REPUBLIC REBORN

An interesting article from Global News: Big pharma pours millions into medical schools. Here’s how it can impact education.

And pharma is doing much more than merely giving money. They’re writing the textbooks too:

“His main textbook for gastroenterology, First Principles of Gastroenterology, was published by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca makes drugs for conditions like asthma, blood pressure and cancer.

Along with another classmate, Abi-Jaoude started a petition against the pharma-funded material and began questioning if the industry was too involved in educating future doctors. He was concerned that companies with a conflict of financial interest were helping inform what students learned.”

And while this piece focuses on Canada, the phenomenon is worldwide. A supremely important article was written in 2009 in Pro Publica that focused on Pharma’s outsized influence at Harvard: Pharma Ties at Harvard Medical School:

“A first-year Harvard Medical student tells the Times:

Before coming here, I had no idea how much influence companies had on medical education. And it’s something that’s purposely meant to be under the table, providing information under the guise of education when that information is also presented for marketing purposes.”

Another study, published in 2013, also looked at this corrupt arrangement: Pharma influence widespread at medical schools

This is having the effect of transforming entire generations of doctors into glorified salesmen, retailing the latest products of the pharmaceutical giants. It’s particularly dangerous, because we grow up believing we can trust the unbiased opinion of our doctor, that they have our well-being in mind, rather than goodies and kick-backs from a powerful corporation.

Al Jazeera: Trump slammed for saying Jews disloyal if they vote Democrat

Fox News: Amazon’s ‘Ring’ barred police from using the word ‘surveillance’ to describe its products

Reason: Privacy-friendly fashion for a Surveillance State age

FEE: How government programs ruined childhood

The Daily Beast: Study links fluoridated water during pregnancy to lower IQs

Telegraph: Why we should all be scared of Amazon’s new tool that ‘detects’ fear

The Guardian: Facial recognition is now rampant. The implications for our freedom are chilling.

The Verge: Bernie Sanders calls for a ban on police use of facial recognition by the police

TED GALEN CARPENTER: Forget ‘checkbook diplomacy’ and bring the troops home

Mises.org: When state governors tried to take back control of the National Guard

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Americans can handle an open discussion

Not said nearly enough: ILHAN OMAR: Israel’s actions ‘not consistent’ with being an ally or a democracy

Let’s get the truth, of it all.

I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern among many individuals within the health choice movement, specifically the vaccine choice movement, of taking a too-preoccupied interest in the health choices of others. Ironically so. They see people drinking diet coke, or eating McDonald’s, or failing to live up to their own standard of a healthy lifestyle, and thus they teeter far too close to advocating for the government to bring its heavy hand in to rectify these “incorrect” health choices.

So here is a quick restatement of the fundamental axiom and goal of liberty as I’ve interpreted it. It’s nothing more than an extension of voluntary interaction between consenting adults as far and wide as possible throughout society. It is a recognition that adults can make their own decisions, and when they do so, they make the world a better place. It might be hard or impossible to see how someone’s drinking of Diet Coke could possibly help to make the world a better place, so here is a trick to getting around it: aim that judgmental attitude at the person in the mirror. The only way possible to improve society is to improve yourself. Also to defend the right of every adult to make their own decisions, to legalize every interaction or transaction between consenting adults.  Recognize that a government powerful enough to make health decisions for you can also decide whether to inject you and your children with poison.

I’m sure its offensive to some to see others eating what they consider “junk” food, making lifestyle choices that appear to lead to a ruinous dead end. But this attitude, one that spends far too much time dwelling on the personal conduct of others, is inimical to a free society. It’s a short walk from that, to drumming up support for restrictive legislative measures that help no one at all, but apparently assist the self-righteous sleep more soundly.

For liberty to become sustainable in any degree, a cultural change must occur. Specifically, it should be considered indecent to dwell too long, or take too a perverse interest in, the personal habits or nuances of others.

“Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law.” No Thelemite here, but I can’t help but think that Crowley independently arrived at the fundamental axiom of a free society. A tolerance of the differences of others is essential. This doesn’t mean you must interact with them in any way, but advocating for the State to intervene and force a desired outcome, should be looked upon as vulgar.

This state of affairs is understandably frustrating to the multitude of busybodies among us, straining at the leash to “do something”. We all have that primitive busybody within us to some degree, but in order to evolve into something better it must be shackled.

From Mondo Weiss: 41 Democrats took an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel, but you wouldn’t know that from their Twitter accounts

“Armed Jewish settlers storm Palestinian town, conduct military training”

There’s no other way to describe the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis than primitive barbarism, run-of-the-mill throughout history, and subsidized by the United States. The poison of an ethno-nationalist ideology has unleashed the barbaric beast within the settlers, who now see Palestinians as ‘sub-human’. It’s always been ironic to me, the way Israel has turned out, given the circumstances of its founding. Jews were the victim of a Holocaust designed and executed by a totalitarian ideology based on the supposed inferiority of Jews. After World War 2, what was created for Jews but a bizarre mirror of the murderous doctrine they fled.

The great irony of the human race is our capacity for great good, but also great evil. What other species slaughters each other in such a systematic manner as our own? I’m reminded of a young Arthur’s education at the behest of Merlin in Once And Future King. While in the form of a goose, he attempts to convey the meaning of war to a female of the species. Her horrified reaction to the thought of a species engaged in the extermination of its own kind is telling.

It is in our nature to thrive in an environment of liberty, yet it is also in our nature to violate and suppress the liberty of others. Whatever cosmic force placed this inimical dichotomy within us seemingly set us up for failure, yet there have been pockets of progress scattered throughout history. Most have been purely accidental, short periods of time when either government or culture forgot to impose its authoritarian doctrine on all of society, and society and culture flourished. It is short-lived, as our controlling nature notices such undesigned progress, repulsing our primitive inclination for the safe domain of authority. A totalitarian dogma usually swoops in at this point, with the multitude taking part in the sacrament, and progress grinding to a halt.

Strange story from The Sun: Alana Cutland’s family fear yellow fever jab sent her ‘insane’ before she jumped to her death from plane in Madagascar

I was far too naive to believe that Epstein would go to trial, name names, and lay out on the table the blackmail material he had been accumulating at the behest of his handlers for years. Of course he had to die, as he knew too much. And, well, dead men tell no tales. Still, it is an outrage that his death was allowed to happen while in custody. He should’ve been monitored around the clock, to ensure that he would get the chance to talk. The Political Class wouldn’t let that happen, of course. I’d also hoped that, aside from the blackmail list, the freaks and filth surrounding John Podesta, James Alefantis, and Comet Ping Pong would also be exposed.

Epstein was surely assassinated. The system of mutual blackmail through which our Political Class keep one another in check will never be allowed to be exposed. Was he a Mossad asset, CIA? Hopefully something will come of this, but at the moment it appears that the entire affair will fade from the public with no resolution.