Those Who Know, “that used to be the case. Now we can know everything about every one of you. Because we have the Internet.”

Here are extracts are from an article in The Atlantic written by two professors of Law: Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School and a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution [!] who was also an assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration; and Andrew Keane Woods, a professor at the University of Arizona College of Law.

The trend toward greater surveillance and speech control here, and toward the growing involvement of government, is undeniable and likely inexorable.

In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong.

Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.

Who decides what they are?  Those Who Know, of course – who will be the government.

Ten years ago, speech on the American Internet was a free-for-all. There was relatively little monitoring and censorship—public or private—of what people posted, said, or did on Facebook, YouTube, and other sites. In part, this was due to the legal immunity that platforms enjoyed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And in part it was because the socially disruptive effects of digital networks—various forms of weaponized speech and misinformation—had not yet emerged. As the networks became filled with bullying, harassment, child sexual exploitation, revenge porn, disinformation campaigns, digitally manipulated videos, and other forms of harmful content, private platforms faced growing pressure from governments and users to fix the problems.

Actually, there was no crisis of free speech. There can be no such thing as a crisis of free speech.

The result a decade later is that most of our online speech now occurs in closely monitored playpens where many tens of thousands of human censors review flagged content to ensure compliance with ever-lengthier and more detailed “community standards” (or some equivalent). More and more, this human monitoring and censorship is supported—or replaced—by sophisticated [?] computer algorithms. The firms use these tools to define acceptable forms of speech and other content on their platforms, which in turn sets the effective boundaries for a great deal of speech in the U.S. public forum.

After the 2016 election debacle [the alleged interference by Russia], for example, the tech platforms took aggressive but still imperfect steps to fend off foreign adversaries. YouTube has an aggressive policy of removing what it deems to be deceptive practices and foreign-influence operations related to elections. It also makes judgments about and gives priority to what it calls “authoritative voices”. Facebook has deployed a multipronged strategy that includes removing fake accounts and eliminating or demoting “inauthentic behavior”. Twitter has a similar censorship policy aimed at “platform manipulation originating from bad-faith actors located in countries outside of the US”.  These platforms have engaged in “strategic collaboration” with the federal government, including by sharing information, to fight foreign electoral interference. …

Facebook, for example, also takes down hate speech …

A “crime” invented by the Left and applying only to speech antagonistic to itself …

… terrorist propaganda, “cruel and insensitive” speech, and bullying speech, which are harder to identify objectively and more controversial to regulate or remove.

Yes. But objective judgment is not wanted by Those Who Know.

All these developments have taken place under pressure from Washington and Brussels.

From Washington? From the Trump administration? Or from the Deep State?

In hearings over the past few years, Congress has criticized the companies—not always in consistent ways—for allowing harmful speech. In 2018, Congress amended the previously untouchable Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to subject the platforms to the same liability that nondigital outlets face for enabling illegal sex trafficking. Additional amendments to Section 230 are now in the offing, as are various other threats to regulate digital speech. …

Against this background, the tech firms’ downgrading and outright censorship of speech related to COVID-19 are not large steps.  ..

 As in other contexts, Facebook relies on fact-checking organizations and “authorities” (from the World Health Organization to the governments of U.S. states) to ascertain which content to downgrade or remove.

The iniquitous, corrupt, lying WHO – obedient to the Communist Party of China – relied on as a trustworthy fact-checker!

What is different about speech regulation related to COVID-19 is the context: The problem is huge and the stakes are very high. But when the crisis is gone, there is no unregulated “normal” to return to.

We live—and for several years, we have been living—in a world of serious and growing harms resulting from digital speech. Governments will not stop worrying about these harms.

Which governments?

And private platforms will continue to expand their definition of offensive content …

“Offensive” according to the prejudices of the owners …

… and will use algorithms to regulate it ever more closely. The general trend toward more speech control will not abate.

And in addition to the Internet, “we have many other mechanisms for watching you”.

Over the past decade, network surveillance has grown in roughly the same proportion as speech control. Indeed, on many platforms, ubiquitous surveillance is a prerequisite to speech control.

The public has been told over and over that the hundreds of computers we interact with daily—smartphones, laptops, desktops, automobiles, cameras, audio recorders, payment mechanisms, and more—collect, emit, and analyze data about us that are, in turn, packaged and exploited in various ways to influence and control our lives. We have also learned a lot—but surely not the whole picture—about the extent to which governments exploit this gargantuan pool of data.

Police use subpoenas to tap into huge warehouses of personal data collected by private companies. They have used these tools to gain access to doorbell cameras that now line city blocks, microphones in the Alexa devices in millions of homes, privately owned license-plate readers that track every car, and the data in DNA databases that people voluntarily pay to enter. They also get access to information collected on smart-home devices and home-surveillance cameras—a growing share of which are capable of facial recognition—to solve crimes. And they pay to access private tow trucks equipped with cameras tracking the movements of cars throughout a city. …

The harms from digital speech will also continue to grow, as will speech controls on these networks. And invariably, government involvement will grow. At the moment, the private sector is making most of the important decisions, though often under government pressure. But … the firms may not be able to regulate speech legitimately without heavier government guidance and involvement. It is also unclear whether, for example, the companies can adequately contain foreign misinformation and prevent digital tampering with voting mechanisms without more government surveillance.

The First and Fourth Amendments as currently interpreted, and the American aversion to excessive government-private-sector collaboration, have stood as barriers to greater government involvement. Americans’ understanding of these laws, and the cultural norms they spawned, will be tested as the social costs of a relatively open internet multiply.

COVID-19 is a window into these future struggles. …

And a door into world socialist totalitarian government?

Which will force a reversion to primitivism? A highly sophisticated, technological primitivism. Primitivism-plus-the-internet. The simple life, highly regimented, constantly surveilled by Those Who Know.

The loss of civilization.

The end of liberty.

Yes.

Cold war with China needs no question mark. It is not a question – should there be, or should there not be …?

It is a fact. It is a war even longer than the one in Afghanistan.

Colonel Richard Kemp (who commanded British forces in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans) writes at Gatestone:

Commentators and politicians today worry that the current situation might trigger a new cold war with China. They fail to understand that, in a similar but much more far-reaching pattern to the jihadist conflict, China has been fighting a cold war against the West for decades, while we have refused to recognize what is going on….

Few in the West fully recognize the threat to our own economies, security and liberty. Many who do refuse to speak out for four reasons: 

First, fear of coming into China’s crosshairs, provoking economic harm or character assassination.

Second, fear of accusations of racism, a concern readily exploited by the Chinese state whose own egregious racism is only too obvious.

Third, belief that our liberal values can change those that oppose us. The hope that Chinese exposure to free trade, including entry into the WTO in 2001, would have this effect has proven woefully misguided and served only to strengthen Beijing’s oppressive regime.

Fourth, many political leaders, businessmen, academics and journalists have been bought and paid for by Beijing whether by financial incentive or blackmail.

How can the West fight back? Although still militarily and economically inferior to the US, China is a formidable and growing economic power, interwoven with Western economies to an unprecedented degree. We must begin to divest from and sanction China, repatriate and use alternative sources of manufacturing and technology, restrict capital investment there and curb Chinese investment here, especially in our infrastructure.

We must re-invigorate and develop our own technology, much long abandoned to the Chinese juggernaut. We must enforce the norms of international trade and act vigorously to prevent and penalize China’s orgy of industrial theft that has gone largely unchallenged for decades. We must push back globally against Beijing’s imperialism and propaganda wherever it occurs.

But what if cold war with China leads to hot war with China?

We must also prepare for military conflict, with an emphasis on deterring Chinese aggression.

America will have to lead the fightback as it did previously in the cold war [with Soviet Russia], but success will require Europe and our allies around the world to stand with them for the long term. This is not a party political issue, but must become a fundamental element of enduring Western grand strategies. This is the task of decades and will be high-risk and costly. The alternative is to remain on the hook and in hock to the Chinese communist state and let future generations suffer the incalculable consequences of our continued purblind inaction.

Tom Basile, writing at American Greatness, thinks cold war with China is yet to begin in ernest on our side, but certainly will, and should be unhesitatingly engaged.

Our struggle will not be against China alone, but also against Russia and Iran.

 We shouldn’t be afraid of a new Cold War. …

Economic alliances that have made the Western democracies weaker, less focused, and often playing into the hands of authoritarian competitors seeking to expand their power.

We believed that opening China would produce a stronger level of trust, cooperation, and liberalization. …

It has not done so.

We genuinely wanted the Russian experiment in democracy to succeed. It hasn’t and we need to accept that. …

We may have wanted it to succeed, but not all of us expected that it would.

For decades we failed to make Iran pay for financing global Islamic terrorist networks that have taken countless innocent lives and destabilized countries around the world. The Obama Administration’s capitulation to the mullahs was perhaps the lowest point in American foreign policy of the last half-century.

Agreed.

The troika of China, Russia, and Iran represent a significant and present threat to the safety and security of the free world.

That requires an aggressive response.

Agreed again.

The Chinese, through their Belt and Road Initiative, have set about conquering Africa.

The three are also making inroads in the Western Hemisphere as well, including information manipulation that reaches the eyes and ears of Americans every day. …

China, Russia, and Iran will act with insidious intent to damage the United States. Having an economic, military, and diplomatic counter-posture is absolutely critical.

America should not fight the “troika” alone, but with Western allies:

From 1960-1975, the United States threatened or imposed economic sanctions more than 25 times, not counting U.S. support for U.N. sanctions against South Africa and other nations. We invested in the developing world to provide an incentive for those nations to align with the West. The Cold War promoted enterprise-based, free-market capitalism that strengthened our democratic allies. The military effort led to significant technological advancements.

Redrawing the lines of engagement now would mean igniting the ability of the United States and Western economies again to consolidate economic power. The economic opportunity for American and European countries for freezing out Huawei is enormous. …

But the opportunity is not being seized by America’s closest European ally. Britain is obstinately sticking to its contract with Huawei to build its G5 network, careless of the risk that doing so further empowers the Communist Chinese enemy.

A new Cold War means creating new trading blocs and incentives to dissuade free nations from supporting authoritarian competitors. It means governments making the tough decision to economically marginalize these regimes. Such a move may increase consumer prices but can lead to a restoration of millions of American jobs, economic growth in the developing world, and protecting superior Western innovation from piracy.

During the Cold War [with Soviet Russia], a vast majority of Americans understood that it was important for the United States and its allies to counter Communism. We cannot allow the moral relativism of the Left in America today to make us timid in the face of real threats to our security and individual liberty, not to mention the sovereignty of other nations.

Sure, there was debate and protest over disarmament and détente. Of course, there were those who were opposed our strong anti-Communist stance and Ronald Reagan’s “We win, they lose” posture, and many who railed against the so-called military-industrial complex.

Today, empowered by the media and digital platforms, those forces clearly have a strong voice.

Nonetheless, America’s destiny is—as it has always been—to be a beacon of freedom and prevent the human race from being dominated by authoritarianism that saps the soul of the individual, devalues life, and prevents human advancement for the sake of ruling elites.

Prevent the whole of the human race from falling under oppressive government? That is a very large assignment. Is it really America’s mission? And if so, is it possible?

Those who today fancy themselves experts in the media will say we can’t shift our posture in such a fashion. …

We would do well to remember our history. In the past century, hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting the Germans, only to see Germany become one of our staunchest allies. We used the atomic bomb to obliterate two Japanese cities, yet today Japan is one of our closest trading partners.

A new Cold War-style approach to China, Russia, and Iran is a call for America reconstituting the strong allied bloc it once led and rejecting the free-for-all globalist movement that turns a blind eye to enemies allegedly for the sake of cheap products.

America first needs to mean America leads again.

[The pandemic of] COVID-19 can indeed reset the world order placing us in the familiar position of making bold moves to protect freedom. What remains to be seen is whether we have the courage to lead again.

Using economic and if necessary military power to fight China, preferably with the co-operation of Western allies, is one thing – necessary and possible.

But America resetting the world order?

That requires a question mark.

Is there a nastier person in America than Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif)?

He’s a lackey of George Soros, the world’s top enemy of civilization.

He supports jihadi organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR).

He pursues Donald Trump with all the ardor of a Captain Ahab pursuing Moby Dick.

His low, mean, petty malice can be matched, perhaps, but it is difficult to imagine it being surpassed.

Well yes, he can be matched in those qualities. Just a few names off the top of the head: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, Christina Blasey Ford are all candidates for equal repugnance and contempt. But Schiff is surely the first among his equals.

Charles Hurt writes at Breitbart:

Adam Schiff … for more than three years now has lied to gullible reporters about his spectacular fantasies of Mr. Trump in a Moscow hotel room with hookers.

This is the same ridiculous nutjob who for years now has been lying to American voters about how he has secret evidence that he cannot share proving that Mr. Trump “colluded” with Russian President Vladimir Putin to “steal” the 2016 election.

Secret “evidence”, it turned out, that all came from the Kremlin.

This is the same desperate, dishonest charlatan who — after his Russian fantasy went up in smoke — turned his imagination to Ukraine and began spinning new fantasies about Mr. Trump conspiring with the president of Ukraine to make Joe Biden look bad — as if Joe Biden needs any help looking bad.

And, yes, this is the same Adam Schiff who colluded with phone callers he believed to be actual Ukrainians in order to obtain naked pictures of Mr. Trump. (Sickos like this you really cannot make up.)

Now Mr. Schiff and his fellow Democrats have seized on something that at least did actually happen. The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

This virus is as deadly real as these people are ridiculously unserious.

Mr. Schiff and his band of twittering impeachment fairies have decided to turn the awesome powers of the legislative branch of the federal government into yet another weapon against Mr. Trump. This time, they want to use all their constitutional powers to accuse the president of somehow playing dumb to allow the coronavirus to spread as far and wide as possible so as to infect and kill as many Americans as possible.

Again, to what end? To help Russia? To prop up his only personal financial interests in the wild-bat trade?

Anyway, this latest fever dream is downright comical, given the fact that it was Mr. Schiff and his twittering impeachment fairies who were fully engaged with impeaching Mr. Trump while the pandemic was brewing and first jumped from China to America.

Mr. Trump can point to actual decisions he made at that time to combat the pandemic while Mr. Schiff and his dollhouse friends can point to nothing other than their failed impeachment charade in Congress — as the pandemic marched across the globe.

That’s not to say that Mr. Schiff’s latest delusions are not terrifying. They are. Because we now know the dark depths of depravity Mr. Schiff and the anti-Trump crusaders in Washington will resort to in pursuit of Mr. Trump. They will stop at nothing and there is no apparatus of the federal government they won’t try to use in their zealous pursuit.

Who voted for Schiff? What sort of person? There are people, quite a lot of them, who thought – or felt  – that this useless being full of spite would represent them well in Congress, and voted him into the House of Representatives no fewer than 10 times! That’s a strange thing to contemplate. Hard to explain.

Italy is a hospital, a morgue, and a crematorium. It is one big scene of disease and death.

“Italy is a Communist country.” And has sold itself to Communist China.

Giacomino Nicolazzo writes  at Front Page:

Beginning in about 2014, Matteo Renzi, the imbecile ex-mayor of Firenze (Florence) acting as the leader of the Partito Democratico (synonymous with the Italian Communist party), somehow managed to get himself elected as Italy’s Prime Minister.  To give you a proper frame of reference, Matteo Renzi was so far left, he would make Barack Obama look like Barry Goldwater.

At the same time that Renzi was leading Italy into oblivion, strange things were happening in Italy’s economy.  Banks were failing, but not closing.  Retirement ages were being extended.  For some reason the pension funds were dwindling or disappearing.  The national sales tax we call IVA (Value Added Tax) rose from 18% to 20%, then to 21% and again to 22%.

And in the midst of all this financial chicanery, the Chinese began furiously buying up Italian real estate and businesses in the North.

Now, the reason I mention Renzi and the Chinese together is that strange things were also going on between the governments of Italy and China.  A blind eye was being turned to the way the Chinese were buying businesses in the financial, telecommunication, industrial, and fashion sectors of Italy’s economy, all of which take place in Milano.

To be brief, China was getting away with purchases and acquisitions in violation of Italian law and EU Trade Agreements with the US and the UK – and no one in either of those countries (not Obama in the US or Cameron in the UK) said a thing in their country’s defense.  As a matter of fact, much of it was hidden from the public in all three countries.

In 2014, China infused the Italian economy with €5 billion through purchases of companies costing less than €100 million each.  By the time Renzi left office (in disgrace) in 2016, Chinese acquisitions had exceeded €52 billion.  When the dust settled, China owned more than 300 companies, representing 27% of the major Italian corporations.

The Bank of China now owns five major banks in Italy, all of which had been secretly (and illegally) propped up by Renzi using pilfered pension funds!  Soon after, the China Milano Equity Exchange was opened and much of Italy’s wealth was being funneled back to the Chinese mainland.

Chinese state entities own Italy’s major telecommunication corporation (Telecom) as well as its major utilities (ENI and ENEL).  Upon entry into the telecommunication market, Huawei established a facility in Segrate, a suburb of Milano.  It launched is first research center there and worked on the study of microwaves which has resulted in the possibly-dangerous technology we call 5G.

China also now owns controlling interest in Fiat-Chrysler, Prysmian and Terna.  You will be surprised to know that when you put a set of Pirelli tires on your car, the profits are going to China.  Yep, the Chinese colossus of ChemChina, a chemical industry titan, bought that company, too!

Last but not least is Ferretti yachts, the most prestigious yacht builder in Europe.  Incredibly, it is no longer owned by the Ferretti family.

But the sector in which Chinese companies invested most was Italy’s profitable fashion industry.  The Pinco Pallino, Miss Sixty, Sergio Tacchini, Roberta di Camerino and Mariella Burani brands have been acquired by 100%.

Designer Salvatore Ferragamo sold 16% and Caruso sold 35%.  The most famous case is Krizia, purchased in 2014 by Shenzhen Marisfrolg Fashion Company, one of the leaders of high-priced, ready-to-wear fashions in Asia.

Throughout all of these purchases and acquisitions, Renzi’s government afforded the Chinese unrestricted and unfettered access to Italy and its financial markets, many coming through without customs inspections.

Quite literally, tens of thousands of Chinese came in through Milano (illegally) and went back out carrying money, technology, and corporate secrets.

Thousands more were allowed to enter and disappeared into shadows of Milano and other manufacturing cities of Lombardy, only to surface in illegal sewing shops, producing knock-off designer clothes and slapping “Made In Italy” labels on them.  All with the tacit approval of the Renzi government.

It was not until there was a change in the governing party in Italy that the sweatshops and the illegal entry and departure of Chinese nationals was stopped.  Matteo Salvini, representing the Lega Nord party, closed Italy’s ports to immigrants and systematically began disassembling the sweatshops and deporting those in Italy illegally.

But his rise to power was short-lived.

Italy is a communist country.  Socialism is in the national DNA.  Ways were found to remove Salvini, after which the communist party, under the direction of Giuseppe Conte, reopened the ports.  Immediately, thousands of unvetted, undocumented refugees from the Middle East and East Africa began pouring in again.

Access was again provided to the Chinese, under the old terms, and as a consequence thousands of Chinese, the majority from Wuhan, began arriving in Milano.

In December of last year, the first inklings of a coronavirus were noticed in Lombardy – in the Chinese neighborhoods.  There is no doubt amongst senior medical officials that the virus was brought here from China.

By the end of January 2020 cases were being reported left and right.  By mid-February the virus was beginning to seriously overload the Lombardy hospitals and medical clinics.  They are now in a state of collapse.

The Far-Left politicians sold out and betrayed the Italian people with open border policies and social justice programs.  One of the reasons the health care system collapsed so quickly is because the Renzi government (and now continued under the Conte government) redirected funds meant to sustain the medical system, to pay for the tens of thousands of immigrants brought in to Italy against the will of the Italian people.…

The point I am trying to make here is that not only did the Chinese bring the virus to Italy (and the rest of the world) it was far-Left politics and policies that facilitated it.

The Left destroys everything. The Left is a destructive force. Nothing else. Nothing less.

The world is sick with the disease of Leftism.

The only cure is the destruction of the Left itself and all its works and all its institutions and all its regimes.

How can its own destruction be brought about and by whom?

By nation states defending their borders.

By voters putting only patriotic free market leaders in power.

By the people of Communist countries – China, North Korea, Cuba – changing their governments. (Very difficult.)

Will all of this happen? Some of it will.

It will start with President Trump being re-elected in a landslide in November 2020.

How will it proceed after that? Ideally –

The total reconstitution of the Democratic Party without any trace of a socialist agenda.

The abolition of the UN and all its sub-agencies.

The dissolution of the EU.

The permanent discrediting of Marxism.