I might offer a more nuanced, and (hopefully) informed comment on your work later. For now, it seems that the big message is something that I am embarrassed to admit did not dawn on me for months, maybe a year, after the corona-lunacy began. This whole pageant, this whole COVID Dumpster Fireâ„¢ as I like to term it, is about *so* much more than asinine knee-jerk containment policies, vaccine half-assery, and improperly administered NPIs. It is about a heretofore unseen level of control. It is about the playing of a "long game" with respect to obtaining and deploying that control. Unfortunately, many of us on Team Reality have been (again, in my parlance) playing checkers while the other side was playing chess. Politics and who is on which side is all part of that irrelevant debate, it seems.
The essence of left politics is and always has been the desire to control. The world can't simply be permitted to BE - it must be changed, managed, optimized, enlightened ... always of course under the direction of the intellectuals of the left, who know what's best for everyone and to whom it never occurs that there might be important details that escape their notice.
The opposite position, that it is frequently better to allow things to take their natural course and permit humans to find their own way for the entirely obvious reason that no one person, theory, or model can encompass all relevant information and dynamics affecting a system, requires a humility that is entirely beyond them.
That describes the great depression and FDR perfectly. He was always doing something, and in doing so, he managed to create the one constant that markets hate: uncertainty. If you didn't know what the rules would be tomorrow, it would be foolish to act on what the rules are today. Don't hire someone new... you may be required to give him something you can't afford when the next arbitrary rule change took place.
When things are in a state of flux, people hunker down and wait for better conditions, and that was exactly what the economy did not need in order to get any better. A recession or a depression is a crisis in confidence ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself") more than anything else, but how can you be confident when you know the guy in charge is monkeying with the rules constantly?
That’s a major factor for the post lockdown malaise we are likely to endure for years. I know I won’t start a business in any of the big lockdown states any time soon.
Actually - they are preventing epic suffering by doing what they are doing.
If they do not then 8B will be left in the dark... starving... look at what is happening in Sri Lanka... and they are not yet starving...
We are into massive overshoot and the collapse of civilization was approaching... the people who run the show are doing something about it... before it's too late
Well the other solution wasn't;t pretty but we will have it in the end. (they get weak and dies of disease and we shoot the boats) Politics is fractal. If you cannot manage the neighbourhood you cannot manage the state. We destabilise ourselves and keep encouraging them. We cannot take the 3billion who want to come so why even take a billion.
While "laissez-faire" turns out to be disastrous for policies (SOME regulation and oversight is always needed!) the left takes the opposite tack and wants EVERYTHING and everyone regulated -- by their perfect selves, of course. Everyone always thinks he'll be the on regulating, not the one being regulated.
Too many decades mucking in toxic policy to let comments about regulation go without a reality check. Oversight functions and regulatory laws are more effective at blocking competition, reducing liability and providing PR cover for dangerous and criminal activity. The beneficiaries complain about the burden as part of a marketing strategy to create an illusion of adversaries in Washington when in fact they're profiteering co-conspirators against the public interests.
Most current example would be EUA w liability wavers for COVID jabs but this is far from unique. Despite all the fanfare about protecting the public most widely used chemicals have NEVER had even the most basic human health and safety testing. Scorecard is the global authority for chemical safety.. UC Davis hosted the database until 2020 when it was pulled w landing page note project ended.
Basic Testing to Identify Chemical Hazards
If an industrial chemical is allowed by law to be released into the environment, most people assume that it must have been tested and evaluated for its potential risks. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Keeping chemical hazards under control requires information about what kinds of hazards each chemical poses. If the basic tests to check on a chemical's toxicity haven't been conducted, or if the results aren't publicly available, current laws tend to treat that chemical as if it were perfectly safe.
Laissez-Faire is obviously not perfect, that’s not what any serious proponent of it would suggest. But letting an entity with a monopoly on violence make all the rules will eventually end in something like what we have, now.
We've been indoctrinated with the assumption that laissez faire leads to anarchy. Our betters want us to believe that we can't survive without government, and we have allowed it to intrude on and regulate every aspect of our lives.
Most people don't. Calvin Coolidge was in office, and he was a laissez-faire type. He let it run its course, and soon it gave way to the roaring 20s, with the depression forgotten. He could have turned it into a multiyear juggernaut as would Hoover and FDR a decade and change later, but he didn't.
Unfortunately, "the next big thing" often makes people blind to the downside, and as we all know, a bubble formed in the stock market. People had irrational exuberance over the stock market, believing somehow that things can go up without coming down, extending credit to anyone and everyone no matter how risky, with the belief that the stocks themselves would always be valuable enough collateral to cover any losses... exactly the same as residential real estate in the years leading up to 2008.
Despite having Coolidge's example of how to deal with a downturn in the economy (let the market correct itself), Hoover chose interventionism, and while the occurrence of the depression itself was not his fault, the preservation of it until what ultimately became the end of his administration was. When FDR came in, he did the same kinds of things at first, and it just went from there, trying one thing after another, with the sole exception being what Coolidge did... nothing.
Despite his role in preserving the depression for years, FDR was popular because he was always seen as doing something, and the people share the same bias toward action that FDR did. It would have been politically dfficult to do nothing and ride it out, since people have the bias toward "at least he's doing something."
Woodrow Wilson was still president in 1920, but incapacitated by a stroke, so that it was his wife who was running things. As a result of the 1920 election, Warren Harding became president in 1921, and Calvin Coolidge vice president. Coolidge only became president when Harding died a couple of years later.
Tens of thousands of my ancestors died because of laissez-faire policies, and millions came to America because of them only to die here, so no, I don' think I will. Medicine often used to be lethal, and food unsanitary, before regulation. I'm all for reasonable regulation. The problem with regulation, as with everything in life, is PEOPLE. Without regulations, people take advantage of others one way. Too much regulation, and different people take advantage of others another way.
Lots of poisonous food still on the grocery store shelves, too. Pesticide and glyphosate residues, as well as hydrogenated oils and hyper-processed food, are not exactly health products.
Your mistake Gail is that you think a monopoly cartel should provide the valuable, useful service of regulatory quality-control. The market provides certification and validation services in many different industries; wherever the government isn't imprinting its obese backside and crowding out competitors with crude controls and lots of resources. For example, people rely on the FDA and/or USDA to inspect and certify drugs and foods. But how many people are harmed each year by adulterated or defective foods or medicines? Do I even have to ask?
You say the problem is "people"; but actually the problem is monopoly. The real debate is monopoly government (a Hobbesian concept) vs. governance. The latter allows a free society, in a decentralized manner, to regulate itself through private mediators, insurance companies, whatever arises in the imagination of producers and is validated by consumer demand.
We will never have a perfect society - because we are people. But competition sharpens the offerings of a society and gives producers and consumers options to do things a better way, without monopoly barriers.
The problem is the regulators are bought and paid for by the industries they supposedly regulate. The entire system has become corrupted. Industry execs become regulators, and vice versa. It’s all a giant mess. At this point I’d be willing to get rid of most all regulation and allow the chips to fall as they may.
You cannot have a perfect world. The government controlling anything leads to what you see today. I'd take a benevolent dictator every time. I'll go with one human rather than hundreds and hundreds who end up going after power and money to get what they want. The right person has both power and money, maybe that person doesn't need to kill others to keep it.
The ideal form of government, the ancients said, was a benevolent ruler. The problem is, of course, that they are very rare. Even if you get one, and even if he stays benevolent, he eventually dies. Every form of government devolves into a bad version of itself as the safeguards put in to stop that from happening are subverted. In theory a government can STOP devolving and improve again. But most of the time, history shows, it gets taken over by something or someone else. Sometimes quickly, sometimes very slowly.
To a certain point some regulations are helpful in preventing harm. But those in the regulation business always continue expansion of regulations indefinitely because they enjoy their jobs. Trump's notion of removing rules to create a new one made sense and gave useful work for regulators in the fact of full bookshelves of rules. The growth of the Federal Register over time reflects the daily arrival of more rules many which go well beyond reducing harm. The regulators regulate.
My brother, rest assured that among the proponents of the free market and laissez-faire political economy, I am in the (nearly psychotic) tail of that distribution!
Those basic rules are a form of regulation....the Human Condition, being as it is will always wind up with entities gaming the system to their benefit so there has to be that invisible hand of governance to do the best it can to provide an equal playing field for entry and exit as well as incentive to innovation......what has transpired over decades is a movment away from those basic rules and the real consequences of violating them to a regulatory nightmare that has no teeth, created largely by both out of touch liberals and/or lobbyists .....
History shows that the natural course of things is the lowest common denominator - namely an authoritarian hierarchy. This is the default state for civilization. Monarchy, dictatorship, aristocracy, oligarchy, plutacracy - take your pick. It all comes back to rule by force. Governments based on universal rights are sadly, a historical aberation. This doesn't mean that citizens would have no rights, only that rights are not universal nor garunteed by governments. Think pre-1800 societies, or perhaps in some cases pre-1500 societies.
There's no left and right. That's the problem. Anyone who believes the 'opposition' figures are any better are in delusion.
Orban's name particularly upsets me here. He seems he is doing something differently but he is not. He is not for the people.
Him and his followers were all blinded by covid hysteria and vaccination propaganda. All shunned the unvaccinated and they were absolutely vile about it. He made mandatory vaccination available by employers in very early times. He made students suffer by mandating quarantine only for unvaccinated kids even if a vaccinated tested positive in a class. (and many other hidden trickery)
About his family propaganda: from 1st of January any private reproduction assisting clinic ceased to exist.
About his fake immigration policies: while on the surface he opposes immigration he made available emergency visas to bring cheap labour to Hungary for example from Vietnam or Ukraine (way before the war) also no problem being an immigrant if you pay his cronies around 300k euro to get a golden visa (used by international criminals and russian spies very frequently)
His anti-LGBTQ propaganda is just to cover bigger scandals: robbed money through enormous and ridiculous projects.
I am done with left/right political theater. If someone isn't comfortable with the label "libertarian" then they are an authoritarian. When given the power, they will impose their worldview on everyone else.
Yeah. EVEN LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL has it's "own" set of rules now. Baseball is ever different with a dozen more rules than actual baseball. Soon they'll be calling it something else too.
The average neighborhood HOA has pages of rules, regulations, fees, etc. Ours DNA tests all the dogs and keeps it on file so the non-poop-picker-uppers can be discovered and motivated with a fine.
The struggle over the narrative is a fight over the world we live in. The WEF oligarchs, the people running the pandemic response, are using fear and force as they try to replace the 'old normal' with their 'new normal'. Kind of like the security theater and ridiculous intrusions into privacy and suspension of rights that Americans accepted for the "war on terror," now they are making their move on the entire western world with the "war on covid".
To better learn what to expect next, look at their preparations and pandemic war game exercises. The Gates book provided insights, thank you Eugy for suffering through it.
Public health covidians are not crazy, they are just reading off the original script. Gates gave the people in power a plan. It was never about reality, critical thinking, or making adjustments as data arose. They were given a plan, and they are sticking with it.
Perhaps Klaus' book "The Great Narrative" provides further insight into what to expect next from the cabal. Has anyone read it?
And what it has shown up is a failure of so-called multi-party democracy. There has been a complete failure of the official political opposition. This of course is baked in to coalition politics where the parties rely on each other to keep their noses in the trough, but it has been evident elsewhere where the only ‘opposition’ from opposition parties is lockdown, etc should have been imposed earlier, harder and longer. Nor is there a Left/Right divide. Governments on both sides have behaved just as badly, with a few notable, honourable exception at State level in the USA.
A political subspecies has emerged and dominates the ruling class. They are evil.
Okay, so first, agreed! But to a more nuanced point, the political system in the U.S. precludes, that is, absolutely removes from contention, the concept of a viable third party. This is classic Duverger's Law. In a first-past-the-post voting scheme, there can *only* be two (2) viable parties, regardless of issue, or whatever. As I already said, this is a nuance, but those who wonder why some viable third party candidate can never win would do well to study the theories. (Apologies for being pedantic!)
Yes, we are playing a different game. Those on Team Reality continue to express logic in response to the tsunami of incoherent lunacy coming from Team Global, who meanwhile, pay not a whit of attention to any facts presented to them because they are simply not interested. They are driven by narrative, by emotion, to win at all cost. After faithfully reading, listening and commenting on a range of platforms, blogs and channels for 2-3 years now, I have concluded like others before me that Team Global are intent on destroying western civilization and it is gonna take more than a few additional facts to stop them.
Infiltration will not work to re-take the institutions for precisely the reason you describe: the left knows that game and will not allow it, being only too willing to deploy ideological tests. The demand that one submit to the jab is only the latest and most intimate of these.
Nor can the the institutions be re-taken at the ballot box. As the left demonstrated in 2020, they're only too happy to steal elections in broad daylight and then lie infamously about it in the aftermath.
The only way they can be defeated is by allowing them to rule an empire of ashes. Let them keep their legacy media outlets, their universities, their stolen legislatures. As they pack them full of bought men, mid-wit yes men, and diversity hires, the competence of those institutions plummets. Having been barred from those institutions, competent men will have to go somewhere. The most obvious thing for such men to do is to build new institutions, which perform the functions of the suborned institutions more effectively. Having done so, prestige, loyalty, and power will naturally flow from the hollow shells of the old to the shiny skins of the new.
It won't be quick, it won't be easy, but it's the only way.
Part of me, that part of me educated via the propaganda of social studies in public schools, hopes you are wrong. The part of me that has watched unrepentant assholes ascend to positions of power all over the spectrum--particularly in legacy media, universities, and the legislature--knows you are absolutely correct. Wrestling with pigs in their mud only results in getting dirty and frustrated, while losing.
As someone who has literally wrestled pigs, it can be a good time if you know exactly what you're getting into, and have no illusions about the outcome. This may or may not apply to the metaphor as well- Ben Shapiro comes to mind.
I think the axiom is "Never teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." Maybe your version is a conflation with "lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas." They are both truths, but not sure either one quite describes our shared dilemma. The pigs are the choir, now, and aren't interested in wrestling us.
The institutions can't be retaken by ballots, but they cannot be retaken without them. We have another opportunity in November. Few are prepared for what could happen if that fails. No one will like that alternative, so it's important we make it work. It won't happen with a complacent population.
Of course we will have mail-in ballots in the USSA. The Fall C0VID Variant (TM) is due to arrive then, and we'll be locked down. The Science (TM) says the Only Solution to C0VID are masks, lockdowns and endless vaxxines. And the proles believe it.
The problem in the U.S. is, the leadership of the Republican Party is incredibly weak/complacent. In 2020, they knew these drop boxes and mail in ballots were unconstitutional and illegal, yet did nothing to challenge them. I have heard that whistle blowers went to the Republican Party before the election and were ignored.
Out of Watergate, "follow the money" became part of the lexicon. My comment: EVERY politician and bureaucrat gets a paycheck from the same place. Executive Branch, Congressional Branch, Judicial Branch. Checks all come from the US Treasury.
That is where the rewards come from. The threats come from the deep state. They are using both to shut everyone up...so if you don't respond to the $$$ you will certainly respond to the threat of killing your family member or yourself, or even just release false information that you are a pedophile or closet whatever, or you like porn (it will be installed on your computer)...Does no one get that we are totally controlled now by the CIA/NSA/DeepState?
None were heard because of standing. No evidence was allowed to be presented. The only one who called it out was Clarence Thomas...because our judges are also very aware of what could happen to them if they go against the deep state.
BTW, the Dems want only power. They have weaponized everything, but as long as they are allowed to continue their Racketeering for $$, they have no problem in going along. They have been promised by our Deep state...and fully aware of who is running the government. And they have been playing ball.
The DNC holds the power. If you are a Republican the weaponized law enforcement, media and courts has changed the game completely. Just look at the Durham findings. Look at the Biden laptop.
Yes we have pretend DNC controlled opposition claiming to be Republicans and Conservatives, as well as those that have a gun to their head. That is why I do not believe it is inevitable corp money controls it all. The Hillary emails that were released showing that structure in operation did not get any real traction in the world only prove my point. The outrage was not for the content of the emails but that fact that the emails were stollen.
No, That is what Eugyppius just pointed out above...most people think it is one party, but it is actually that the right keeps hoping to become the elite and go back to the institutions and life they had before...which is insane and not possible. But this is their ardent hope, and why they diss the depolorables along with the left.
I dont think people realize what will happen if elections fail and faith in them continues to decline. We already see 20 state in the US have officially called for a Convention of States which is a big deal. You see the imperative for it from the Populist argument being made. You see it in the US migration patterns as well.
It has begun to feel like someone using using AI in this conversation and is staying many steps ahead. The rapid shift in messaging is amazing.
20 states isn't enough. Needs 34. Ain't gonna happen in an evenly divided country. But the real problem isn't the Constitution or any other law, it's we the people. No law influences those who are above the law. School shooters ignore criminal law, rainbow jihadists ignore biology, and congress speaks publicly of writing laws they're exempt from to diminish our liberties. Solutions will only come from convincing supporters of fascism they're wrong, and punishing those who can't be convinced. Some people are just inherently, irredeemably bad. Can't be helped, only eliminated.
I hear the parallel institutions argument a lot, but i can't see how even a medium size institution seeking to gain power wouldn't be subject to lawfare, deplatforming, removal of payment processing, and a potential visit from anarcho-tyrannical mobs.
Yes, it's more complicated practical problem than that. The idea of "start our own universities!" falls at the first "who wants to send their own personal kid to a non-accredited institution?" hurdle. A degree from a non-accredited institution opens no doors.
and it misses what is key to conservatism: the idea that old structures are worth preserving. If our response to the scorched earth of contemporary leftism is "oh yeah? WE NOW HAVE FLAME THROWERS TOO BABY", well, good luck and god help us all. New institutions will inherently lack what is most precious about old institutions.
The analysis of the complicity of conservatism is excellent here; what to do about it, still unclear. For me a key moment was when a recent "conversion therapy" bill passed in Canada with no discussion and no vote: not a single conservative in the entire legislative apparatus dared to say "actually sterilizing gay lesbian and autistic kids is possibly not entirely bueno". Not ONE. And they'd gotten a tremendous amount of contact from the public about it and they even could have trotted out scores of radical feminists as cover from attacks from the left. Nope. No interest, no spine, nothing.
>not a single conservative in the entire legislative apparatus dared to say "actually sterilizing gay lesbian and autistic kids is possibly not entirely bueno".
Cue joke about conservatives agreeing with liberals for all the wrong reasons.
We've seen repeatedly that attempts to build alt-institutions on their own end up not being viable for precisely the reason that their reliance on other elements of the system amounts to fatal exploitable weaknesses. It follows that what's needed isn't a piecemeal response, but rather a comprehensive solution that provides a full, integrated societal stack: financial transactions, education & training, food supply, manufacturing, energy, defense, dispute resolution, etc.
We need people skilled in every profession collecting around a programmatic Schelling point with the aim of providing for all basic human needs; doing so better than the current system; and doing so without the involvement of the globalist technoratic elements that seek our enslavement.
I don't think the "build an alternative platform/society" strategy is viable.
You're dealing with oligarchs who are just wearing the left as a skin suit.
In their religion, "competition is a sin".
They will cut down your tree while it is still a sapling.
Parler was a good microcosm of that principle at play. They don't play by any rules (that's the in-joke behind the title of the book "Rules" For Radicals). Amazon not only defiled it's contractual obligations, it illegally stole their data and then leaked user data. There is nothing honorable about the way they operate. They have rules, but they are Satanic in principle (one does not need to believe in Satan to know the principles).
No, good men will not be able to create a parallel society while they keep to themselves. You do not understand the nature of colonialism. That's what this is - global, generational, social, societal, COMPLETE occupation. There's not even a word to describe what this megalomania is determined to achieve. Not even "technocracy" covers it. Maybe the word "Hell" will do for now.
Technocracy has been in the works since the 30's...so to me, it explains the hell we are currently be nudged into. All encompassing digital slavery...forever.
Just because they were successful in a situation where everyone assumed the RNC was being vigilant to keep the DNC and Mark Elias et al honest, doesn't mean that engagement can't overcome such strategies. A coherent populist strategy hasn't even been articulated, let alone implemented. By all means start up new institutions, but don't give up on the constitution, this fight hasn't even started.
>>> "It won't be quick, it won't be easy, but it's the only way"
It's pretty unlikely that this is how it will pan out, though; my own view is that we're approaching a stage where there is no prospect of systemic change without widespread violence and (hopefully highly-targeted) blood-letting.
Thoreau's "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" is being increasingly borne out: there is rising tension, even among those 5% or so who have the cognitive wherewithal to position themselves to be largely immune to GloboCap (I usually use a different term, but whatev).
The actual 'Mass Man' - the median schlub, with his 6x-income-mortgage, car loan, credit-card debt and labour-market precarity - sees the data and the worsening global geopolitical framework, and knows that nobody in authority feels the slightest empathy.
It will not take 1970s redux - years of 10% inflation - for there to be ACTUAL armed insurrection (as opposed to Jan6 LARPing being misrepresented by the media). In the 1970s there were no food shortages - but we've all been warned that those are coming.
The old saying "a society is only ever 3 meals away from revolution" (Lenin) or "9 meals from anarchy" (A.H. Lewis) or "4 meals from anarchy" (MI5) has never been more salient at any time in my recollection (going back to the 1970s) than it is right now.
We might get to find out whose guess was closest. We can safely bet MI5's guess will be wrong: like the CIA, they have never been right about anything, ever - even if they're predicting something thing has already happened (and/or that they organised).
If the 'apples to apples' CPI calculation is used - the one that obtained before 1987, when Greenspan and his chums decided to gyp retirees of COLA adjustments - current inflation through the West is in the solid double-digits.
Even people who get their information from the organised _gavage_ of the TV news, are starting to grok that the media is complicit in lying to them: the Mass Man knows that he is 'going backwards' in real terms, even if his 65" TV was only $500.
I might offer a more nuanced, and (hopefully) informed comment on your work later. For now, it seems that the big message is something that I am embarrassed to admit did not dawn on me for months, maybe a year, after the corona-lunacy began. This whole pageant, this whole COVID Dumpster Fireâ„¢ as I like to term it, is about *so* much more than asinine knee-jerk containment policies, vaccine half-assery, and improperly administered NPIs. It is about a heretofore unseen level of control. It is about the playing of a "long game" with respect to obtaining and deploying that control. Unfortunately, many of us on Team Reality have been (again, in my parlance) playing checkers while the other side was playing chess. Politics and who is on which side is all part of that irrelevant debate, it seems.
The essence of left politics is and always has been the desire to control. The world can't simply be permitted to BE - it must be changed, managed, optimized, enlightened ... always of course under the direction of the intellectuals of the left, who know what's best for everyone and to whom it never occurs that there might be important details that escape their notice.
The opposite position, that it is frequently better to allow things to take their natural course and permit humans to find their own way for the entirely obvious reason that no one person, theory, or model can encompass all relevant information and dynamics affecting a system, requires a humility that is entirely beyond them.
This is the reason for the proverb: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
"Do something!" is often the cry, when often doing nothing might be the better course of action.
That describes the great depression and FDR perfectly. He was always doing something, and in doing so, he managed to create the one constant that markets hate: uncertainty. If you didn't know what the rules would be tomorrow, it would be foolish to act on what the rules are today. Don't hire someone new... you may be required to give him something you can't afford when the next arbitrary rule change took place.
When things are in a state of flux, people hunker down and wait for better conditions, and that was exactly what the economy did not need in order to get any better. A recession or a depression is a crisis in confidence ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself") more than anything else, but how can you be confident when you know the guy in charge is monkeying with the rules constantly?
That’s a major factor for the post lockdown malaise we are likely to endure for years. I know I won’t start a business in any of the big lockdown states any time soon.
Yes, when the rule keep changing, it’s impossible to make plans. Markets like consistency and stability.
The hubris, arrogance and complete absence of humility is breathtaking to behold.
Actually - they are preventing epic suffering by doing what they are doing.
If they do not then 8B will be left in the dark... starving... look at what is happening in Sri Lanka... and they are not yet starving...
We are into massive overshoot and the collapse of civilization was approaching... the people who run the show are doing something about it... before it's too late
Well the other solution wasn't;t pretty but we will have it in the end. (they get weak and dies of disease and we shoot the boats) Politics is fractal. If you cannot manage the neighbourhood you cannot manage the state. We destabilise ourselves and keep encouraging them. We cannot take the 3billion who want to come so why even take a billion.
Amen
While "laissez-faire" turns out to be disastrous for policies (SOME regulation and oversight is always needed!) the left takes the opposite tack and wants EVERYTHING and everyone regulated -- by their perfect selves, of course. Everyone always thinks he'll be the on regulating, not the one being regulated.
Too many decades mucking in toxic policy to let comments about regulation go without a reality check. Oversight functions and regulatory laws are more effective at blocking competition, reducing liability and providing PR cover for dangerous and criminal activity. The beneficiaries complain about the burden as part of a marketing strategy to create an illusion of adversaries in Washington when in fact they're profiteering co-conspirators against the public interests.
Most current example would be EUA w liability wavers for COVID jabs but this is far from unique. Despite all the fanfare about protecting the public most widely used chemicals have NEVER had even the most basic human health and safety testing. Scorecard is the global authority for chemical safety.. UC Davis hosted the database until 2020 when it was pulled w landing page note project ended.
Basic Testing to Identify Chemical Hazards
If an industrial chemical is allowed by law to be released into the environment, most people assume that it must have been tested and evaluated for its potential risks. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Keeping chemical hazards under control requires information about what kinds of hazards each chemical poses. If the basic tests to check on a chemical's toxicity haven't been conducted, or if the results aren't publicly available, current laws tend to treat that chemical as if it were perfectly safe.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120917041002/http://scorecard.goodguide.com/chemical-profiles/chems-profile-descriptions.tcl#basic_testing
Laissez-Faire is obviously not perfect, that’s not what any serious proponent of it would suggest. But letting an entity with a monopoly on violence make all the rules will eventually end in something like what we have, now.
We've been indoctrinated with the assumption that laissez faire leads to anarchy. Our betters want us to believe that we can't survive without government, and we have allowed it to intrude on and regulate every aspect of our lives.
Read Three Felonies a Day.
Remember the depression of 1920?
Most people don't. Calvin Coolidge was in office, and he was a laissez-faire type. He let it run its course, and soon it gave way to the roaring 20s, with the depression forgotten. He could have turned it into a multiyear juggernaut as would Hoover and FDR a decade and change later, but he didn't.
Unfortunately, "the next big thing" often makes people blind to the downside, and as we all know, a bubble formed in the stock market. People had irrational exuberance over the stock market, believing somehow that things can go up without coming down, extending credit to anyone and everyone no matter how risky, with the belief that the stocks themselves would always be valuable enough collateral to cover any losses... exactly the same as residential real estate in the years leading up to 2008.
Despite having Coolidge's example of how to deal with a downturn in the economy (let the market correct itself), Hoover chose interventionism, and while the occurrence of the depression itself was not his fault, the preservation of it until what ultimately became the end of his administration was. When FDR came in, he did the same kinds of things at first, and it just went from there, trying one thing after another, with the sole exception being what Coolidge did... nothing.
Despite his role in preserving the depression for years, FDR was popular because he was always seen as doing something, and the people share the same bias toward action that FDR did. It would have been politically dfficult to do nothing and ride it out, since people have the bias toward "at least he's doing something."
Woodrow Wilson was still president in 1920, but incapacitated by a stroke, so that it was his wife who was running things. As a result of the 1920 election, Warren Harding became president in 1921, and Calvin Coolidge vice president. Coolidge only became president when Harding died a couple of years later.
Dude. That is another fascinating discussion. No doubt your show trial will be more entertaining than mine.
Tens of thousands of my ancestors died because of laissez-faire policies, and millions came to America because of them only to die here, so no, I don' think I will. Medicine often used to be lethal, and food unsanitary, before regulation. I'm all for reasonable regulation. The problem with regulation, as with everything in life, is PEOPLE. Without regulations, people take advantage of others one way. Too much regulation, and different people take advantage of others another way.
"Medicine often used to be lethal, and food unsanitary, before regulation."
Medicine is still lethal now (medical errors are 3rd leading cause of death in the US:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
Lots of poisonous food still on the grocery store shelves, too. Pesticide and glyphosate residues, as well as hydrogenated oils and hyper-processed food, are not exactly health products.
They just slowly kill you, after first making you a nice pharma customer.
Your mistake Gail is that you think a monopoly cartel should provide the valuable, useful service of regulatory quality-control. The market provides certification and validation services in many different industries; wherever the government isn't imprinting its obese backside and crowding out competitors with crude controls and lots of resources. For example, people rely on the FDA and/or USDA to inspect and certify drugs and foods. But how many people are harmed each year by adulterated or defective foods or medicines? Do I even have to ask?
You say the problem is "people"; but actually the problem is monopoly. The real debate is monopoly government (a Hobbesian concept) vs. governance. The latter allows a free society, in a decentralized manner, to regulate itself through private mediators, insurance companies, whatever arises in the imagination of producers and is validated by consumer demand.
We will never have a perfect society - because we are people. But competition sharpens the offerings of a society and gives producers and consumers options to do things a better way, without monopoly barriers.
The problem is the regulators are bought and paid for by the industries they supposedly regulate. The entire system has become corrupted. Industry execs become regulators, and vice versa. It’s all a giant mess. At this point I’d be willing to get rid of most all regulation and allow the chips to fall as they may.
1000%
You cannot have a perfect world. The government controlling anything leads to what you see today. I'd take a benevolent dictator every time. I'll go with one human rather than hundreds and hundreds who end up going after power and money to get what they want. The right person has both power and money, maybe that person doesn't need to kill others to keep it.
The ideal form of government, the ancients said, was a benevolent ruler. The problem is, of course, that they are very rare. Even if you get one, and even if he stays benevolent, he eventually dies. Every form of government devolves into a bad version of itself as the safeguards put in to stop that from happening are subverted. In theory a government can STOP devolving and improve again. But most of the time, history shows, it gets taken over by something or someone else. Sometimes quickly, sometimes very slowly.
To a certain point some regulations are helpful in preventing harm. But those in the regulation business always continue expansion of regulations indefinitely because they enjoy their jobs. Trump's notion of removing rules to create a new one made sense and gave useful work for regulators in the fact of full bookshelves of rules. The growth of the Federal Register over time reflects the daily arrival of more rules many which go well beyond reducing harm. The regulators regulate.
Are you really comparing laws requiring food inspections to Stalin? Because I do not think one necessarily leads to the other.
I highly recommend Rudolph Rummel's work on "democide".
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/
...beat me to saying exactly that!
My brother, rest assured that among the proponents of the free market and laissez-faire political economy, I am in the (nearly psychotic) tail of that distribution!
Those basic rules are a form of regulation....the Human Condition, being as it is will always wind up with entities gaming the system to their benefit so there has to be that invisible hand of governance to do the best it can to provide an equal playing field for entry and exit as well as incentive to innovation......what has transpired over decades is a movment away from those basic rules and the real consequences of violating them to a regulatory nightmare that has no teeth, created largely by both out of touch liberals and/or lobbyists .....
Well said.
I’ve been working with special needs children a lot lately and a major factor for arousing their interest in something is novelty.
While I don’t exactly intend to compare leftism to an intellectual disability I suspect a similar drive exists in their constant push for change.
Life is never exactly as one wishes it to be so there is eternal fuel for the fire of agitation by those who deny or cannot comprehend natural order.
These types must be contained in their ability to affect our world. There is no other way.
>While I don’t exactly intend to compare leftism to an intellectual disability
No, no, please, compare away.
What Leftists fail to consider is the natural course of things will always prevail in the end.
Please please let that happen sooner than it looks
History shows that the natural course of things is the lowest common denominator - namely an authoritarian hierarchy. This is the default state for civilization. Monarchy, dictatorship, aristocracy, oligarchy, plutacracy - take your pick. It all comes back to rule by force. Governments based on universal rights are sadly, a historical aberation. This doesn't mean that citizens would have no rights, only that rights are not universal nor garunteed by governments. Think pre-1800 societies, or perhaps in some cases pre-1500 societies.
There's no left and right. That's the problem. Anyone who believes the 'opposition' figures are any better are in delusion.
Orban's name particularly upsets me here. He seems he is doing something differently but he is not. He is not for the people.
Him and his followers were all blinded by covid hysteria and vaccination propaganda. All shunned the unvaccinated and they were absolutely vile about it. He made mandatory vaccination available by employers in very early times. He made students suffer by mandating quarantine only for unvaccinated kids even if a vaccinated tested positive in a class. (and many other hidden trickery)
About his family propaganda: from 1st of January any private reproduction assisting clinic ceased to exist.
About his fake immigration policies: while on the surface he opposes immigration he made available emergency visas to bring cheap labour to Hungary for example from Vietnam or Ukraine (way before the war) also no problem being an immigrant if you pay his cronies around 300k euro to get a golden visa (used by international criminals and russian spies very frequently)
His anti-LGBTQ propaganda is just to cover bigger scandals: robbed money through enormous and ridiculous projects.
And we could continue on infinitely.
I am done with left/right political theater. If someone isn't comfortable with the label "libertarian" then they are an authoritarian. When given the power, they will impose their worldview on everyone else.
Well said!
well said
Yeah. EVEN LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL has it's "own" set of rules now. Baseball is ever different with a dozen more rules than actual baseball. Soon they'll be calling it something else too.
The average neighborhood HOA has pages of rules, regulations, fees, etc. Ours DNA tests all the dogs and keeps it on file so the non-poop-picker-uppers can be discovered and motivated with a fine.
The struggle over the narrative is a fight over the world we live in. The WEF oligarchs, the people running the pandemic response, are using fear and force as they try to replace the 'old normal' with their 'new normal'. Kind of like the security theater and ridiculous intrusions into privacy and suspension of rights that Americans accepted for the "war on terror," now they are making their move on the entire western world with the "war on covid".
To better learn what to expect next, look at their preparations and pandemic war game exercises. The Gates book provided insights, thank you Eugy for suffering through it.
Public health covidians are not crazy, they are just reading off the original script. Gates gave the people in power a plan. It was never about reality, critical thinking, or making adjustments as data arose. They were given a plan, and they are sticking with it.
Perhaps Klaus' book "The Great Narrative" provides further insight into what to expect next from the cabal. Has anyone read it?
Klaus is a manufactured villain to deflect from what is really going down here. He even has his Klingon outfit provided by Hollywood https://newsvoice.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Klaus-Schwab-Blofelt.jpg
And what it has shown up is a failure of so-called multi-party democracy. There has been a complete failure of the official political opposition. This of course is baked in to coalition politics where the parties rely on each other to keep their noses in the trough, but it has been evident elsewhere where the only ‘opposition’ from opposition parties is lockdown, etc should have been imposed earlier, harder and longer. Nor is there a Left/Right divide. Governments on both sides have behaved just as badly, with a few notable, honourable exception at State level in the USA.
A political subspecies has emerged and dominates the ruling class. They are evil.
Okay, so first, agreed! But to a more nuanced point, the political system in the U.S. precludes, that is, absolutely removes from contention, the concept of a viable third party. This is classic Duverger's Law. In a first-past-the-post voting scheme, there can *only* be two (2) viable parties, regardless of issue, or whatever. As I already said, this is a nuance, but those who wonder why some viable third party candidate can never win would do well to study the theories. (Apologies for being pedantic!)
Yes, we are playing a different game. Those on Team Reality continue to express logic in response to the tsunami of incoherent lunacy coming from Team Global, who meanwhile, pay not a whit of attention to any facts presented to them because they are simply not interested. They are driven by narrative, by emotion, to win at all cost. After faithfully reading, listening and commenting on a range of platforms, blogs and channels for 2-3 years now, I have concluded like others before me that Team Global are intent on destroying western civilization and it is gonna take more than a few additional facts to stop them.
They already control everything -- notice how there is no opposition to this? All the parties... all the social media platforms... all the MSM
What more control is there to be had?
well stated. completely true. We are trusting honest people and there are so many criminals out there.
And not a single political party opposes this?
Infiltration will not work to re-take the institutions for precisely the reason you describe: the left knows that game and will not allow it, being only too willing to deploy ideological tests. The demand that one submit to the jab is only the latest and most intimate of these.
Nor can the the institutions be re-taken at the ballot box. As the left demonstrated in 2020, they're only too happy to steal elections in broad daylight and then lie infamously about it in the aftermath.
The only way they can be defeated is by allowing them to rule an empire of ashes. Let them keep their legacy media outlets, their universities, their stolen legislatures. As they pack them full of bought men, mid-wit yes men, and diversity hires, the competence of those institutions plummets. Having been barred from those institutions, competent men will have to go somewhere. The most obvious thing for such men to do is to build new institutions, which perform the functions of the suborned institutions more effectively. Having done so, prestige, loyalty, and power will naturally flow from the hollow shells of the old to the shiny skins of the new.
It won't be quick, it won't be easy, but it's the only way.
Part of me, that part of me educated via the propaganda of social studies in public schools, hopes you are wrong. The part of me that has watched unrepentant assholes ascend to positions of power all over the spectrum--particularly in legacy media, universities, and the legislature--knows you are absolutely correct. Wrestling with pigs in their mud only results in getting dirty and frustrated, while losing.
And the pig enjoys it...
As someone who has literally wrestled pigs, it can be a good time if you know exactly what you're getting into, and have no illusions about the outcome. This may or may not apply to the metaphor as well- Ben Shapiro comes to mind.
and the pig enjoys it
I think the axiom is "Never teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." Maybe your version is a conflation with "lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas." They are both truths, but not sure either one quite describes our shared dilemma. The pigs are the choir, now, and aren't interested in wrestling us.
I've never heard that one. It's funny too.
I've heard the one about don't wrestle with a pig before though.
and the dogs one too.
The institutions can't be retaken by ballots, but they cannot be retaken without them. We have another opportunity in November. Few are prepared for what could happen if that fails. No one will like that alternative, so it's important we make it work. It won't happen with a complacent population.
The drumbeat of needing to have mail-in ballots has begun.
It doesn't matter how one votes if the unscrupulous count the votes.
Of course we will have mail-in ballots in the USSA. The Fall C0VID Variant (TM) is due to arrive then, and we'll be locked down. The Science (TM) says the Only Solution to C0VID are masks, lockdowns and endless vaxxines. And the proles believe it.
yep. makes me crazy.
Speaking of crazy, is your alias a reference to The Rolling Stones or something else?
A book. Shibumi. By Trevanian.
New respect for your alias.
I'll look it up. Forgive my rock n roll point of view but that's just me. đŸ˜Œ
And Presidentish Bite-Me actually said that out loud, that who counts the votes, wins. We saw that shit show in 2020
who COUNTS the votes! COUNTS!
Don't forget he shouted randomly and threateningly at us on that one, yet again.
nauseatingly
The problem in the U.S. is, the leadership of the Republican Party is incredibly weak/complacent. In 2020, they knew these drop boxes and mail in ballots were unconstitutional and illegal, yet did nothing to challenge them. I have heard that whistle blowers went to the Republican Party before the election and were ignored.
Out of Watergate, "follow the money" became part of the lexicon. My comment: EVERY politician and bureaucrat gets a paycheck from the same place. Executive Branch, Congressional Branch, Judicial Branch. Checks all come from the US Treasury.
That is where the rewards come from. The threats come from the deep state. They are using both to shut everyone up...so if you don't respond to the $$$ you will certainly respond to the threat of killing your family member or yourself, or even just release false information that you are a pedophile or closet whatever, or you like porn (it will be installed on your computer)...Does no one get that we are totally controlled now by the CIA/NSA/DeepState?
I heard there were numerous lawsuits from the republicans at many states at the same time.
None were heard because of standing. No evidence was allowed to be presented. The only one who called it out was Clarence Thomas...because our judges are also very aware of what could happen to them if they go against the deep state.
BTW, the Dems want only power. They have weaponized everything, but as long as they are allowed to continue their Racketeering for $$, they have no problem in going along. They have been promised by our Deep state...and fully aware of who is running the government. And they have been playing ball.
The DNC holds the power. If you are a Republican the weaponized law enforcement, media and courts has changed the game completely. Just look at the Durham findings. Look at the Biden laptop.
Yes we have pretend DNC controlled opposition claiming to be Republicans and Conservatives, as well as those that have a gun to their head. That is why I do not believe it is inevitable corp money controls it all. The Hillary emails that were released showing that structure in operation did not get any real traction in the world only prove my point. The outrage was not for the content of the emails but that fact that the emails were stollen.
No, That is what Eugyppius just pointed out above...most people think it is one party, but it is actually that the right keeps hoping to become the elite and go back to the institutions and life they had before...which is insane and not possible. But this is their ardent hope, and why they diss the depolorables along with the left.
I have increasingly come to think this as well.
I dont think people realize what will happen if elections fail and faith in them continues to decline. We already see 20 state in the US have officially called for a Convention of States which is a big deal. You see the imperative for it from the Populist argument being made. You see it in the US migration patterns as well.
It has begun to feel like someone using using AI in this conversation and is staying many steps ahead. The rapid shift in messaging is amazing.
20 states isn't enough. Needs 34. Ain't gonna happen in an evenly divided country. But the real problem isn't the Constitution or any other law, it's we the people. No law influences those who are above the law. School shooters ignore criminal law, rainbow jihadists ignore biology, and congress speaks publicly of writing laws they're exempt from to diminish our liberties. Solutions will only come from convincing supporters of fascism they're wrong, and punishing those who can't be convinced. Some people are just inherently, irredeemably bad. Can't be helped, only eliminated.
I hear the parallel institutions argument a lot, but i can't see how even a medium size institution seeking to gain power wouldn't be subject to lawfare, deplatforming, removal of payment processing, and a potential visit from anarcho-tyrannical mobs.
Yes, it's more complicated practical problem than that. The idea of "start our own universities!" falls at the first "who wants to send their own personal kid to a non-accredited institution?" hurdle. A degree from a non-accredited institution opens no doors.
and it misses what is key to conservatism: the idea that old structures are worth preserving. If our response to the scorched earth of contemporary leftism is "oh yeah? WE NOW HAVE FLAME THROWERS TOO BABY", well, good luck and god help us all. New institutions will inherently lack what is most precious about old institutions.
The analysis of the complicity of conservatism is excellent here; what to do about it, still unclear. For me a key moment was when a recent "conversion therapy" bill passed in Canada with no discussion and no vote: not a single conservative in the entire legislative apparatus dared to say "actually sterilizing gay lesbian and autistic kids is possibly not entirely bueno". Not ONE. And they'd gotten a tremendous amount of contact from the public about it and they even could have trotted out scores of radical feminists as cover from attacks from the left. Nope. No interest, no spine, nothing.
>not a single conservative in the entire legislative apparatus dared to say "actually sterilizing gay lesbian and autistic kids is possibly not entirely bueno".
Cue joke about conservatives agreeing with liberals for all the wrong reasons.
Same happening in NZ and it breaks my heart.
Which tells me they are all afraid of losing their power and position. Because of Threats by the unseen fine Italian hand running everything now.
We've seen repeatedly that attempts to build alt-institutions on their own end up not being viable for precisely the reason that their reliance on other elements of the system amounts to fatal exploitable weaknesses. It follows that what's needed isn't a piecemeal response, but rather a comprehensive solution that provides a full, integrated societal stack: financial transactions, education & training, food supply, manufacturing, energy, defense, dispute resolution, etc.
We need people skilled in every profession collecting around a programmatic Schelling point with the aim of providing for all basic human needs; doing so better than the current system; and doing so without the involvement of the globalist technoratic elements that seek our enslavement.
Thank you for giving hope. What is a Schelling point?
It's a focus of interest or common understanding that serves to coordinate activity between actors that therefore don't require centralized direction.
Many thanks. Learned something new.
also sparkle ponies.
Yes, that'll do nicely.
Choice doesn't destroy power. It reclaims it. Power is like energy in the universe- neither created nor destroyed. It just flows.
Three of us? #Ahem
Which is why to move to a programmable Digital currency. The problem with Bitcon, et al, is it dependent on the net and electricity.
Please watch this...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XTSz73-iz6s
'that was good. Thanks.
I don't think the "build an alternative platform/society" strategy is viable.
You're dealing with oligarchs who are just wearing the left as a skin suit.
In their religion, "competition is a sin".
They will cut down your tree while it is still a sapling.
Parler was a good microcosm of that principle at play. They don't play by any rules (that's the in-joke behind the title of the book "Rules" For Radicals). Amazon not only defiled it's contractual obligations, it illegally stole their data and then leaked user data. There is nothing honorable about the way they operate. They have rules, but they are Satanic in principle (one does not need to believe in Satan to know the principles).
No, good men will not be able to create a parallel society while they keep to themselves. You do not understand the nature of colonialism. That's what this is - global, generational, social, societal, COMPLETE occupation. There's not even a word to describe what this megalomania is determined to achieve. Not even "technocracy" covers it. Maybe the word "Hell" will do for now.
Technocracy has been in the works since the 30's...so to me, it explains the hell we are currently be nudged into. All encompassing digital slavery...forever.
Just because they were successful in a situation where everyone assumed the RNC was being vigilant to keep the DNC and Mark Elias et al honest, doesn't mean that engagement can't overcome such strategies. A coherent populist strategy hasn't even been articulated, let alone implemented. By all means start up new institutions, but don't give up on the constitution, this fight hasn't even started.
>>> "It won't be quick, it won't be easy, but it's the only way"
It's pretty unlikely that this is how it will pan out, though; my own view is that we're approaching a stage where there is no prospect of systemic change without widespread violence and (hopefully highly-targeted) blood-letting.
Thoreau's "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" is being increasingly borne out: there is rising tension, even among those 5% or so who have the cognitive wherewithal to position themselves to be largely immune to GloboCap (I usually use a different term, but whatev).
The actual 'Mass Man' - the median schlub, with his 6x-income-mortgage, car loan, credit-card debt and labour-market precarity - sees the data and the worsening global geopolitical framework, and knows that nobody in authority feels the slightest empathy.
It will not take 1970s redux - years of 10% inflation - for there to be ACTUAL armed insurrection (as opposed to Jan6 LARPing being misrepresented by the media). In the 1970s there were no food shortages - but we've all been warned that those are coming.
The old saying "a society is only ever 3 meals away from revolution" (Lenin) or "9 meals from anarchy" (A.H. Lewis) or "4 meals from anarchy" (MI5) has never been more salient at any time in my recollection (going back to the 1970s) than it is right now.
We might get to find out whose guess was closest. We can safely bet MI5's guess will be wrong: like the CIA, they have never been right about anything, ever - even if they're predicting something thing has already happened (and/or that they organised).
If the 'apples to apples' CPI calculation is used - the one that obtained before 1987, when Greenspan and his chums decided to gyp retirees of COLA adjustments - current inflation through the West is in the solid double-digits.
Even people who get their information from the organised _gavage_ of the TV news, are starting to grok that the media is complicit in lying to them: the Mass Man knows that he is 'going backwards' in real terms, even if his 65" TV was only $500.