REPUBLIC REBORN

As if I post a quote a day here. But I digress. This nugget is from page 54 of Annie Dillard’s slim work of genius, The Writing Life. In this particular passage she attempts to explain to a neighbor why, after admitting her hatred of it, she commits to writing at all:

“But I rallied and mustered and said that the idea was to learn things; that you learn a thing and then as a matter of course you learn the next thing, and the next thing…As I spoke he nodded precisely in the way that one nods at the utterances of the deranged.”

“If a consenting adult wants to engage in sex work, that is their right, and it should not be a crime”, said Tulsi. She is taking the humanitarian, and libertarian, position on a consensual transaction between two adults. The only controversy is not that the specific act is sexual in nature, but that money exchanges hands. Legalizing it, giving sex workers full access to legal protection, courts, banks, et cetera, would be enormously empowering for those currently forced to navigate the dangerous, disease-ridden black market. Legalize it, and watch the violent and abusive black market pimps go bankrupt, and let the innovation and entrepreneurship of a multitude of free individuals heal the yawning social fracture that the prohibition of sex work has created. Of course, it will put thousands of law enforcement officers out of work. But that would be an astounding improvement. Far less busybodies with badges harassing people who are harming no one. Legalize it and deal a fatal blow to the modern-day enslavement of girls currently taking place all over the country due to the enormous unsatisfied demand for this service.

Authoritarianism is always sold under the label of humanitarianism. The fine print is never discussed, nor are the possible unintended consequences. Yet it never ceases to amaze me when activists for a particular liberty immediately throw their support behind an authoritarian measure wearing the humanitarian skin suit. The one piece of legislative abomination in particular is Florida’s Senate Bill 1266, the “Stop The Social Media Censorship Act“, which would strangle social media platforms in the state with authoritarian speech codes, and would certainly ensure social media’s rapid departure from such a repressive environment.

Liberty means liberty for all, including owners of private social media companies. It’s indecent and immoral to step into a bakery and demand a cake that they don’t want to bake you. It is equally indecent to create a free profile on a social media website, set up shop, and throw your weight around like you own the place. You’re a customer, and if you don’t like the service, leave. Owners of businesses have just as much of a right to refuse service as you, the customer, do of refusing to patronize them. There are plenty of other internet platforms to choose from. Or you could create your own, as I have here. I use Facebook, yet I’m able to understand the immorality of attempting to use government to coerce my will upon the private company. I also understand the unimaginable danger of giving government ever more power over the choices of private businesses, and private individuals.

“if you don’t like the service, leave” is a great motto in a free society. It affirms the rights of business owners not to be bullied by mobs of people with an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Yet the irony is that, in a free society, few businesses will take that attitude for fear of losing their customer base to their competitors. The power of choice that the consumer holds is what keeps business in line, producing what they want. No tyrannical piece of legislation required.

We need to rid ourselves of the belief, instilled in us at a young age through government schools, that our elected officials hold a magic wand, that when waved will produce a paradise devoid of side-effects or unintended consequences. This is the most dangerous superstition, which boiled down is a faith in legislative violence. “If only we allow the kind of violence that we support, the world will be made better!”  We clamor for a nanny state and then wonder when it also wants to forcibly inject us with poison.

Bear witness to the power of propaganda, and the primitive desire of our vanity to virtue signal when given an arena. This mother, along with the doctors, forcibly, and by the sound of it, violently, restrained her 6 year-old son in order to administer a flu shot. This event will more than likely be a traumatic flashpoint in this child’s mind for the rest of his life. And not merely the violence of the event, but the fact that the child contracted toxic synovitis from the vaccine, crippling him for two weeks. The mom states that she will continue to vaccinate. How is it possible that the maternal instinct could be short-circuited, the instinct to protect one’s child is subverted, and harm to the child is the result of the actions of the parent? This is the power of propaganda over the mind and emotions of parents, used up and down the line of the medical industry, to induce fear and anxiety, and then Pied Piper those emotions to the tune of their choice, leading them to over-testing, over-injecting, and over-medicating healthy, developing children.

“My son got toxic synovitis after the flu shot. And I will still vaccinate.”

Amazing discussion between Steve Bannon and Bill Maher in that Maher opitomizes the elite disdain to learn from past mistakes that led to a Trump presidency, and ensures a second Trump term.

Jimmy Dore dissects the psychopathic behavior of the clear Establishment choice:

From the New York Times.

From CNN: “By 6½ months, after all patients had received psilocybin, about 60% to 80% showed clinically significant reductions in depression, anxiety and existential distress and and improved attitudes toward death.

Presidential candidate Warren has made it clear that she will impose burdensome and restrictive regulation on social media, which includes designating them “platform utilities”, aggressively eliminating “disinformation” to protect “free speech”, as well as fulfilling the incoherent populist rallying cry of “breaking up” the biggest of the corporations. It would be a massive, authoritarian intervention into a very free and open market for networking, finding and sharing news,

But “disinformation” is in the eye of the beholder. How long would it take before legitimate criticism of various powerful officials, agencies, or industries would be deemed disinfo? Free speech enjoys far greater protection on the internet right now, in the absence of any government regulation. Warren’s hyperbolic proposal would siphon all the energy of the free, unhampered interaction occurring every second on social media, leaving a digital product that no one would want to use.  And what of other, smaller social media firms? At what point would they receive the same bureaucratic treatment?

Warren’s plan would kill social media, and in the process severely damage freedom of expression on the web.