REPUBLIC REBORN

Reason: ‘Telecontraception’ secret-shopper study shows safety of online birth control services

Is the elimination of the prescription requirement for birth control a cause of the Left Wing or the Right? I recently ran this by someone whose opinion I hold in esteem, someone I’d call a Jimmy Dore-style leftist, and they believed that it was generally thought to be Left Wing. It certainly has been. Yet, to advocate for the elimination of a barrier to a market transaction, it could be also described with the scare-term “deregulation”, has traditionally been a “Right Wing” imperative. Yet the “Right Wing” has primarily consisted of individuals who bring a heavy dose of moral baggage that prevents them from applying this “deregulation” consistently. Members of the “Right” have been the primary supporters of such totalitarian programs as the War on Drugs.

I immediately descended into the reasons why this is yet another instance that proves the Left/Right dichotomy to be utterly bunk. To abolish the prescription requirement is clearly humanitarian, yet the principle behind it contradicts the traditional Left wing distrust of the “free market”. It also contradicts the Old Testament moralizing of many on the “Right”, who are thankfully aging out of politics. Yet examples like this prove the underlying humanitarianism of the principle. Clearing away restrictions results in wider access, so why not apply it to every aspect of society? Why not apply it to healthcare, which is currently hog-tied with restrictive regulations that prevent growth, competition, innovation, and which would lead to wider access to a far better, far more affordable service? This life-or-death dependence that everyone feels with regard to their health insurance is as clear a sign as any that something is very wrong with the healthcare industry. It lacks a true market. And lacking a true market, it’s more expensive, more inconvenient, and far inferior to what would exist had many of these regulations never existed.

It is difficult for someone to accept that the only path to a better world lies in a clearing away of these obstacles to choice and voluntary interaction. Too many dirty words have been associated with it: “deregulation”, “capitalism”, “free market”, etc. It is difficult to accept that artificial regulation benefits the powerful. The prescription requirement for birth control has been a clear benefit for doctors, with women picking up the tab. Unnecessarily so. It’s examples like this that can turn on a light bulb in the minds of idealists who are willing to advocate for a better future, leading them to the underlying, universal principle of liberty.

The human race has gone about as far as it can go with regulation and restriction. Every manner of engineered utopia has been attempted, and the results are hard to look at. The consistent pursuit of the principle that opposes this restriction in every walk of life is our only option. Following that path would mean the acceptance that the future is uncontrollable, but also the acceptance that it is a future that will be far better than the present, something to welcome, not to fear.

Jimmy Dore covers it better than anyone else could:

Do they really just use and stockpile them? Or are they arming their proxies? Trump’s multi-billion dollar deal with the Saudis brings this to mind. It’s a well-known fact that the Saudis have funded Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, does this not make anyone uneasy? The most virulent, flag-waving supporters of the War on Terror have seemed unconcerned about their government’s relationship with this totalitarian Islamic state. I’ve asked these people about it, they just shrug. How can it be that they don’t care? The Iranians are apparently more of threat than this theocratic dictatorship that oppresses its own people in a way that can only be described as medieval. And so we must worry about, and punish, the Iranians, a country whose only crime appears to be a refusal to play ball with the U.S.

By allowing our government to engage in massive weapons deals with this Islamic totalitarian state, that also controls our government via the petrodollar, we are setting ourselves up for something truly horrific down the road. There is no telling what else is promised or exchanged hands under the table. The people of the Mideast have an aversion to paper money, wisely so. They demand payment in something real. Weapons, yes, but also gold. How much U.S. gold now sits in Saudi coffers? This “alliance” is dangerous, short-term thinking of the worst sort, and our kids will get stiffed with the tab.

The Facebook page, Your Baby, Your Way, has a thoughtful post regarding the bizarre way in which vaccine safety is uniquely disregarded:

Greta Thunberg is angry, but her rage appears to have been deliberately inflamed and then directed at “climate change” by powerful adults surrounding her who know better. At the UN she exclaimed that “you have stolen my dreams and my childhood”, pointing the finger at the adult population of the world. Many of those adults have done much harm, but their crime lies in foolishly electing leaders like her who lead society to ruin, not in getting up, going to work, and peacefully making the lives of their families and themselves better.

The real crime will come when those adults attempt to legislate Thunberg’s ravings. According to her Twitter feed, she believes that carbon emissions must stop completely. No cars, no planes, no boats, no technology. How would this come about, other than by crude totalitarianism? Who would enforce it, and what would the penalty be for refusing to go along with the Grand Plan? The modern world would grind to a halt, the intricate coordinated efforts of billions of people would be severed. Far more would suffer than Greta ever imagined. How many starving and dead would be an acceptable sacrifice for an emissionless future? She’s too young to understand that it’s been tried before. Idealists take hold of the reins of power and usher in an era of totalitarianism. Individual rights are discarded first, as they provide an obstacle to their ultimate goal. These idealists are usually so enamored of their Grand Plan that it matters little that the population have any rights at all.

She abhors capitalism, but why? Far from stealing the dreams and childhood of the world’s young, it has instilled dreams and enriched their childhood far more than any totalitarian environmentalist utopia ever could.

Capitalism is a by-product of liberty. When voluntary interaction is protected, markets sprout up. Prosperity sprouts up. A wide, previously unimaginable spectrum of possible futures arise in the imaginations of the world’s children, possible futures that only exist because a free, capitalist society made it so.

According to Cato’s marvelous Simon Abundance Index, the Earth was almost 520% more abundant than it was in 1980. Resources that should be depleting at a rapid rate, simply aren’t. This is due to the miracle of capitalism. It is a miracle in every sense, and we should rightly marvel at our capacity as a species to generate this level of undesigned, explosive prosperity.  It’s the Invisible Hand, the spontaneous order, the kaleidic society. It is the result of allowing and enforcing liberty.

But this miracle of a free society, its virtuous effects on the character and lives of its participants, is taken for granted in a way that nothing else is. Greta may take it as a fact of nature that a grocery store, selling fresh fruits and vegetables in the dead of winter, will always exist, no matter the political upheaval that occurs.

Many pro-vaccine advocates bemoan the fact that anti-vaxxers have never lived through a pre-vaccine era, experiencing what life was allegedly like during those disease-ridden days. Greta and her supporters don’t care to understand what life has been like for people living under a regime similar to that which she advocates. (And the great irony of the pro-vaccine argument is that it was the progress made possible by freedom that liberated us from rampant disease, not vaccines.)

Every attempt at enacting some idealistic vision for all of society ends in only one way: slavery, death, and ash. Instead of ensuring a future for the human race, her vision would wipe out any possible future.

Greta’s vision would usher in misery on a continent-wide scale. Would her thugs begin advocating a culling of the population? I bet she is a fan of Ishmael. Would that gorilla’s population bomb theories be taken to their logical conclusion?

Greta’s fury is that of a misguided, budding totalitarian. She is only 16, so there is a chance to grow. I only found the philosophy of liberty by chance at 20, via Ayn Rand’s visionary novels. What if she experienced a similar conversion, and aimed her rage at any and all interference in the undesigned processes of a free society? Now that would be something to see. And it brings me to one last point: where are liberty’s zealots? Where are the individuals inflaming the hearts and minds of the people for freedom? We have scholars, writers, academics, journalists, internet warriors, etc. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few Greta’s on our side as well.

16-year old Greta Thunberg gave an impassioned speech at the UN regarding climate change. It was indeed powerful, she has the gift of oratory. But her fire was misplaced. Instead of aiming her rage at real crimes against humanity, she focused on theoretical happenings far down the road. She excoriated her audience: “You stole my future!” No, they didn’t. The peaceful workings of the market, however hampered it may be, have gifted the present world with a far higher standard of living, and far more potential to “save the planet” than would be possible if the market were straight-jacketed in the way that climate catastrophists deem necessary. Far more people are fed and clothed because of a process that Greta’s handlers would gladly see bent to their will, and crippled in the process.

Many pointed out the hypocrisy of her suing France for carbon emissions, but not China. She sailed across the ocean, only for professionals to be flown in after the fact in order to pilot her vessel back.

The broad-daylight genocide in Yemen deserves her rage, the destruction of the Mideast, the entirely avoidable escalation to war with Iran. The very real, very global grip of pharmaceutical and tech companies. The real crimes of the day deserve that rage.

I imagine that Greta’s handlers are not the type that would take kindly to a swivel to issues other than the woolly “climate change” fears. “Climate change” is nice and vague, and any public policy can be contorted to seem as if it is advancing the goals of the teenage climate activists. These activists are being used as pawns in a larger game. They’re being used for their ability to retain the moral high ground in a campaign to advance the ends of people who do not hold their values.

She’ll be the only true anti-war voice on stage.

The United States and Saudi Arabia are busy traipsing around the site of the attack by Houthi forces, and of course we know that they are looking for a way to connect the attack to Iran. We also know what the outcome will be: some piece of evidence planted at the scene will be used to point the finger at Iran. It will be paraded around corporate news broadcasts, New York Times “think pieces” will be written, and the Political Class will speak as one voice: “It must be war”. It has happened so much during the past two decades that there is no way to trust its accuracy. Each war that the U.S. has launched since 2001 has been preceded by fabricated evidence. From Iraq, to Libya, Syria, etc., it is painfully clear that the U.S. and its twin satellites of Israel and Saudi Arabia will do anything to get a war going. How does anyone take seriously this garbage anymore? If Iran is attacked, it will be a crime against the human race. It will be the mass murder of the innocent people of a beautiful culture, who have already had to suffer at the hands of U.S. imperialism for years through sanctions, but also through various petty acts designed to inconvenience and embarrass the nation.

Let’s be clear: the Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia because the Saudi’s have been committing a genocide in Yemen for several years with the aid of the U.S. military. It’s called blowback, and it is the logical outcome of murdering innocents abroad. Considering the depth of the evil committed against Yemen, the Saudi attack is probably mild compared to what might come in the future.  But the reason for the attack is easy to understand.

The crime soon to be committed against Iran does not have to happen. Those soon to die don’t need to. They can be spared, so why won’t they? That goes for Iranians, Americans, Saudis, and Israelis. But because the latter three have decided that their tripartite rule over the Mideast is too valuable to allow and independent, albeit peaceful, nation like Iran to exist without punishment. So punishment will be meted out, many will die, and the dragon’s teeth sown will produce another two decades of continuous war.

It will not be a cakewalk. As bad as Iraq was, this will be far worse. The United States will be an invading force yet again, but the death toll will be far higher. It might be a war with real casualties here at home. Americans think wistfully and romantically about war, because those wars are never fought within their borders. That would probably change during a war with Iran, but once that happens, once American citizens are dying on American soil at the hands of foreign power, it will long be too late to cease the conflict.

From the Washington Examiner.