Don't Newsletter on Me (2/1/21)
Articles from The Mises Institute, National Review, Reason, AntiWar.Com, The American Conservative, Glenn Greenwald, AIER, FFF, and The New York Post.
These are in no particular order.
Why Americans Abandoned Smuggling in Favor of Lobbying and Welfare
The Mises Institute
The late great Walter E. Williams dedicated an entire collection of his essays to this phenomenon entitled American Contempt for Liberty. Williams asserts that a major contributing factor in Americans’ rejection of liberalism is a decline in morality. He writes, “The moral tragedy that has befallen Americans is our belief that it is okay for government to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another.”
…
Benjamin Franklin warned, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” Williams notes that Americans use the political system in this manner to avoid the market discipline of profits and losses. He writes, “That’s why they [businessmen] descend upon Washington calling for government bailouts, subsidies, tariffs, licenses, and other special privileges.”
It’s John Brennan’s Authoritarianism That Threatens Democracy
National Review
I’m old-fashioned. I’d rather have a bunch of nuts ranting on podcasts all day than one John Brennan deciding what we can say. To my ears, Rhodes, Brennan, Wallace, and Boot are the ones who sound like a threat to “democracy.”
School Choice Spreads as Pandemic Public Education Falls Short
Reason
Across the country, a flurry of new legislation aims to expand educational options during the pandemic and beyond. Iowa is on its way to passing a major school choice bill backed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. Nebraska may bring opportunities for homeschooled students to play team sports and participate in public school extracurriculars. Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Vermont, and Washington state are also considering some positive changes.
In celebration of National School Choice Week, here's a look at some of these reforms.
Ugly Yankee: Washington Continues To Bully Mexico on the Drug War
AntiWar.Com
But US leaders steadfastly refuse to accept the reality that the growing strength of the violent Mexican drug cartels is the inevitable result of the lucrative consumer black market that Washington’s own drug prohibition policies have created.
Whatever Happened To The Populist Left?
The American Conservative
Yet what’s also interesting—and alarming—is the fate of the progressive-powered Occupy Wall Street movement and the left-leaning populist movement it helped ignite. If the bailouts of 2008 were their spark, where are they now amid the pandemic, when corporate profits have soared and middle-to-low-income workers have been crushed?
The answer is that they themselves have been occupied—transformed, rebranded, and redirected by corporations and the media. As Vladimir Lenin once said, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
Reflecting the Authoritarian Climate, Washington Will Remain Militarized Until At Least March
Glenn Greenwald
The rationale for this extraordinary, sustained domestic military presence has shifted several times, typically from anonymous U.S. law enforcement officials. The original justification — the need to secure the inaugural festivities — is obviously no longer operative.
So the new claim became that the impeachment trial of former President Trump that will take place in the Senate in February necessitated military reinforcements. On Sunday, Politico quoted “four people familiar with the matter” to claim that “Trump’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial poses a security concern that federal law enforcement officials told lawmakers last week requires as many as 5,000 National Guard troops to remain in Washington through mid-March.”
Awash in Warped Words
The American Institute of Economic Research (AIER)
In other words, there was a good reason George Orwell asserted that “the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes,” in his famous, “Politics and the English Language,” celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. As he put it, “Many political words… democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another…Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.”
The consequence is strikingly applicable to 2021. “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible…Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness,” in service of “a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
The Right to Refuse Service Should Be Universal and Absolute
The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF)
Therefore, the right to refuse service should be universal and absolute, and for two reasons.
One, since discrimination is not aggression, force, coercion, threat, or violence, the government should never prohibit it, seek to prevent it, or prosecute anyone for doing it. And two, since no one has the right to eat at a particular restaurant or be entertained at a particular strip club, no one should have any legal recourse if he is refused service at those or other business establishments.
In a free society, all businesses would have the right to discriminate against any potential patron on any basis and for any reason.
Biden administration pauses US arms sales to UAE, Saudi Arabia
New York Post
Blinken said the arms sales to the two Arab nations, which were announced shortly after Election Day, will be reviewed to determine if they adhere to US national security objectives.
…
Some fear the UAE and Saudi Arabia will use the advanced US weapons to carry on the Saudi-led war in Yemen, risking more civilian deaths in the country.
Mike
Bonus! In the last few weeks I have really tried to dive into the crypto space. To learn about it, and to start investing. If you have any tips or recourses please let me know!
———
I found this crypto start up called Pi Network that lets you mine their currency from your phone just by clicking a button once every 24 hours. You can’t pull it out yet, and I don’t believe it has a dollar value currently, but it might eventually. It’s free and takes zero effort so why not give it a try. Here is their white paper.
In order to sign up, you have to use an invite code, so please go ahead and use mine. DontStatistOnMe
You can also find me on MeWe! Mike Lastname with the same doggo icon. Let me know in the comments if you can’t find me.
Don’t forget to hit that like button!
Thank you so much for reading this. If you liked it, and want more content delivered straight to your mailbox, please don’t forget to subscribe!