I would like to discuss a previous thread by one of our anonymous posters who wrote “about the only thing of note that I haven’t mentioned is the hysterical meltdown of those on the libertarian side of things to just about any government reaction to the current crisis” and I stress the word “any”. Peter Hitchens is apparently “one of the very worst offenders”, someone whom I have quoted a couple of times, “an hysterical female-like counterpoint to his deceased brother”. He is apparently “dancing around with his hands in the air in mortal abject terror of any government imposed change to his daily routine whatsoever” (my bolding). You can read the whole thing for yourself here.
I cannot speak for Peter, but will speak for myself. And I am already all too aware how readily all too many are prepared to throw away their freedoms at the mere whiff of some socialist grapeshot. You want to hear the sound of hysterical, try this:
Our responsibilities at the moment are to sit tight and do our best to not add to the problem. Yes we are suffering some discomfort. Yes, we are also taking a financial hit. Yes, some people are taking a bigger hit than others, either due to their own unpreparedness or suffering the ill fortune of this being very bad timing. But what are governments supposed to do? Take everyone’s individual circumstances into account? Even if they could, which they cannot, exactly why should they?
Our great handicap is that so many of us are conditioned to looking to government to solve our problems. So that when a very big event such as this happens then our only recourse is to scream and shout that something must be done or must not be done as the case may be. But the situation is not normal and screaming at the sky is beyond useless. What we must do is batten down the hatches and rely on ourselves and family and communities first. We must find ways to get things done.
I never classify myself as a libertarian, but I do line myself up ideologically with F.A. Hayek who is, like myself, a classical liberal, a conservative using today’s mode of classification. On Hayek’s attitude to governments in a crisis, Steve Hayward went into that just this morning: HAYEK ON EMERGENCY POWERS OF GOVERNMENT. This is a direct quote from Hayek’s Law, Legislation and Liberty. The bolding this time is from Steve Hayward.
The basic principle of a free society, that the coercive powers of government are restricted to the enforcement of universal rules of just conduct, and cannot be used for the achievement of particular purposes, though essential to the normal working of such a society, may yet have to be temporarily suspended when the long-run preservation of that order is itself threatened. Though normally the individuals need be concerned only with their own concrete aims, and in pursuing them will best serve the common welfare, there may temporarily arise circumstances when the preservation of the over-all order becomes the overruling common purpose, and when in consequence the spontaneous order, on a local or national scale, must for a time be converted into an organization. When an external enemy threatens, when rebellion or lawless violence has broken out, or a natural catastrophe requires quick action by whatever means can be secured, powers of compulsory organization, which normally nobody possesses, must be granted to somebody. Like an animal in flight from mortal danger society may in such situations have to suspend temporarily even vital functions on which in the long run its existence depends if it is to escape destruction.
The conditions under which such emergency powers may be granted without creating the danger that they will be retained when the absolute necessity has passed are among the most difficult and important points a constitution must decide on. ‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded – and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed such emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist. Indeed if all needs felt by important groups that can be satisfied only by the exercise of dictatorial powers constitute an emergency, every situation is an emergency situation. It has been contended with some plausibility that whoever has the power to proclaim an emergency and on this ground to suspend any part of the constitution is the true sovereign. This would seem to be true enough if any person or body were able to arrogate to itself such emergency powers by declaring a state of emergency.
Speaking for myself, I feel in many ways I am already living in a police state. Very benign for the moment, but they are only just starting to get used to the idea of using the police to take away our historic rights. What has amazed me more than anything in this latest episode is how few people actually seem aware of how much is at stake. There are a handful of deaths from the coronavirus but we are not in the middle of the Black Death. What we may well be in the middle of is the death of our personal freedoms. There are plenty around who would like to take them from us already and who they are ought to be visible to us all since they never stop threatening us for going out to take a walk in the park. Once you are used to that, who knows what will come next?
No way forward other than into a wilderness
This is a discussion of FDR’s Christian foundations when speaking to the American people. From Steve Hayward at Powerline. His aim is to get PDT to quote FDR along religious lines. Think how this might stew a few minds.
FDR, an Episcopalian, made the kind of remarks about religion that send the American Civil Liberties Union into paroxysms of rage when someone like George W. Bush or Sarah Palin say the same thing today. Democracy and Christianity, he said, were “two phases of the same civilization.” “We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation,” he said, “without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic.” During World War II FDR wrote a preface for an edition of the New Testament that was distributed to American troops: “As Commander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States.” On the eve of the 1940 election, FDR said in a radio address: “Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God.” On June 6, 1944, FDR led the nation in prayer for our armed forces on live radio, and in his final inaugural address in 1945 he said, “So we pray to Him for the vision to see our way clearly … to achievement of His will.” Today’s liberals would regard these statements and acts as grounds for impeachment.
And really, are all Democrats now atheist? Are they anti-religious? Have they all lost their God? These are people with whom there is no possibility of communication. Whether they know it or not, they have lost their way and for whom there is no salvation. They may think there is an answer in politics, but on this they are absolutely wrong and for whom there is no way forward other than into a wilderness.
The politics of the left has many ways to kill you
This is just one. They do not care about you or anyone else at all. All they are interested in is power for themselves.
Personally I think it’s mostly politics but some people think it’s all politics. It’s getting harder to tell all the time.
Let me add this for further context: Time for a second opinion.
We are trying to stave off and arrest a pandemic. Given what is being recommended, we think we need some second or third opinions. This pandemic, now that it has reached America, has taken 3,173 lives here. This, from a tested population of 164,359 cases. That’s a mortality rate of 1.9%. But immediately, questions must be asked. We record every case of death from the coronavirus, but we have no idea how many people have had the coronavirus. Clearly, there are more than 164,359 cases because not everyone has been tested. That would put the mortality rate at less than 1.9%. That rate could be far, far less. As Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, professors of medicine at Stanford, have written, based on their model of over 6 million cases they believe exist: “That’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two-week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%.”
The data are American, of course, but could just as well be the death-to-infection rate everywhere.
“You know it is going away”
“I want to keep the country calm.”
And there is then this, which you don’t hear very much about: Sweden’s Approach To Coronavirus: Do Nothing.
Sweden has taken a slightly different approach to coronavirus than the rest of the world, allowing life to go on as ‘normal’ with a few exceptions.
Unlike neighboring Denmark – which has restricted meetings to 10 people or less, Swedes are still going out to nightclubs, hanging out with friends, and even ‘enjoying ice creams beneath a giant Thor statue in Mariatorget square,’ according to the BBC.
Not only is it going away, for almost all of us it’s hardly been present, as discussed here: Some Much-Needed Coronavirus Perspective. The final paras:
Depending on how deadly the coronavirus actually turns out to be — and at the moment we have no idea — the cure could truly be worse than the disease.
Let’s be clear, we are not suggesting that the coronavirus isn’t a serious threat, requiring extraordinary measures. And we understand that deaths due to a lifetime of bad health habits are different from a death sentence that people can pass on to each other.
But in any situation, context matters. Unfortunately, that’s the one thing missing from the 24/7 coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
The reality is that it is impossible to find anyone saying anything on the CV who does not have a personal agenda of their own.
It’s all about Trump it’s only about Trump
Start here: Poll: Biden leads Trump by 10 points as economic pessimism grows
Continue with this: Federal Reserve Says Unemployment Rate Could Hit 32%
There’s then this from the Washington Post: 33 times Trump downplayed the coronavirus
Followed by: An Epidemic of Media Partisanship
Plus this: Twitter Forces Laura Ingraham to Delete Post on Chloroquine Helping Coronavirus Patients
Supplemented by this: Is Michigan’s Governor Still Trying To Undermine Trump Over Hydroxychloroquine?
Although every so often a bit of the truth finds its way out: CDC advisor says ‘real’ fatality rate of COVID-19 is too low to justify ‘drastic crackdowns’. The first para:
Naive and sensationalist reporting on fatality rates from the novel coronavirus has contributed to toilet-paper hoarding, drastic crackdowns on civil rights by political figures, and potentially devastating and lasting economic impact.
BTW how many fatalities have there been in Australia so far?
Going on the offensive
Speaking of The Midwich Cuckoos, I genuinely do find talking to anyone on the left all too frequently just like talking to a wall. What especially infuriates me when I think I am just chatting, I am often and suddenly told “I don’t want to talk about that” which just comes out of nowhere to me. Not only are these idiots offended when I say something, even obliquely, about something that’s on my mind, but they don’t want to engage and immediately want to end the conversation.
And while on the subject of being offended, I was in a book shop today and I said to the 30-ish chap behind the counter how put off I was by all the titles such as “The Art of Not Giving a F*ck” – and there were quite a number like that – and he was obviously put off by my language. So I said to him, if you are put off by my saying what I said, just think of what I feel by having to read such titles. I think he saw my point but only barely. He can get knotted.
And another thing. I was reading an article on the recessionary effects of the CV and right in the middle was an unintended rhyming couplet.
The deeper they are and the longer they last,
The more ongoing the damage after the downturn has passed.
And so all such recessions seem always to be.
But if you’re going to quote this couplet you’ll have to cite me.
The Fish Face Files
Every single one of my friends from youth is on the left and often on the loopiest part of the moronic left. Since I see them each for around one day every two years, we manage to get by well enough so that I can still exchange Christmas cards and we let each other know when they have added to their number of grandchildren. To talk politics with them is the instant death of friendship of any kind so I don’t. I, of course, cut no one off, but they would and do. In fact, the six links below is from one of these former friends who now lives in the most idiotic part of the world, possibly bar none, Silicon Valley.
Since the election of PDT he has sent me more than 3200 emails, every one of them containing some news item from media organisations around the world which all have a single characteristic, they are all fanatically anti-Trump. When I was there in Palo Alto in January, I suggested we get together, but after three days he wrote back to say that he had suddenly decided to go to Hawaii for his anniversary. It really is hard on my nerves anyway since he has no other conversation, other than to tell me about how he loves to drive the California hills in his Porsche – no license plates so that he can speed as much as he likes without getting ticketed. I call the file of his emails the Fish Face Files because my Dad could not remember his last name so he called him “fishface” (only to me, of course) which sounds similar to his actual name. Here for your interest are these latest six. The media road guaranteed to bring you to a peak level of ignorance.
From the New York Times: An Open Letter to President Trump
New York Times again, but Paul Krugman: On Coronavirus, We’re #1
More New York Times but the editorial this time: Why Is America Choosing Mass Unemployment?
Another NYT editorial: Trump Wants to ‘Reopen America.’ Here’s What Happens if We Do
More from the NYT: ‘It’s a Wreck’: 3.3 Million File Unemployment Claims as Economy Comes Apart
And this last one from CNN: Fact check: Trump utters series of false and misleading claims at coronavirus briefing
I, of course, welcome these emails since they keep me up to date on the latest thinking on the left. But they are depressing all the same, and remind me why Joe Biden might yet be president.
Herd immunity from common sense is the fundamental characteristic of the left
Talking to friends on the left (actually they are almost entirely my wife’s friends) never fails to astonish me about how lock-step they all are with whatever happens to be the latest ideological fashion statement of the moment. I am often taken by surprise since it is often difficult to keep up with the what beliefs are in or out, but it only requires a conversation with any one of them and I find myself right up to date.
It reminded me of one of my favourite books of my youth, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndam. I read every one of his books when I was a young lad, the most famous being The Day of the Triffids. All of Wyndam’s books are astonishing reads and it seems all are still in print. But the Midwich Cuckoos remains the one I have loved the most, and strangely seems absolutely relevant to understanding the mentality on the left side of politics. I will describe the plot but from the movie made from the book, Village of the Damned (1960 film). The book is better, an absolute page turner. From these plot details of the film you will see how relevant the book is to the mind-numbing sameness of the belief structures on the left. I have left out anything that might give the plot and ending away in the following which is mainly done to show how accurately the book describes the modern left.
The inhabitants of the British village of Midwich suddenly fall unconscious, as does anyone entering the village. Two months later, all women and girls of child-bearing age in the affected area are discovered to be pregnant. All the women give birth on the same day. Their children have a powerful telepathic bond with one another. They can communicate with each other over great distances, and as one learns something, so do the others.
At age three, the children dress impeccably, always walk as a group, speak in an adult manner, and behave maturely, but show no conscience or love, and demonstrate a coldness to others, causing the villagers to fear and be repulsed by them. The children begin to exhibit the power to read minds and to force people to do things against their will. Zellaby, whose “son” David is one of the children, is eager to work with them. Zellaby compares the children’s resistance to reasoning with a brick wall and uses this motif as self-protection against their mind reading after the children’s inhuman nature becomes clear to him.
It may even be that Wyndam wrote the book as a caricature of the mentality on the left in his own time, published as it was in the midst of the cold war (1957). Whether or not that was his intention, it certainly fits the mould today.
Freedom of speech works
People do get it, or at least some do.
Not the end but is it the beginning of the end?
Did Nancy blink? Pelosi delays her coronavirus bill, says will try to pass Senate’s without most members present .
Is this why? Gallup: Trump Up to 49% Approval; 60% Approve of His Handling of the Chinese Flu
Is the Great Corona Virus miasma coming to an end? Dow Posts Record 2,100-Point Gain as Trump Sets Tentative Deadline to Reopen America
Are things coming right because of the President? Trump: Coronavirus crisis vindicates my policy arguments on immigration, trade and China policies
Would this have anything to do with it? Reflections on a Century of Junk Science
During the last few weeks, I had made a point of not watching or following the news. I trusted none of it. A TV at the pizza place, however, was tuned to CNN. It showed the Coronavirus death toll: 12,000-plus worldwide and 285 in the United States.
The numbers stunned me. Not following the news closely, I presumed, based on the hysteria in the air, that the numbers had to be at least ten times that high both nationally and internationally.
285? According to the Centers for Disease Control 185 Americans died of drug overdoses every day in 2018. According to the CDC, 315 people died of the flu every day during the six-month 2018-2019 flu season….
In my 2009 book, Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture, I documented a century’s worth of scientific misinformation, disinformation, half-truths, and lies disseminated almost inevitably to advance a progressive agenda.
The book, btw, is an antidote to quite alot of what’s been going around and not just of late.
Law of Markets 