Choose freedom 159

Posted under liberty, United States, Videos by Jillian Becker on Monday, August 9, 2021

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What Communist China did and may do next 86

Victor Davis Hanson writes at American Greatness:

We are left with the suspicion that an embryonic engineered virus was mysteriously released that did more damage to the Western world than any weapon deliberately employed since World War II. And we will become terrified that, in theory, it could happen again.

Many Americans are naïvely hopeful that COVID-19 was a one-off, ill-thought-out, gain-of-function laboratory accident. But some are most terrified that it was a proto-bioweapon that, regardless of whether it was accidentally released at some point, became a “never let a crisis go to waste” moment—an attitude that not only explained Chinese lying, but also the entire terrible year of 2020, and the near destruction of American society itself.

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Because of the “Delta variant”.

Joe Biden is claiming, on his official Twitter page, that the Delta variant of Wuhan coronavirus is “deadlier” than other variants seen during the pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Biden administration officials continue to defend, is claiming the Delta variant “spreads more efficiently” and that unvaccinated individuals are most at risk for serious illness or death.

He said:

I’m here to talk to you today about the Delta variant that causes COVID-19. The comparison is it is transmitted much more efficiently, which means the chances of getting infected upon exposure is greater than the dominant variant that we have now in the United States.

Republican Senator Rand Paul, who has been debunking claims from Fauci for more than a year, is pushing back.

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44 deaths and we must all be treated as lepers again?
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After the Delta variant, will there be another and another?

Our dictators don’t want to let go this excuse for controlling us?

It does seem as if they want to keep us all perpetually frightened, obedient, masked, impoverished.

But no! Surely not! Would those humanitarians conceive such an evil plan?

Is it possible, do you think?

Shrinking the dollar 82

Seriously dangerous inflation has begun and will rapidly increase.

Senator Rand Paul decried the “Corona relief” bill, 6,000 pages long, passed late last night (December 21, 2020), without any member of Congress having read it. And he cried a warning.

Breitbart reports:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted the $2.3 trillion government spending bill — $900 billion of which is dedicated to coronavirus relief — criticizing Republicans for voting to print money with impunity. …

Rand Paul rightly called it “a deficits-don’t-matter disaster“.

He continued:

This bill is free money for everyone. … And yet if free money were the answer, if money really grew on trees, why not give more free money? Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 per person? Why not $1,000? Why not $2,000?

Maybe these new free-money Republicans should join the everybody-gets-a-guaranteed-income caucus. Why not $20,000 a year for everybody? Why not $30,000? If we can print up money with impunity, why not do it?

The treasury can just keep printing the money. That is, until someone points out that the dollar no longer has value. 

To so-called conservatives who are quick to call out the socialism of Democrats: if you vote for this spending monstrosity, you are no better. When you vote to pass out free money, you … abandon forever any semblance of moral or fiscal integrity.

He assessed that the difference between the parties on this issue “is less Adam Smith versus Marx and more Marx versus Engels.”

[He] further explained the country’s fiscal situation, noting the nation brought in $3.3 trillion last year and spent $6.6 trillion.

The deficit was a “record-busting $3.3 trillion,” he said … [though] “such extraordinary spending habits have been going on for decades.”

“Today’s money is gone, so Congress is spending tomorrow’s money,” he said, noting that the country finds itself $27 trillion in debt today with no cuts, offsets, or prioritization in Congress.

Spend all this money and leave the future to figure itself out …

He also pointed out that Congress is helping to perpetuate lockdowns “by supporting states implementing rules that are arbitrary and unscientific”.

And –

Governors are picking winners and losers while family businesses are being wiped out. The need for help is real … but it’s clear that government has worsened the economic damage and acted as the biggest obstacle to economic recovery.

Think Venezuela, comrades.

Posted under Economics, United States, Venezuela by Jillian Becker on Tuesday, December 22, 2020

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Atheism, science, and the law 32

Any idea that needs a law to protect it from criticism is ipso facto a bad idea.

That is our own maxim. We repeat it often. It cannot be repeated often enough.

There used to be laws, in Western secular states, protecting religious ideas; usually the ideas of a particular religion favored by the state. The crime was called “blasphemy”.

Such a crime, carrying severe punishment, including the death sentence, still exists in Islamic countries.

And the crime still exists in Communist countries. As Communists do not acknowledge their ideology to be a religion, they do not call it blasphemy. It is called an offense against the state, or “dissidence”. It was often treated as a mental illness in the Soviet Union. It was also often punished by execution, not only in Russia but wherever the iron fist of the Soviet regime was the law.

In America the First Amendment to the Constituion, as everybody knows, enshrined freedom of belief and freedom of speech. Yet there lingers in the mores of the American people, generation after generation, the notion that religious beliefs should not be publicly criticized. Such criticism is felt to be a discourtesy at best, and at worst an actual defiance of the First Amendment itself!

Even some scientists respect this social taboo.

We quote a good article on the subject from the New Yorker, by Lawrence M. Krauss:

As a physicist, I do a lot of writing and public speaking about the remarkable nature of our cosmos, primarily because I think science is a key part of our cultural heritage and needs to be shared more broadly. Sometimes, I refer to the fact that religion and science are often in conflict; from time to time, I ridicule religious dogma. When I do, I sometimes get accused in public of being a “militant atheist”. Even a surprising number of my colleagues politely ask if it wouldn’t be better to avoid alienating religious people. Shouldn’t we respect religious sensibilities, masking potential conflicts and building common ground with religious groups so as to create a better, more equitable world?

I found myself thinking about those questions this week as I followed the story of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who directly disobeyed a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and, as a result, was jailed for contempt of court. Davis’s supporters, including the Kentucky senator and Presidential candidate Rand Paul, are protesting what they believe to be an affront to her religious freedom. It is “absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberties”, Paul said, on CNN.

The Kim Davis story raises a basic question: To what extent should we allow people to break the law if their religious views are in conflict with it? It’s possible to take that question to an extreme that even Senator Paul might find absurd: imagine, for example, a jihadist whose interpretation of the Koran suggested that he should be allowed to behead infidels and apostates. Should he be allowed to break the law? Or — to consider a less extreme case — imagine an Islamic-fundamentalist county clerk who would not let unmarried men and women enter the courthouse together, or grant marriage licenses to unveiled women. For Rand Paul, what separates these cases from Kim Davis’s? The biggest difference, I suspect, is that Senator Paul agrees with Kim Davis’s religious views but disagrees with those of the hypothetical Islamic fundamentalist.

The problem, obviously, is that what is sacred to one person can be meaningless (or repugnant) to another. That’s one of the reasons why a modern secular society generally legislates against actions, not ideas. No idea or belief should be illegal; conversely, no idea should be so sacred that it legally justifies actions that would otherwise be illegal. Davis is free to believe whatever she wants, just as the jihadist is free to believe whatever he wants; in both cases, the law constrains not what they believe but what they do.

In recent years, this territory has grown murkier. Under the banner of religious freedom, individuals, states, and even — in the case of Hobby Lobby — corporations have been arguing that they should be exempt from the law on religious grounds. (The laws from which they wish to claim exemption do not focus on religion; instead, they have to do with social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.) The government has a compelling interest in insuring that all citizens are treated equally. But “religious freedom” advocates argue that religious ideals should be elevated above all others as a rationale for action. In a secular society, this is inappropriate.

The Kim Davis controversy exists because, as a culture, we have elevated respect for religious sensibilities to an inappropriate level that makes society less free, not more. Religious liberty should mean that no set of religious ideals are treated differently from other ideals. Laws should not be enacted whose sole purpose is to denigrate them, but, by the same token, the law shouldn’t elevate them, either.

In science, of course, the very word “sacred” is profane. No ideas, religious or otherwise, get a free pass. The notion that some idea or concept is beyond question or attack is anathema to the entire scientific undertaking. This commitment to open questioning is deeply tied to the fact that science is an atheistic enterprise. “My practice as a scientist is atheistic,” the biologist J.B.S. Haldane wrote, in 1934. “That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with its course and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career.” It’s ironic, really, that so many people are fixated on the relationship between science and religion: basically, there isn’t one. In my more than thirty years as a practicing physicist, I have never heard the word “God” mentioned in a scientific meeting. Belief or nonbelief in God is irrelevant to our understanding of the workings of nature—just as it’s irrelevant to the question of whether or not citizens are obligated to follow the law.

Because science holds that no idea is sacred, it’s inevitable that it draws people away from religion. The more we learn about the workings of the universe, the more purposeless it seems. Scientists have an obligation not to lie about the natural world. Even so, to avoid offense, they sometimes misleadingly imply that today’s discoveries exist in easy harmony with preëxisting religious doctrines, or remain silent rather than pointing out contradictions between science and religious doctrine. It’s a strange inconsistency, since scientists often happily disagree with other kinds of beliefs. Astronomers have no problem ridiculing the claims of astrologists, even though a significant fraction of the public believes these claims. Doctors have no problem condemning the actions of anti-vaccine activists who endanger children. And yet, for reasons of decorum, many scientists worry that ridiculing certain religious claims alienates the public from science. When they do so, they are being condescending at best and hypocritical at worst.

Ultimately, when we hesitate to openly question beliefs because we don’t want to risk offense, questioning itself becomes taboo. It is here that the imperative for scientists to speak out seems to me to be most urgent. As a result of speaking out on issues of science and religion, I have heard from many young people about the shame and ostracism they experience after merely questioning their family’s faith. Sometimes, they find themselves denied rights and privileges because their actions confront the faith of others. Scientists need to be prepared to demonstrate by example that questioning perceived truth, especially “sacred truth”, is an essential part of living in a free country.

I see a direct link, in short, between the ethics that guide science and those that guide civic life. Cosmology, my specialty, may appear to be far removed from Kim Davis’s refusal to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, but in fact the same values apply in both realms. Whenever scientific claims are presented as unquestionable, they undermine science. Similarly, when religious actions or claims about sanctity can be made with impunity in our society, we undermine the very basis of modern secular democracy. We owe it to ourselves and to our children not to give a free pass to governments — totalitarian, theocratic, or democratic — that endorse, encourage, enforce, or otherwise legitimize the suppression of open questioning in order to protect ideas that are considered “sacred”. Five hundred years of science have liberated humanity from the shackles of enforced ignorance. We should celebrate this openly and enthusiastically, regardless of whom it may offend.

If that is what causes someone to be called a militant atheist, then no scientist should be ashamed of the label.

We have said it is a good article. And what we have quoted, we heartily agree with.

But we left out one paragraph (where the dots are).

Here it is:

This reticence can have significant consequences. Consider the example of Planned Parenthood. Lawmakers are calling for a government shutdown unless federal funds for Planned Parenthood are stripped from spending bills for the fiscal year starting October 1st. Why? Because Planned Parenthood provides fetal tissue samples from abortions to scientific researchers hoping to cure diseases, from Alzheimer’s to cancer. (Storing and safeguarding that tissue requires resources, and Planned Parenthood charges researchers for the costs.) It’s clear that many of the people protesting Planned Parenthood are opposed to abortion on religious grounds and are, to varying degrees, anti-science. Should this cause scientists to clam up at the risk of further offending or alienating them? Or should we speak out loudly to point out that, independent of one’s beliefs about what is sacred, this tissue would otherwise be thrown away, even though it could help improve and save lives?

Either the author did not watch the videos that recorded Planned Parnethood personnel talking about their trade in the body parts of aborted fetuses, or he did not hear, or chose to forget, some statements they made. The videos make it perfecty clear that the organization was not just selling the parts in order to cover costs, but carryng on the trade for profit.

Now we have nothing against trade for profit. On the contrary, we think the making of profit is the morally best and most socially useful reason for selling anything and providing any service.

But it happens that the selling of the body parts of aborted fetuses for profit is against the law.  So exactly the same objection that Lawrence Krauss makes to Kim Davis’s action – that she broke the law – applies to Planned Parenthood’s action.

What seems to cloud his judgment in the case of Planned Parenthood – if he did watch the videos and take in what was said –  is the fact that the body parts went to scientists for the great cause (and we do think it is a great cause) of scientific research.

But however good the cause that the illegal trade was serving, it was still illegal.

In fact, what emerges from those videos is criminal action more morally outrageous than just selling the parts of aborted fetuses. (Note, please, that we are calling them fetuses, not “babies”, in order not to use controversial language.) It is revealed, in an interview with an employee of a firm that bought the body parts, that Planned Parenthood was urging pregnant women to have an abortion – even when they were uncertain that they wanted one, and even in one case when the woman was inclined NOT to have one – so that Planned Parenthood could sell the fetus’s body parts and so make a profit. 

That is iniquity.

Now scientists like Lawrence Krauss might argue persuasively that there should not be a law forbidding the selling of fetuses, whole or in parts, for profit. Just as Kim Davis might argue that there should not be a law that compels her to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. But there are such laws. And if it is wrong for Kim Davis to break the law on the grounds that it does a disservice to her idea of a higher good, so it is wrong for Planned Parenthood to break the law even if by doing so it is serving the genuinely higher good of science.

We have said that Lawrence Krauss’s judgment may be clouded by his belief in the supreme goodness of scientific research. We will not go so far as to say that he holds that end to be “sacred”, because we agree with him that the word has no place in the vocabulary of atheism. So we toss the accusation aside.

It could be said that our moral judgment of Planned Parenthood – accurate though our allegation is that the organization broke the law – may be clouded by our extreme distaste for their abortion services. (Note that we call them “services”, firmly resisting the temptation to call them “abuses”.) It  is true that we have an arguably irrational prejudice in favor of human life. We very much dislike abortion – while acknowledging that there are reasonable grounds for it in certain cases, and on no account arguing for it to be made wholly illegal. But obviously our objection to it is not on religious grounds. We do not believe that it frustrates “God’s purposes”. We are against it because we are against the deliberate destruction of human life  unless the human in question has forfeited his or her life by taking someone else’s.

Those who are for abortion on demand accuse those of us who are against it of being inconsistent when we call ourselves “pro-life”, because many of us are for the death penalty. By the same token, we can accuse them of inconsistency when they are for the destruction of life in the womb, but against putting convicted murderers to death. We are for saving the innocent and punishing the guilty, while they are for destroying the innocent and saving the guilty.

 

(Hat-tip for the article to our reader, Stephen)

Frightening sympathy 53

The British Conservative James Delingpole, with whom we usually agree, writes at the Telegraph about the dismal view he takes of the Republican Party candidates in this year’s presidential election.

His assessment of them is so dismal that he thinks that letting Obama, “the POTUS from hell”,  wreck the country for another four years would be a better choice than electing any of them.

We cannot wholly agree with him this time because we think no one on the political horizon could be worse for America than Obama, but we like his article and see his point:

Let’s get one thing clear: Obama unquestionably ranks among the bottom five presidents in US history. In terms of sublime awfulness he’s right up there with our late and extremely unlamented ex-PM Gordon Brown – which is quite some doing, given that Brown singlehandedly wrought more destruction on his country than the Luftwaffe, Dutch Elm Disease, the South Sea Bubble, the Fire of London and the Black Death combined.

Agreed: the damage President Obama has done to the US economy with everything from Ben Bernanke’s insane money-printing programme, to his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, to his ban on deep-water drilling to his crony capitalism hand-outs to disaster zones like Solyndra to his persecution of companies like Gibson is incalculable. And, of course, if he gets a second term the damage he and his rag-bag of Marxist cronies at organisations like the Environmental Protection Agency manage to inflict on the US small businessman trying to make an honest buck will make his first term look like Calvin Coolidge on steroids.

So why do I think this would be preferable to a presidency under Mitt Romney? Simple. Because I’ve seen what happens, America, when you elect yet another spineless, yet ruthless, principle-free blow-with-the-wind, big government, crony-capitalist RINO squish. His name is Dave Cameron – and trust me, the cure is far worse than the disease.

Of course it may not seem that way at first. You’ll be so busy dancing round in circles singing “Ding Dong the witch is dead!” that euphoria and relief will completely overwhelm your intellect and your powers of observation. You’ll read endless articles by David L Brooks, the New York Times’s pet pretend-conservative, telling you how Romney is just the kind of uniting, post-partisan, pragmatic POTUS America needed. And you’ll believe it because you’ll want to believe it. This may last for some considerable length of time. In Britain, many Cameroon conservatives … continue to perform this auto-lobotomisation even now.

But then, little by little, something rather unpleasant will begin to dawn on you. The label on the can may have changed but the contents taste remarkably similar. Similarly emetic, that is.

Yes, I know from the other side of the pond David Cameron may look just the kind of stand-up conservative you’d like running the US. But that’s only because the stories you hear about him are extremely selective. For example, I’m constantly surprised by US talk show hosts telling me how tough on militant Islam Cameron is because of some speech they heard Dave give once about the problems of multiculturalism.

But surely we should judge our political leaders by what they actually achieve rather than (Tony Blair-style) by what they tell us they are achieving.

Here are some of David Cameron’s achievements so far:

He has prolonged the economic crisis …

He has urged quotas for women in the boardroom, apparently in the belief that the State has either the knowledge or the right to decide how business conducts its affairs.

He has presided over a massive wind-farm building programme which, besides destroying the British countryside and enriching his father-in-law, is causing energy bills to soar to the point where old people are dying of hypothermia.

He has surrendered at almost every turn to the Carthaginian terms offered to Britain by the European Socialist Superstate.

He has proved himself incapable of expelling the Islamist hate-preacher Abu Qatada. [See our post The tale of a Muslim terrorist parasite, January 18, 2012.]

The list is by no means exhaustive. I would go on but, actually, this was never meant to be a “collected examples of the unutterable crapness of David Cameron” blog. Rather, it’s supposed to be a more generalised warning about the dangers of short-termist thinking.

Yes, of course, conservative/libertarian America, I fully understand how desperate you are to rid yourself of the POTUS from hell. But what you need to ask yourselves – and I don’t believe many of you are: you’re a bit like an hysterical woman who’s just had a tarantula drop on top of her in the bath, you just want to GET RID OF IT NOW! – is what ultimately you’re trying to achieve.

I’m presuming what you really want is stuff like: smaller government; a genuine – as opposed to an illusory, QE-driven – economic recovery; sensible environmentalism (ie conservation but not eco-fascism); liberty; an end of crony capitalism; a diminution of the power of Wall Street; a resurgence of American greatness; a renewed sense of confidence and purpose.

You’re not going to get any of that from a Romney administration.

But you will, provided you’ve got the patience, get it in 2016 from President West or President Rand Paul or President Palin or President Ryan.

Only it might be TOO LATE.

 

(Hat-tip Andrew M)