Category Archives: Philosophical and speculative

Who are the stupid ones around here?

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Received the following note from a friend, who reminds, by having sent this to me, that the lockdown is not all bad since we are not able to go out to dinner with him at the present moment. He writes:
“Great article Steve.I’m sure you will enjoy it. Not from FOX 🦊 but what the fuck , we can all find articles to support our world view: Should the unvaccinated be left behind?“


The full title, “Should the unvaccinated be left behind — if their stupidity isn’t their fault?” And whether it is all that hard to find articles that encourage someone to take the vax is a ridiculous question since such articles are everywhere and constant.

For me, the probability of getting covid is not zero but pretty low. The probability of dying from covid seems even lower. The probability of having something go wrong medically some time in the future because I have had the vax is much greater than zero, is an unknown risk, and is, moreover, an additional risk which I prefer to avoid if I can since the vax does not prevent anyone from getting covid. Bring on a genuine vaccine and then I’m all in.

It really is a question that ought to have been asked why the American Congress explicitly rejected vaxxines for its members and its employees. It’s not entirely a matter of personal freedom, but is a matter of personal judgement. I do not think my not being vaxxinated endangers a single other person, but I do think getting the vax endangers me. 

And there is this. Anyone who has been vaxxinated must spend the rest of their lives wondering whether they now harbour within their bodies some foreign agent that will at some point do them in. And if they don’t have such thoughts in their minds, they are the stupid ones.

What has happened to the supposed instinct for self preservation?

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An interesting post – You’re struggling to understand where all this vaccine hesitancy comes from. Let me help you –  long and windy which eventually reaches this conclusion.

The same people who told you Brexit would never happen, that Trump would never win, that when he did win it was because of Russian collusion but also because of racism, that you must follow lockdowns while they don’t, that masks don’t work, that masks do work, that social justice protests during pandemic lockdowns are a form of “health intervention,” that ransacking African American communities in the name of fighting racism is a “mostly peaceful” form of protest, that poor and underserved children locked out of shuttered schools are “still learning,” that Jussie Smollett was a victim of a hate crime, that men are toxic, that there is an infinite number of genders, that COVID couldn’t have come from a lab until maybe it did, that closing borders is racist until maybe it isn’t, that you shouldn’t take Trump’s vaccine, that you must take the vaccine developed during the Trump administration, that Andrew Cuomo is a great leader, that Andrew Cuomo is a granny killer, that the number of COVID deaths is one thing and then another … are the same people telling you now that the vaccine is safe, that you must take it, and that if you don’t, you will be a second-class citizen.

Why does anyone still believe a thing they say?

Sounds bad. Why does no one else mention it?

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From British researchers find a potential mechanism for Covid vaccine-caused heart injury. 

The preprint runs 26 pages and includes 56 footnotes. I am no expert on the structure and function of heart cells, but as far as I can tell it appears meticulously documented. And it paints a troubling picture: specialized blood vessel cells called pericytes have receptors called CD147s. The novel coronavirus itself (Sars-Cov-2) cannot attack these CD147s and damage the pericyte cells, potentially leading to clotting and heart attacks.

But free-floating spike protein – like the spike protein the vaccines make our bodies produce – can.

With this the conclusion.

“Importantly, we show that the recombinant S protein alone elicits cellular signalling through the CD147 receptor in cardiac [cells], thereby inducing cell dysfunction and microvascular disruption in vitro.”

Hmmm: “inducing cell dysfunction and microvascular disruption”. Sounds bad. Why does no one else mention it?

To which may be added this: The Powerful Case Against COVID mRNA ‘Vaccines’. Think about this.

There are two reasons for Covid infections.  One is the mRNA vaccine which spreads Covid. The other is the refusal of the Western medical establishment to prevent and treat Covid with HCQ or Ivermectin….

But the failure of the mRNA vaccine is far more serious than the failure to protect. The vaccine itself (1) causes illnesses and deaths identical to Covid illnesses and deaths as the massive number of deaths and health injuries in the adverse vaccine reaction databases indicate,  (2) the “vaccine” creates variants capable of escaping immune response, and (3) the vaccinated are contagious and dangerous to the unvaccinated.

In other words, the so-called breakthrough cases that are now overwhelming the most vaccinated countries are caused by vaccination.  To continue jabbing people risks such death and injury and counterproductive totalitarian policies as to lead to societal collapse.

Is this really true? From everything we have seen up till now, it is certainly possible. No actual facts we know of contradict this view of what is going on. Anyway, go to the link and read it all. Since there is nothing any of us can do, what difference will it make if we know what’s going on even while it is going on? As he asks:

Doctors and scientists  have reported the effectiveness of HCQ and Ivermectin, which have such safe records of use over decades that in countries not controlled by pharmaceutical companies they are available for over-the-counter purchase just like aspirin.  Yet the corrupt American medical establishment declares the proven preventatives and cures to be “unsafe,” and the mRNA vaccine that is spreading Covid is declared to be the answer.

What is the agenda?

And as he writes towards the end.

Healthy people face a minuscule  threat of death or serious injury from Covid.  Vulnerable people with co-morbidities can be safely and securely put on preventative doses of Ivermectin or HCQ.  There is no reason, other than pure negligence of the medical profession, for vulnerable people to even catch Covid.  There is certainly no reason for them to die because the medical profession withholds treatment with known cures.

Will the true story ever be told? And if so by whom and who will be the audience?

Don’t believe anything the government tells you

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“I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me. Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize: the government does not give a fuck about them. The government doesn’t care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare, or your safety. It simply doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’s interested in its own power. That’s the only thing keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.”

– George Carlin

That’s the quote at the start of this article: “This War On COVID Will Never End”. Except that the war is not against Covid but against us. Read it all but let me highlight this:

This flu has a 99.7% survival rate and has a fatality rate less than the annual flu for those under 21. But universities are mandating vaccination to attend their $60,000 per year woke indoctrination centers to get a degree in gender fluidity studies. Meanwhile, with vaccination rates of 98% on campuses, “cases” from the worthless recalled (as of 12/31) PCR test are surging. The Big Pharma captured vaxx cheerleaders in the medical and media industry do not allow the facts to interfere with their scripted narrative. Their solution – vaxx harder and blame those who choose to let their immune systems do their job for the “surge” in cases. Why not go with the Big Lie – it has worked so well thus far….

The Joe Rogan saga has again shattered their plot line of the covidian cultists. He had infuriated them previously by telling his young audience they don’t need to be vaccinated. Their survival rate is 99.9975%. The cost/benefit analysis clearly comes down on the side of not getting vaxxed. The fifty-four-year-old un-vaxxed Rogan caught covid and treated himself with monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone, an NAD drip, and a vitamin D drip. He fully recovered in three days….

The last I checked it was rare to die from covid, unless you are really old and already sick with some other fatal ailment. Only 6% of all the covid deaths were from covid alone. I would classify 40,000 deaths in a population of 330 million to be pretty rare, and by any reasonable assessment should not have invoked a planetary lockdown and mass vaccination of billions of people.

It finishes with this quotation from 1984.

“The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. … The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” 

And suppose you know all that. You will still end up loving Big Brother (and Sister).

Protecting the health of children and adults

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This is a website that examines the dangers of vaxxination for children: Safer to Wait – Protecting Children’s Health.

1. Children are at extremely low risk from Covid-19

2. They are not drivers of transmission

3. The vaccines use completely new technologies

4. Serious and fatal adverse reactions have been reported

5. There is no medium or long-term safety data

6. The vaccine manufacturers have zero liability

7. Natural immunity is safer and more effective

8. There are safe and effective treatments for Covid-19

9. Past emergency use vaccines have caused harm

10. It’s not needed for us to reach herd immunity

There is additional information on each of the above at the link.

The only way to create wealth and personal freedom is through markets

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This is the overview of a presentation I gave to the IEA in London in 2011: The Basic Axioms and Fundamental Principles of a Free Market Economy. It also provides a brief bio. There is not much to add since then other than the titles of a number of books and articles that I have published since that time.

Most discussions of how economies work start in the middle where there is already a functioning economy. Indeed, it is always assumed in every economics text that markets are already in operation, money exists, labour is at work and capital is in place. What such discussions do not do is explain the basic economic problem that humans have always had to face in trying to make their way in a world in which they must create their own economic circumstances out of their own ingenuity and hard work. This presentation is taken from one of the opening chapters of Dr Kates’ Free Market Economics: an Introduction for the General Reader, a book being co-published by Edward Elgar and the IEA. It is in this chapter that he explains why the only way to create wealth and personal freedom is through markets, individual freedom and government regulations that are based on allowing markets to work. If you are interested in understanding why there is no alternative to a market economy if prosperity and personal freedom are your aims, this is a presentation not to be missed.

For most of his career Dr Kates worked for industry having been for a quarter of a century the Chief Economist for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (the Australian equivalent of the CBI). As part of this work, he was responsible for the preparation of economic submissions on behalf of business in every area of economic policy. His professional interests have therefore been closely related to the formation of economic theory in line with the needs of policy. He has recently completed an appointment as a Commissioner on the Australian Productivity Commission. His Say’s Law and the Keynesian Revolution, originally published in 1998 but released again in paper in 2009 following the GFC, discussed the loss to economic theory of the disappearance of the classical theory of the cycle.

Seeing beyond the shadows and lies of one’s culture

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Quotes found at Plato’s Cave which proclaims at the top of the page:

Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda.

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” -Plato

These are the quotes they provide as an insight into their perspective. It’s the sort of thing I have been saying about my book, Classical Economic Theory and the Modern Economy. There is economic theory that those who run the economy want you to believe, which many of them may even believe themselves since these beliefs are so profitable to themselves, and then there is the way an economy actually works, which is very different. Meanwhile:

Quotes

“So in our timidity, let each of us make a choice: Whether consciously, to remain a servant of falsehood—of course, it is not out of inclination, but to feed one’s family, that one raises his children in the spirit of lies—or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect both by one’s children and contemporaries.”
– A. Solzhenitsyn
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“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
– Mark Twain
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“Countless, similar stories across thousands of years of human history point to this simple conclusion: the people in charge don’t always tell the truth. Duh. Is that really a controversial statement?”
– Simon Black
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“Complaining about the existence of conspiracy theories is power-serving behavior. Instead, complain about the existence of government, corporate and financial secrecy which causes people to form speculative theories about what the powerful are up to behind that veil of opacity.
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“They concentrate all the power in these tiny little elitist circles, then say ‘You don’t get to know what we’re doing with all our power over here. Not only that, but you don’t even get to talk to each other about what we might be doing, even though it could directly affect you.’
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“How crazy is that? At the very least don’t play along with them and police each other about it on top of that.
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“It’s fine to discuss and debate the validity of individual theories (I do it all the time), but to complain about the fact that people form theories about possible conspiracies when we know for a fact that powerful people conspire is just infantile.”
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-Caitlin Johnston
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“And wouldn’t they — if they could — grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him?”
-Socrates
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“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”
-Gustav Le Bon
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“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
-Edward L. Bernays
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“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
-Theodore Dalrymple
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“The real community of man, in the midst of all the self-contradictory simulacra of community, is the community of those who seek the truth. This, according to Plato, is the only real friendship, the only real common good. It is here that the contact people so desperately seek is to be found.”
-Allan Bloom
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“In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”
-James Fenimore Cooper
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“Advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government … will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.”
-Bertrand Russell
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“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn’t the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn’t flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. ​The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.”
-Donald James aka Dresden James
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Fear, public opinion and the corona virus

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The video, if you click to view, is just as this says: How Phony Coronavirus “Fear Videos” Were Used as Psychological Weapons to Bring America to Her Knees. 

Imagine being a soccer mom and logging onto Facebook and seeing your sister-in-law’s post of a Chinese man foaming at the mouth and dropping dead, with the caption “Just the flu 🙄” You keep scrolling down your timeline and see the same clip over and over, and other similar shock videos shared by neighbors, friends, and people you work with.

You’d lose your mind, and rightfully so. That’s powerful messaging and it had a major impact on the American psyche, day in and day out for two months straight.

Of course, no one is dropping on the streets now or anywhere. But the fear has not gone away, and is being stoked further along every day. 

And a bit of deeper understanding from Robert Higgs who saw all of this happening before it happened: The Political Economy of Fear. The article was originally published May 16, 2005. The article begins:

All animals experience fear—human beings, perhaps, most of all. Any animal incapable of fear would have been hard pressed to survive, regardless of its size, speed, or other attributes. Fear alerts us to dangers that threaten our well-being and sometimes our very lives. Sensing fear, we respond by running away, by hiding, or by preparing to ward off the danger.

To disregard fear is to place ourselves in possibly mortal jeopardy. Even the man who acts heroically on the battlefield, if he is honest, admits that he is scared. To tell people not to be afraid is to give them advice that they cannot take. Our evolved physiological makeup disposes us to fear all sorts of actual and potential threats, even those that exist only in our imagination.

The people who have the effrontery to rule us, who call themselves our government, understand this basic fact of human nature. They exploit it, and they cultivate it. Whether they compose a warfare state or a welfare state, they depend on it to secure popular submission, compliance with official dictates, and, on some occasions, affirmative cooperation with the state’s enterprises and adventures. Without popular fear, no government could endure more than twenty-four hours. David Hume taught that all government rests on public opinion, but that opinion, I maintain, is not the bedrock of government. Public opinion itself rests on something deeper: fear.

Those who push these scenarios must have been amazed at how well the global warming scam worked, and the consequences were not even to occur until decades had passed. So now we have the story of virtually instant viral death. It sells papers, keeps politicians on the left in government and will make slaves of us all unless it is stopped NOW.