lewrockwell--2020-02-24--Aspiring Teachers Are Graduating Without Basic Literacy Skills and Failing a Simple Test

Future Australian teachers are struggling to pass a basic literacy tests before they graduate from university – and are paying for tutoring services to qualify .
An increasing number of teachers have reached out to independent agencies to guide them through the Federal Government ’ s Literacy and Numeracy Tests for Initial Teacher Education ( LANTITE ) .
The LANTITE test features questions around when to use punctuation marks , identifying the correct spelling of words and finding the meaning of words or phrases .
Tutoring agency , Cluey Learning , has seen more than 750 inquiries for help to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past four months , according to the Herald Sun .
It found many of its students are lacking basic skills around grammar , punctuation , spelling and fractions .
Tutoring Academy teacher Melinda Wood told the Herald Sun young teachers are propping themselves up with technology .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Buy New $ 10.00 ‘ They use spell check and stuff at home to help them but the second they are in exam conditions they don ’ t know how to cope , ’ she said .
One of the questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ annual income based off weekly pay .
The reason they were unable to answer the question was they didn ’ t know many weeks were in a year .
In the past two years the pass rate for candidates sitting the LANTITE test in literacy for the first time dropped by five per cent , from 95.2 per cent in 2016 to 90/4 per cent in 2018 .
The lack of knowledge among aspiring teachers has sparked calls from the Australian Tutoring Association to introduce the test as a university entrance exam .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ John Munro said the test isn ’ t a reflection of the students ’ overall intelligence and knowledge .
He said many students were passing all subjects except for the LANTITE literacy test .

Future Australian teachers are struggling to pass a basic literacy tests before they graduate from university - and are paying for tutoring services to qualify.
An increasing number of teachers have reached out to independent agencies to guide them through the Federal Government's Literacy and Numeracy Tests for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE).
The LANTITE test features questions around when to use punctuation marks, identifying the correct spelling of words and finding the meaning of words or phrases.
Future Australian teachers are struggling to pass a basic literacy test involving simple grammar and punctuation rules (stock image)
Tutoring agency, Cluey Learning, has seen more than 750 inquiries for help to prepare teachers for the test over the past four months, according to the Herald Sun.
It found many of its students are lacking basic skills around grammar, punctuation, spelling and fractions.
Tutoring Academy teacher Melinda Wood told the Herald Sun young teachers are propping themselves up with technology.
'They use spell check and stuff at home to help them but the second they are in exam conditions they don't know how to cope,' she said.
An increasing number of teachers have reached out to independent agencies to guide them through the federal government's Literacy and Numeracy Tests for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE) (stock image)
One of the questions students were struggling with involved finding the annual income based off weekly pay.
The reason they were unable to answer the question was they didn't know many weeks were in a year.
In the past two years the pass rate for candidates sitting the LANTITE test in literacy for the first time dropped by five per cent, from 95.2 per cent in 2016 to 90/4 per cent in 2018.
The lack of knowledge among aspiring teachers has sparked calls from the Australian Tutoring Association to introduce the test as a university entrance exam.
The LANTITE test features questions around when to use punctuation marks, identifying the correct spelling of words and finding the meaning of words or phrases (stock image)
But Australian Catholic University’s Professor John Munro said the test isn't a reflection of the students' overall intelligence and knowledge.
He said many students were passing all subjects except for the LANTITE literacy test.
'In other words, they had at least adequate literacy knowledge and skill for their specialist subject teaching areas but struggle with the LANTITE version of literacy,' he said.
'It is debatable whether individuals such as Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso or Winston Churchill could qualify to teach in our schools because they were dyslexic and would probably fail LANTITE.'


lewrockwell--2020-02-28--Another Whistleblower Suicide: the Immediate and Unquestioned State Narrative of Philip Haney’s Deat

Another Whistleblower Suicide: the Immediate and Unquestioned State Narrative of Philip Haney’s Death

A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals , with the blessing of more , and amid the passive acquiescence of all .
It seems due to the brainwashing of the American commoner , and the almost total indoctrination machine of the state that is used to dumb down the populace at large , that apathy has become so rampant as to allow the general acceptance of fallacious state narratives .
These narratives that concern the very suspicious deaths of any that challenge the ruling class or their political puppets , and almost without question , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are an unbelievable number of victims of so-called “ apparent suicides , ” assassinations , outright murder , disappearance , strange car crashes , poisonings , and any other number of unlikely death scenarios of those that have damning information about the state , its wars , and its secrets , and have the guts to tell the truth .
Coincidence is no longer a reasonable argument concerning these deaths , and actually never has been legitimate .
This tragedy of mass acceptance of lies is based on a monstrous propaganda machine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ credibility that belies the imagination of any with the ability to think .
In order to gain this advantage over the bulk of society , the state has spared no amount of money , power , or manipulation in order to be able to commit heinous crimes without fear of exposure .
This requires not only the complicity of the state apparatus , but also the almost total control of all mainstream media as well .
This could never have been achieved without the mind control efforts of the compulsory government schooling system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country , and its use of false curriculum meant to corrupt the population from an early age , breeding state worship , nationalism , and a belief in herd mentality .
Against the Left : A Ro ... Llewellyn H Rockwell Jr Best Price : $ 13.57 Buy New $ 8.00 The latest so-called “ suicide , ” which has all the markings of a planned assassination , is that of Philip Haney .
Haney was a whistleblower , and one of the founders of Homeland Security .
He was a true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about it in his book , “ See Something , Say Nothing , ” about the Obama administration ’ s orders to destroy the raw material that had been collected concerning Islamic terrorist groups .
As reported by Philip Haney in The Hill in 2016 : “ I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database , the Treasury Enforcement Communications System ( TECS ) .
These types @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ability to “ connect dots.
” Every day , DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations , then look for patterns .
Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that .
Even worse , going forward , my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.
” Philip Haney was , according to those that knew him , a very happy man , had just recently gotten engaged to be married , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to his tell-all book .
But do I know for a fact that he did not commit suicide ?
Of course not , but I will still be labeled as a “ conspiracy nut ” for even questioning this story .
But those that yell “ conspiracy theory , ” are to be mistrusted at the outset , because that CIA manufactured label and those that scream it at the top of their lungs , are not worthy of any attention , and in fact , should be ignored as irrelevant boobs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth , for just seeking knowledge is considered improper in their minds in this age of extreme propaganda .
Since I believe nothing and question everything , my fate as a supposed conspiracy theorist is set in stone , but seeking the truth is always the primary goal of honest reporting , something sadly lacking in this country today .
When Haney was killed , most of the mainstream press ignored it for days , and still have not been critical of the state narrative of suicide .
While all the major mainstream @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leftist persuasion , were basically silent about his death , the alternative media was not .
Here is a man that had a massive amount of information that was detrimental to Obama and his administration , and he was prepared to expose even more in a new book .
After he announced this , and announced his engagement and impending marriage , he turns up dead with a gunshot wound to the chest , not a normal manner of committing suicide .
This has all the markings of a murder , not a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the truth is verified .
So far , nothing of value has been reported about this matter , and as I wrote earlier this week : Economic Thought Befor ... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price : $ 13.41 Buy New $ 4.61 “ There is much more to this story than meets the eye , and it is my opinion that government and their lapdogs in the mainstream media will not only try to hide factual information , but will attempt to bury this entire story very quickly .
The Epstein story was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more interest to the ignorant masses , so how long before this likely murder is disappeared from view ?
There are many at DHS and elsewhere that have information about this cover-up , and hopefully someone will come forward with that information that will shine a bright light on the Obama Administration , and those today covering up this important matter.
” What was Haney prepared to release in his new book ?
What additional information did he know , and was it even more explosive than what he had released in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and stored files ?
Was he prepared to expose more explosive information , information that may have been tied to 9/11 or other criminal behavior , and not just to prior terrorist attempts ?
We may never know now unless others come forward .
His death could be a warning to those that have known something and said nothing to continue hiding in the shadows .
Philip Haney did not hide , and now he is dead .
No one should buy what I believe to be another phony suicide story , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information have been murdered in the past , and then said to have committed suicide .
How many more must die mysteriously before questions are asked , and real answers are demanded ?
The Best of Gary D. Barnett

A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.
~ Cornelius Tacitus (1964). “The histories”
It seems due to the brainwashing of the American commoner, and the almost total indoctrination machine of the state that is used to dumb down the populace at large, that apathy has become so rampant as to allow the general acceptance of fallacious state narratives. These narratives that concern the very suspicious deaths of any that challenge the ruling class or their political puppets, and almost without question, seem to be never-ending these days. There are an unbelievable number of victims of so-called “apparent suicides,” assassinations, outright murder, disappearance, strange car crashes, poisonings, and any other number of unlikely death scenarios of those that have damning information about the state, its wars, and its secrets, and have the guts to tell the truth. Coincidence is no longer a reasonable argument concerning these deaths, and actually never has been legitimate.
This tragedy of mass acceptance of lies is based on a monstrous propaganda machine that has attained a level of false credibility that belies the imagination of any with the ability to think. In order to gain this advantage over the bulk of society, the state has spared no amount of money, power, or manipulation in order to be able to commit heinous crimes without fear of exposure. This requires not only the complicity of the state apparatus, but also the almost total control of all mainstream media as well. This could never have been achieved without the mind control efforts of the compulsory government schooling system, its monopoly over the children of this country, and its use of false curriculum meant to corrupt the population from an early age, breeding state worship, nationalism, and a belief in herd mentality. Against the Left: A Ro... Rockwell Jr, Llewellyn H Best Price: $2.85 Buy New $8.00 (as of 07:59 UTC - Details)
The latest so-called “suicide,” which has all the markings of a planned assassination, is that of Philip Haney. Haney was a whistleblower, and one of the founders of Homeland Security. He was a true insider that had evidence, and wrote about it in his book, “See Something, Say Nothing,” about the Obama administration’s orders to destroy the raw material that had been collected concerning Islamic terrorist groups. As reported by Philip Haney in The Hill in 2016:
“I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.” Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.”
Philip Haney was, according to those that knew him, a very happy man, had just recently gotten engaged to be married, and was attempting to publish a follow-up to his tell-all book. But do I know for a fact that he did not commit suicide? Of course not, but I will still be labeled as a “conspiracy nut” for even questioning this story. But those that yell “conspiracy theory,” are to be mistrusted at the outset, because that CIA manufactured label and those that scream it at the top of their lungs, are not worthy of any attention, and in fact, should be ignored as irrelevant boobs. They are always a danger to the truth, for just seeking knowledge is considered improper in their minds in this age of extreme propaganda. Since I believe nothing and question everything, my fate as a supposed conspiracy theorist is set in stone, but seeking the truth is always the primary goal of honest reporting, something sadly lacking in this country today.
When Haney was killed, most of the mainstream press ignored it for days, and still have not been critical of the state narrative of suicide. While all the major mainstream press outlets, especially those of the leftist persuasion, were basically silent about his death, the alternative media was not. Here is a man that had a massive amount of information that was detrimental to Obama and his administration, and he was prepared to expose even more in a new book. After he announced this, and announced his engagement and impending marriage, he turns up dead with a gunshot wound to the chest, not a normal manner of committing suicide. This has all the markings of a murder, not a suicide, and should be pursued until the truth is verified. So far, nothing of value has been reported about this matter, and as I wrote earlier this week: Economic Thought Befor... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price: $13.41 Buy New $4.61 (as of 05:40 UTC - Details)
“There is much more to this story than meets the eye, and it is my opinion that government and their lapdogs in the mainstream media will not only try to hide factual information, but will attempt to bury this entire story very quickly. The Epstein story was disappeared almost immediately, and held much more interest to the ignorant masses, so how long before this likely murder is disappeared from view? There are many at DHS and elsewhere that have information about this cover-up, and hopefully someone will come forward with that information that will shine a bright light on the Obama Administration, and those today covering up this important matter.”
What was Haney prepared to release in his new book? What additional information did he know, and was it even more explosive than what he had released in the past? What happened to his computers and stored files? Was he prepared to expose more explosive information, information that may have been tied to 9/11 or other criminal behavior, and not just to prior terrorist attempts? We may never know now unless others come forward. His death could be a warning to those that have known something and said nothing to continue hiding in the shadows. Philip Haney did not hide, and now he is dead.
No one should buy what I believe to be another phony suicide story, especially after so many of those with incriminating information have been murdered in the past, and then said to have committed suicide. How many more must die mysteriously before questions are asked, and real answers are demanded?
The Best of Gary D. Barnett


lewrockwell--2020-02-28--Does the Coronavirus Make the Case for World Government?

Sometimes terrible things happen without any human malfeasance , and the novel Wuhan coronavirus may in fact be one of those things .
It is entirely plausible the virus emerged from “ wet markets ” in the Hubei Province of China rather than as a fumbled ( or worse , intentionally released ) bioweapon cooked up by the Xi Jinping government .
We may never know , of course .
But easy or readily apparent answers to the question of how this could have been avoided should be viewed with the skepticism appropriate to any state propaganda .
Crises of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , military , or health , send ideologues scrambling to explain how such events fit neatly into their worldview .
In fact , political partisans often attempt to paint any crisis as having occurred in the first place precisely because their policies and preferences have not been adopted .
The Wuhan coronavirus seems tailor-made for this .
Alarmists who argue for ( i ) much more robust and comprehensive “ public health ” measures by national governments and ( ii ) greater supranational coordination inevitably point to infectious diseases as justification for increased @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scary and fast-spreading viruses are perfect fodder for their busybody argument that people can not simply be left to their own devices .
Anatomy of the State Murray Rothbard Best Price : $ 5.00 Buy New $ 5.82 Cross-border outbreaks of illnesses are particularly well suited to the preexisting bureaucratic desire for power over populations : they make the public much more willing to accept forced quarantines and arrests for noncompliance ; forced immunizations ; involuntary commitments to state facilities ; curfews ; restrictions on business operations and travel ; and import controls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to commandeer and manage efforts to find “ the cure , ” who then take credit when the virus eventually relents .
These are the sorts of things that authoritarian politicians want all the time .
Crises simply provide an opportunity to ratchet up their power and also to accustom the public to being ordered around and taking cues from centralized government sources .
Antistate libertarians are not immune to this phenomenon of attempting to place square events into round holes .
We tend to explain crises as the result of state ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created or made worse by the lack of market discipline , incentives , and property rights lacking due to state action or state regulation .
Libertarians think the Food and Drug Administration , for example , kills more people than it saves by approving bad drugs and delaying regulatory approvals for promising treatments .
Moreover , an individualist libertarian perspective on bodily sovereignty poses an obvious challenge to public health .
No individual should be forced to accept quarantine or immunization against his will , and in fact no individual should be forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notions when making medical decisions .
Just as most libertarians don ’ t think Doritos and Mountain Dew should be banned because their consumption imposes “ public ” healthcare costs in a statist/fascist system of mandatory insurance and tax-funded Medicaid , most don ’ t think that individual health decisions should be overridden by politicians—even in an “ emergency ” outbreak situation .
So how do we reconcile public health with individual rights ?
Should the latter be sacrificed to protect the former ?
First , even the highly authoritarian Chinese national state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though it can cordon off whole cities by dictatorial fiat and impose wholesale house arrest over cities in a manner unthinkable in Western countries .
Chinese state police literally drag people suspected of carrying the virus out of their cars , forcibly put them handcuffed in hazmat vehicles , and haul them off to what amount to prison hospitals .
Chinese citizens who speak out publicly against the Xi government ’ s handling of the crisis are arrested .
So , if the Chinese government can ’ t contain it , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , how in the world do Western countries expect to do so ?
Imagine trying to quarantine , say , Dallas and Fort Worth !
Conceived in Liberty , ... Murray N Rothbard Best Price : $ 9.00 Buy New $ 15.39 Second , poor countries ( and China is quite poor per capita compared to the West , ranking around sixty-fifth internationally ) almost invariably suffer from worse public health conditions .
Sanitation , nutrition , and access to drugs , facilities , and competent doctors matter a great deal when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries are healthier countries , and the West benefits when conditions improve and modernize in the Third World .
Third , we already have de facto supranational bodies such as World Health Organization tasked with preventing and lessening the spread of diseases like the coronavirus .
The WHO has been around since 1948 and hasn ’ t prevented a host of modern epidemics like SARS and Zika ; excatly what new international agency or organization will do better ?
If anything , pandemics call for decentralization of treatment .
After all , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather than bringing them into large hospital populations in crowded city centers .
What doctor or nurse wants to work in a hospital full of coronavirus cases ?
We might wish for a utopian libertarian answer to public health crises like the coronovirus , along the lines of a Rothbardian externality argument for airborne pollution .
But sometimes bad things simply happen .
The best hope is market incentives , the rapid application of individual human ingenuity and self-interest to the situation .
Liberty is better , not perfect .
And governments , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as always .
The Best of Jeff Deist

Sometimes terrible things happen without any human malfeasance, and the novel Wuhan coronavirus may in fact be one of those things. It is entirely plausible the virus emerged from “wet markets” in the Hubei Province of China rather than as a fumbled (or worse, intentionally released) bioweapon cooked up by the Xi Jinping government.
We may never know, of course. But easy or readily apparent answers to the question of how this could have been avoided should be viewed with the skepticism appropriate to any state propaganda. Crises of all kinds, whether economic, political, military, or health, send ideologues scrambling to explain how such events fit neatly into their worldview. In fact, political partisans often attempt to paint any crisis as having occurred in the first place precisely because their policies and preferences have not been adopted.
The Wuhan coronavirus seems tailor-made for this. Alarmists who argue for (i) much more robust and comprehensive “public health” measures by national governments and (ii) greater supranational coordination inevitably point to infectious diseases as justification for increased state power over personal medical decisions. Scary and fast-spreading viruses are perfect fodder for their busybody argument that people cannot simply be left to their own devices. Anatomy of the State Murray Rothbard Best Price: $5.00 Buy New $5.82 (as of 05:45 UTC - Details)
Cross-border outbreaks of illnesses are particularly well suited to the preexisting bureaucratic desire for power over populations: they make the public much more willing to accept forced quarantines and arrests for noncompliance; forced immunizations; involuntary commitments to state facilities; curfews; restrictions on business operations and travel; and import controls. They also allow public health officials to commandeer and manage efforts to find “the cure,” who then take credit when the virus eventually relents.
These are the sorts of things that authoritarian politicians want all the time. Crises simply provide an opportunity to ratchet up their power and also to accustom the public to being ordered around and taking cues from centralized government sources.
Antistate libertarians are not immune to this phenomenon of attempting to place square events into round holes. We tend to explain crises as the result of state (or central bank) interference, either created or made worse by the lack of market discipline, incentives, and property rights lacking due to state action or state regulation. Libertarians think the Food and Drug Administration, for example, kills more people than it saves by approving bad drugs and delaying regulatory approvals for promising treatments.
Moreover, an individualist libertarian perspective on bodily sovereignty poses an obvious challenge to public health. No individual should be forced to accept quarantine or immunization against his will, and in fact no individual should be forced to consider herd immunity or other collectivist notions when making medical decisions. Just as most libertarians don’t think Doritos and Mountain Dew should be banned because their consumption imposes “public” healthcare costs in a statist/fascist system of mandatory insurance and tax-funded Medicaid, most don’t think that individual health decisions should be overridden by politicians—even in an “emergency” outbreak situation.
So how do we reconcile public health with individual rights? Should the latter be sacrificed to protect the former?
Three observations present themselves.
First, even the highly authoritarian Chinese national state has been unable to contain the virus, though it can cordon off whole cities by dictatorial fiat and impose wholesale house arrest over cities in a manner unthinkable in Western countries. Chinese state police literally drag people suspected of carrying the virus out of their cars, forcibly put them handcuffed in hazmat vehicles, and haul them off to what amount to prison hospitals. Chinese citizens who speak out publicly against the Xi government’s handling of the crisis are arrested. So, if the Chinese government can’t contain it, even with martial law and control over media, how in the world do Western countries expect to do so? Imagine trying to quarantine, say, Dallas and Fort Worth!
Conceived in Liberty, ... Murray N Rothbard Best Price: $9.00 Buy New $15.39 (as of 08:05 UTC - Details) Second, poor countries (and China is quite poor per capita compared to the West, ranking around sixty-fifth internationally) almost invariably suffer from worse public health conditions. Sanitation, nutrition, and access to drugs, facilities, and competent doctors matter a great deal when it comes to incubating infectious diseases. Richer countries are healthier countries, and the West benefits when conditions improve and modernize in the Third World.
Third, we already have de facto supranational bodies such as World Health Organization tasked with preventing and lessening the spread of diseases like the coronavirus. The WHO has been around since 1948 and hasn’t prevented a host of modern epidemics like SARS and Zika; excatly what new international agency or organization will do better?
If anything, pandemics call for decentralization of treatment. After all, the best approach is to isolate infected people rather than bringing them into large hospital populations in crowded city centers. What doctor or nurse wants to work in a hospital full of coronavirus cases?
We might wish for a utopian libertarian answer to public health crises like the coronovirus, along the lines of a Rothbardian externality argument for airborne pollution. But sometimes bad things simply happen. The best hope is market incentives, the rapid application of individual human ingenuity and self-interest to the situation. Liberty is better, not perfect. And governments, including the Chinese government, are clueless as always.
The Best of Jeff Deist


lewrockwell--2020-02-28--Facing the Egalitarian Heresy of the 21st Century

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , in The Masque of Pandora , writes , “ Whom the gods would destroy , they first make mad.
” He was not the first to use a version of the phrase , which is found in Sophocles ’ play , Antigone .
But the meaning has been fairly consistent for over two millennia .
A large number of our fellow citizens seem possessed by a kind of madness .
They seem to exist in a kind of parallel universe , with its own set of beliefs , its own standards of truth and particular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respect this universe represents the contrary , the negation , of the inherited , rooted foundation on which our historic Western and Christian civilization is based .
This contrary reality did not all of a sudden spring up , it has existed and been cultivated and nurtured for centuries .
Its founding ideologues understood that their premises and desired objectives ran up full force against the ingrained traditions and historic legacy of a culture and civilization that traced its origins not only to the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews , but also to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Greeks and Romans .
Encouraged by the Emperor Constantine at the First Council of Nicaea ( 325 A.D. ) and two centuries later by the Emperor Justinian the Great , the empire both East and West recognized the primacy of Divine Positive Law—the laws and revealed teachings of God and His Church .
But not only that : this transformation signaled the explicit foundation of Europe based not only on Revelation , but also upon the reality of Natural Law , those rules inscribed in nature and integral to it that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Himself .
The Christian civilization that came about was built securely and firmly not only on Holy Scripture but also the traditions and the legacy of those ancient cultures that were not destroyed by the Faith , but fulfilled and completed by it .
Egalitarianism as a Re ... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price : $ 3.99 Buy New $ 8.95 In the incredibly rich inheritance of ancient philosophy there was a recognition that there were discernible “ laws ” which govern the orderly operation and functioning of the social order and make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What the Christian church did was to confirm the existence of those laws while adding a capstone , a divine sanction and specificity derived from Revelation and the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Church .
Thus , this transformation of ancient society was prescriptive , conservative in the best sense of that word .
Is this template not the exact opposite of the modernist , progressivist revolution which seeks to cut society off from its inheritance , depriving it of the accumulated wealth of that heritage ?
No doubt , change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always must occur in society .
But these changes do not affect the necessity of our acceptance of the unaltered and unalterable higher laws given by God or the laws inscribed in nature .
Rather , they occur on a practical level in any well-functioning society .
There is a quote from Prince Giuseppe di Lampedusa ’ s famous novel describing the revolutionary turmoil of mid-19th century Italy , The Leopard ( Il Gattopardo ) : “ Things will have to change in order that they remain the same.
” In 1963 director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same name based on that novel , starring , quite improbably , Burt Lancaster .
The film vividly portrays the tensions between the immemorial past and the circumstances created by political and social change .
What Lampedusa ’ s principle character , the Prince of Salina is saying is that no society—no culture—can completely denude itself of its inheritance and its history and actually survive .
And more , a denial of natural law and the Divine Positive Law ends catastrophically .
Such experiments in total revolutionary transformation have inevitably ended in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the French Revolution , and more recently , in the Gulag and the concentration camp , or in blood-soaked Maoism .
Over the past half century and more we have witnessed a different kind of revolution ; it does not employ as weapons of choice the tank and bayonet , nor the Gulag as the final destination for unrepentant opponents .
It leaves nothing of substance behind in its wake .
It is an unfolding , all-encompassing cultural movement , subverting and then incorporating in its service diverse extreme revolutionary elements injected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entertainment industry , into our politics , even into the very language we use to communicate with each other .
The “ violence ” it metes out is mostly of a cerebral nature , not of the physical kind , but rather predicated on shame , humiliation , and the fear of the loss of a job or reputation .
It plays on the natural human desire for conformity , while steadily upping the ante in our laws—constantly moving the goalposts of what are acceptable and unacceptable .
It is the kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that once impelled people to look the other way when their neighbors were hauled off to Siberia under Comrade Stalin , or to Dachau under Hitler .
But , arguably , it is worse , for it denies the very existence of those immutable laws that govern the universe .
It has been highly effective , utilizing as its major weaponry the terrifying twins , the inexpungable accusations of “ racism ” and “ sexism , ” and a whole panoply of sub-terms that accompany such charges : “ white supremacy , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colonialist imperialism , ” “ misogyny , ” “ toxic masculinity , ” and increasingly expanded to incorporate terms like “ anti-migrant ” or “ anti-transgender ” bigotry .
The overarching desire of this progressivist revolution is , in fact , not reform—not what Lampedusa ’ s Prince of Salina says consolingly about some things changing so that other things can remain the same .
No , it is incredibly “ post-Marxian , ” making the older Communist and Marxist revolutionary dreams seem tame in comparison .
It invokes and demands a total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not all , of those institutions , those traditions , and that inheritance vouchsafed to us from our ancestors is rudely discarded , rejected , and condemned as racist , sexist , fascist—in other words , our remembered past is cut off from us .
This progressive revolution is predicated on the idea of equality .
Yet , in fact , the equality as envisaged does not exist and has never existed in nature .
For revolutionary “ equality ” is a slogan , in reality an exercise in guile and subterfuge employed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gullible citizenry into eventually dissolving the traditional social bonds and inherited natural ( and moral ) laws that have governed our culture for two millennia .
Its true objective is domination over and power in society .
As an increasingly independent outgrowth of an historic cultural Marxism formulated decades ago and insinuated into our educational systems and entertainment industry , this assault on our historic culture makes the template of the old Soviet Communists appear conservative .
Josef Stalin would never have , and never did , put up with same sex marriage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feminist extremism we see around us today .
True , the Soviets talked of equality , and women occupied some professional positions , but for the Reds a strong family and observance of supposedly “ outdated ” traditional morality were still important .
Revolutionary equality , in the form of egalitarianism , is not only a rebellion against the Divine Positive Law , but also against Nature , that is , against the way things are and function naturally in our world , those workings and that usual consistency observed as prescriptive laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a parable in the Gospel of St. Matthew , the Parable of the Talents ( Mt .
25:14-30 ; The Parable of the Bags of Gold/NIV ) , which both mirrors and confirms those laws .
The three servants of the Master are given unequal amounts and told to be faithful stewards and invest the talents wisely .
The first two , those with the largest amounts , comply and double their accounts ; but the servant with the least amount fails to use his one Talent , and thus is condemned : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You knew , did you , that I reap where I did not sow , and gather where I did not scatter ?
.
.
.
So take the talent from him , and give it to the one with the ten talents .
.
.
As for this worthless slave , throw him into the outer darkness , where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
” The parable ’ s message is that men are created unequally in abilities , in status , in kinds and types of intelligence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must not compare our status invidiously with those around us , for we are not judged by the talents or positions of others , but by our own God-given unique capacity , our own talents , and how well we measure up and fulfill our own specific roles in society .
Thus , perhaps ironically and to emphasize this point , the servant with more Talents is blessed , but the servant with the fewest is condemned , not because of rank or possession but because of non-compliance with the mandate of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as the late Mel Bradford termed it , a heresy , fraught with extreme consequences for Western society : “ Equality as a moral or political imperative , pursued as an end in itself—Equality with a capital ‘ E ’ —is the antonym of every legitimate conservative principle…there is no man equal to any other , except perhaps in the special , and politically untranslatable , understanding of the Deity .
Not intellectually or physically or economically or even morally .
Not equal !
” ( Modern Age , Winter 1976 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the realm of morality and the observance of moral law that the effects of egalitarianism have been most aggravated .
Indeed , the destruction of masculinity and emasculation of men has been a disastrous consequence of the “ women ’ s movement.
” For centuries—indeed , not that long ago—an inherited code of honor , deference and respect on how to treat women , prevailed in Western society .
While , it is true , certain functions and roles were generally not open to women historically , that in no way diminished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ position in society .
Indeed , as child bearers and mothers it was they who most uniquely governed the essential running of the family and were the substantial foundation of society .
The Church understood that women were not the same as men , that women were different and that they had unique God-given roles .
Like the Blessed Virgin in Bethlehem who cared for the Cradle in the Stable and nourished the Son of God who would bring grace and salvation to the world , the primary role of women was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the human race .
There could be no more significant role than this and , in that sense , women occupy in Christian teaching an exalted and unequalled position , modeled on that of the Blessed Virgin .
What folly , then , to even discuss “ equality ” in this sense .
Our present culture is filled with raging egalitarian revolutionaries—many political , many academic , many in entertainment , many in media .
They are , to quote T. S. Eliot , “ destroying our ancient edifices to make ready @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans.
” ( Eliot , Notes Towards the Definition of Culture , 1948 , p .
108 . )
These revolutionaries tell us that they strive for “ correcting historic inequality ” and “ freedom from oppression.
” But their program—their revolution—is a dystopian nightmare which pushes the unobtainable goal of egalitarianism .
That program destroys true liberty and succeeds in enslaving millions in unrequited passions and envy , unbound and unreasoned , cocooned in a pseudo-reality .
In their quest for an abstract equality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and give texture to human society .
The late author-essayist , Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn , in his classic volume , Liberty or Equality , wrote : Liberty or Equality : T ... Erik Ritter von Kuehne ... Best Price : $ 8.26 Buy New $ 13.68 And again Bradford : “ The only freedom which can last is a freedom embodied somewhere , rooted in a history , located in space , sanctioned by a genealogy , and blessed by a religious establishment .
The only equality which abstract rights , insisted upon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely to provide is the equality of universal slavery.
” ( Bradford , A Better Guide than Reason , 1979 , “ Preface , ” p .
xii . )
In their frenzied revolt against the laws of nature and nature ’ s God , the revolutionaries qualify as what the great English writer G. K. Chesterton called “ lunatics.
” In his volume , The Poet and the Lunatics ( 1929 ) , Chesterton ’ s character Gale asks the question : “ What exactly is liberty ?
” He responds , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have , to use Chesterton ’ s parable , gone mad .
In their frenetic quest for abstract equality and a freedom not rooted in place , family and history , they are men and women “ already outside the world of reason , ” enslaved by an unrestrained rage to destroy the edifice of Western Christian civilization which is grounded on both Divine Positive and natural law .
That destructive rage is matched only by their profound inability to create anything of real and lasting value to replace what is destroyed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ America today .
It is no exaggeration to state that millions of our fellow citizens have been infected by an ideology that posits a mythical , egalitarian “ counter-reality ” which has poisoned their thinking and worldview to the point that co-existing with them in the same nation , in the same geography , becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible .
Their template is highly aggressive and contagious ; it must increase and grow , or it dies .
And , if opposed , it fights back viciously and with total war .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a century ago has arrived today with full force : it surrounds us , it cajoles us , it demands total subservience .
.
.
especially if we have the slightest inclination to think for ourselves , to doubt the new dogmatic and constantly advancing egalitarian templates on feminism and racism .
What was perhaps tolerable five years ago is now met with demands for the execution of a social and political death sentence , and what may be tolerable today will soon be seen as a sin against the triumphant and ever-evolving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That is , until men stand and forcefully oppose this lunacy , completely , honestly , rationally , and without hesitation .

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in The Masque of Pandora, writes, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” He was not the first to use a version of the phrase, which is found in Sophocles’ play, Antigone. But the meaning has been fairly consistent for over two millennia.
Aren’t we witnessing this today?
A large number of our fellow citizens seem possessed by a kind of madness. They seem to exist in a kind of parallel universe, with its own set of beliefs, its own standards of truth and particular narrative of facts. In almost every respect this universe represents the contrary, the negation, of the inherited, rooted foundation on which our historic Western and Christian civilization is based.
This contrary reality did not all of a sudden spring up, it has existed and been cultivated and nurtured for centuries. Its founding ideologues understood that their premises and desired objectives ran up full force against the ingrained traditions and historic legacy of a culture and civilization that traced its origins not only to the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews, but also to the highest art, philosophy and statecraft of the Greeks and Romans.
Encouraged by the Emperor Constantine at the First Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.) and two centuries later by the Emperor Justinian the Great, the empire both East and West recognized the primacy of Divine Positive Law—the laws and revealed teachings of God and His Church. But not only that: this transformation signaled the explicit foundation of Europe based not only on Revelation, but also upon the reality of Natural Law, those rules inscribed in nature and integral to it that also have as their Author, God Himself. The Christian civilization that came about was built securely and firmly not only on Holy Scripture but also the traditions and the legacy of those ancient cultures that were not destroyed by the Faith, but fulfilled and completed by it. Egalitarianism as a Re... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price: $3.44 Buy New $8.95 (as of 07:55 UTC - Details)
In the incredibly rich inheritance of ancient philosophy there was a recognition that there were discernible “laws” which govern the orderly operation and functioning of the social order and make possible a harmonious communal existence within society. What the Christian church did was to confirm the existence of those laws while adding a capstone, a divine sanction and specificity derived from Revelation and the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Church. Thus, this transformation of ancient society was prescriptive, conservative in the best sense of that word.
Is this template not the exact opposite of the modernist, progressivist revolution which seeks to cut society off from its inheritance, depriving it of the accumulated wealth of that heritage?
No doubt, change and reform, in some degree, always must occur in society. But these changes do not affect the necessity of our acceptance of the unaltered and unalterable higher laws given by God or the laws inscribed in nature. Rather, they occur on a practical level in any well-functioning society. There is a quote from Prince Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s famous novel describing the revolutionary turmoil of mid-19th century Italy, The Leopard (Il Gattopardo): “Things will have to change in order that they remain the same.” In 1963 director Luchino Visconti directed an exquisite film of the same name based on that novel, starring, quite improbably, Burt Lancaster. The film vividly portrays the tensions between the immemorial past and the circumstances created by political and social change.
What Lampedusa’s principle character, the Prince of Salina is saying is that no society—no culture—can completely denude itself of its inheritance and its history and actually survive. And more, a denial of natural law and the Divine Positive Law ends catastrophically. Such experiments in total revolutionary transformation have inevitably ended in violent bloodshed and incredible destructiveness—in the massacres of the French Revolution, and more recently, in the Gulag and the concentration camp, or in blood-soaked Maoism.
Over the past half century and more we have witnessed a different kind of revolution; it does not employ as weapons of choice the tank and bayonet, nor the Gulag as the final destination for unrepentant opponents. It leaves nothing of substance behind in its wake. It is an unfolding, all-encompassing cultural movement, subverting and then incorporating in its service diverse extreme revolutionary elements injected into our educational system, into our entertainment industry, into our politics, even into the very language we use to communicate with each other. The “violence” it metes out is mostly of a cerebral nature, not of the physical kind, but rather predicated on shame, humiliation, and the fear of the loss of a job or reputation. It plays on the natural human desire for conformity, while steadily upping the ante in our laws—constantly moving the goalposts of what are acceptable and unacceptable. It is the kind of intellectual “violence” now writ large that once impelled people to look the other way when their neighbors were hauled off to Siberia under Comrade Stalin, or to Dachau under Hitler. But, arguably, it is worse, for it denies the very existence of those immutable laws that govern the universe.
It has been highly effective, utilizing as its major weaponry the terrifying twins, the inexpungable accusations of “racism” and “sexism,” and a whole panoply of sub-terms that accompany such charges: “white supremacy,” “historic white oppression,” “colonialist imperialism,” “misogyny,” “toxic masculinity,” and increasingly expanded to incorporate terms like “anti-migrant” or “anti-transgender” bigotry.
The overarching desire of this progressivist revolution is, in fact, not reform—not what Lampedusa’s Prince of Salina says consolingly about some things changing so that other things can remain the same. No, it is incredibly “post-Marxian,” making the older Communist and Marxist revolutionary dreams seem tame in comparison. It invokes and demands a total transformation in which nearly all, if not all, of those institutions, those traditions, and that inheritance vouchsafed to us from our ancestors is rudely discarded, rejected, and condemned as racist, sexist, fascist—in other words, our remembered past is cut off from us.
This progressive revolution is predicated on the idea of equality. Yet, in fact, the equality as envisaged does not exist and has never existed in nature. For revolutionary “equality” is a slogan, in reality an exercise in guile and subterfuge employed to shame and cajole a weak-willed and gullible citizenry into eventually dissolving the traditional social bonds and inherited natural (and moral) laws that have governed our culture for two millennia. Its true objective is domination over and power in society.
As an increasingly independent outgrowth of an historic cultural Marxism formulated decades ago and insinuated into our educational systems and entertainment industry, this assault on our historic culture makes the template of the old Soviet Communists appear conservative. Josef Stalin would never have, and never did, put up with same sex marriage, transgenderism, or the kind of feminist extremism we see around us today. True, the Soviets talked of equality, and women occupied some professional positions, but for the Reds a strong family and observance of supposedly “outdated” traditional morality were still important.
Revolutionary equality, in the form of egalitarianism, is not only a rebellion against the Divine Positive Law, but also against Nature, that is, against the way things are and function naturally in our world, those workings and that usual consistency observed as prescriptive laws for thousands of years.
There is a parable in the Gospel of St. Matthew, the Parable of the Talents (Mt. 25:14-30; The Parable of the Bags of Gold/NIV), which both mirrors and confirms those laws. The three servants of the Master are given unequal amounts and told to be faithful stewards and invest the talents wisely. The first two, those with the largest amounts, comply and double their accounts; but the servant with the least amount fails to use his one Talent, and thus is condemned: “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? . . . So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents . . . As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The parable’s message is that men are created unequally in abilities, in status, in kinds and types of intelligence, in physicality, in position. We must not compare our status invidiously with those around us, for we are not judged by the talents or positions of others, but by our own God-given unique capacity, our own talents, and how well we measure up and fulfill our own specific roles in society. Thus, perhaps ironically and to emphasize this point, the servant with more Talents is blessed, but the servant with the fewest is condemned, not because of rank or possession but because of non-compliance with the mandate of the Master.
Egalitarianism as a movement is, as the late Mel Bradford termed it, a heresy, fraught with extreme consequences for Western society: “Equality as a moral or political imperative, pursued as an end in itself—Equality with a capital ‘E’—is the antonym of every legitimate conservative principle…there is no man equal to any other, except perhaps in the special, and politically untranslatable, understanding of the Deity. Not intellectually or physically or economically or even morally. Not equal!” (Modern Age, Winter 1976, p. 62.)
It is in the realm of morality and the observance of moral law that the effects of egalitarianism have been most aggravated. Indeed, the destruction of masculinity and emasculation of men has been a disastrous consequence of the “women’s movement.” For centuries—indeed, not that long ago—an inherited code of honor, deference and respect on how to treat women, prevailed in Western society. While, it is true, certain functions and roles were generally not open to women historically, that in no way diminished or lessened their critical importance and special position in society. Indeed, as child bearers and mothers it was they who most uniquely governed the essential running of the family and were the substantial foundation of society.
The Church understood that women were not the same as men, that women were different and that they had unique God-given roles. Like the Blessed Virgin in Bethlehem who cared for the Cradle in the Stable and nourished the Son of God who would bring grace and salvation to the world, the primary role of women was the nourishing of familial offspring and the continuation of the human race. There could be no more significant role than this and, in that sense, women occupy in Christian teaching an exalted and unequalled position, modeled on that of the Blessed Virgin.
What folly, then, to even discuss “equality” in this sense.
Our present culture is filled with raging egalitarian revolutionaries—many political, many academic, many in entertainment, many in media. They are, to quote T. S. Eliot, “destroying our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans.” (Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, 1948, p. 108.)
These revolutionaries tell us that they strive for “correcting historic inequality” and “freedom from oppression.” But their program—their revolution—is a dystopian nightmare which pushes the unobtainable goal of egalitarianism. That program destroys true liberty and succeeds in enslaving millions in unrequited passions and envy, unbound and unreasoned, cocooned in a pseudo-reality. In their quest for an abstract equality they destroy the historic liberties which define and give texture to human society.
The late author-essayist, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, in his classic volume, Liberty or Equality, wrote: Liberty or Equality: T... Erik Ritter von Kuehne... Best Price: $8.26 Buy New $13.68 (as of 05:45 UTC - Details)
. . . it suffices to say that the artificial establishment of equality is as little compatible with liberty as the enforcement of unjust laws of discrimination . . . ‘Nature’ is anything but egalitarian; if we want to establish a complete plain we have to blast the mountains away and fill the valleys; equality thus presupposes the continuous intervention of force which, as a principle, is opposed to freedom. Liberty and equality are in essence contradictory. (Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality, 1952, p. 3.)
And again Bradford: “The only freedom which can last is a freedom embodied somewhere, rooted in a history, located in space, sanctioned by a genealogy, and blessed by a religious establishment. The only equality which abstract rights, insisted upon outside the context of politics, are likely to provide is the equality of universal slavery.” (Bradford, A Better Guide than Reason, 1979, “Preface,” p. xii.)
In their frenzied revolt against the laws of nature and nature’s God, the revolutionaries qualify as what the great English writer G. K. Chesterton called “lunatics.” In his volume, The Poet and the Lunatics (1929), Chesterton’s character Gale asks the question: “What exactly is liberty?” He responds, in part:
First and foremost, surely, it is the power of a thing to be itself. In some ways the yellow bird was free in the cage . . . We are limited by our brains and bodies; and if we break out, we cease to be ourselves, and, perhaps, to be anything. The lunatic is he who loses his way and cannot return. Now, almost before my eyes, this man had made a great stride from liberty to lunacy. The man who opened the bird-cage loved freedom; possibly too much . . . But the man who broke the bowl merely because he thought it a prison for the fish, when it was their only possible house of life—that man was already outside the world of reason, raging with a desire to be outside of everything.
Our modern egalitarian revolutionaries have, to use Chesterton’s parable, gone mad. In their frenetic quest for abstract equality and a freedom not rooted in place, family and history, they are men and women “already outside the world of reason,” enslaved by an unrestrained rage to destroy the edifice of Western Christian civilization which is grounded on both Divine Positive and natural law. That destructive rage is matched only by their profound inability to create anything of real and lasting value to replace what is destroyed.
This is where we find ourselves in America today.
It is no exaggeration to state that millions of our fellow citizens have been infected by an ideology that posits a mythical, egalitarian “counter-reality” which has poisoned their thinking and worldview to the point that co-existing with them in the same nation, in the same geography, becomes increasingly difficult if not impossible. Their template is highly aggressive and contagious; it must increase and grow, or it dies. And, if opposed, it fights back viciously and with total war.
The nightmare scenario described by Chesterton nearly a century ago has arrived today with full force: it surrounds us, it cajoles us, it demands total subservience . . . especially if we have the slightest inclination to think for ourselves, to doubt the new dogmatic and constantly advancing egalitarian templates on feminism and racism. What was perhaps tolerable five years ago is now met with demands for the execution of a social and political death sentence, and what may be tolerable today will soon be seen as a sin against the triumphant and ever-evolving social justice warrior mantra of truth.
That is, until men stand and forcefully oppose this lunacy, completely, honestly, rationally, and without hesitation.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.


lewrockwell--2020-02-28--More Reds Under the Beds

More Reds Under the Beds

If you were tuning into the Democratic Debate Wednesday night , you witnessed first-hand as the DNC installed Mike Bloomberg got annihilated on national television .
The supposed knight in shining armor who was supposed to swoop in and save the Democrats from a Bernie Sanders victory proved to be in deep over his head .
So it is of course no coincidence at all that no less than forty-eight hours after the Bloomberg debacle and just ahead of the Nevada caucuses , “ US officials ” informed Bernie Sanders that Russia is trying to help his campaign .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Times and became breaking news all across the country .
Those Russians are at it again !
First it was Donald Trump .
Then , they moved on to Tulsi Gabbard .
Now , they have settled on old socialist Bernie Sanders .
If anything , those Russians seem awfully confused as to who they want to occupy the White House for the next four years .
Bernie flubbed his response to the smear .
Instead of calling the charges of Russian interference on his behalf the absolute nonsense that it is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ stay out of American elections , and as president I will make sure that you do.
” Bernie did at least say “ I don ’ t care , frankly , who Putin wants to be president.
” Nonetheless , by accepting the DNC and National Security State ’ s made up report of interference on his behalf , Bernie just made their life a little easier .
War with Russia ?
: From ... Stephen F. Cohen Best Price : $ 5.00 Buy New $ 8.50 Just yesterday , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already interfering in the 2020 election to help get Donald Trump re-elected .
Increasingly terrified of actually losing to Trump again , Democrats and the National Security State have now fully hatched their contingency plan .
This has been in the works for some time , mind you .
Remember that during his testimony , Robert Mueller told Congress that Russian interference was happening “ as we sit here.
” This has always been the plan .
Should Trump win again in 2020 , it will not really be a “ win.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precious democracy .
The same efforts to undo Trump will intensify , and his presidency will be a longshot to make it to 2024 intact .
The DNC and National Security State may have been fist bumping each other over their smear of Bernie , but they should not be .
As I write , Bernie is shredding the competition in Nevada and is on his way to yet another victory .
It seems the voters in Nevada aren ’ t quite worried about those ole Russkis .
The problem for the DNC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was one thing to invent and weaponized an inane charge of foreign interference against another country with zero evidence .
It is another to do the exact same thing to a fierce opponent of the President they claim Russia essentially installed in the White House .
It was one thing to sell a furious Democratic party on petulant Trump as a foreign asset .
It is an entirely different thing to sell that same party that its favorite candidate is one too .
In other words , the DNC and National Security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders supporters believe or believed the charge of Russian interference against Donald Trump .
With their smear on a candidate with sky high support running to oppose Trump , they have now begun to kill what little credibility they have left .
Don ’ t think for a second any Bernie Bros believe that Russia is intervening to aid him .
Simply , the charge is pathetic and desperate , and shows how low the party and National Security State is willing to go to knock off candidates they disdain .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the less effect it will have .
The media and DNC have been are further exposing themselves as frauds .
Whether their hubris allows them to see this as a fact is an entirely different issue .
Regardless of Mother Russia , it is time Americans wake up to a very simple fact : other countries have opinions on our elections .
Who , pray tell , do Canada and Mexico want to win the presidency ?
France ?
Germany ?
Oh , and of course , Israel ?
Foreign leaders are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lead the United States .
If Americans want to strut around and claim to live in the nation that is “ the leader of the free world ” and “ the beacon of light for the world ” then maybe , just maybe , they should expect other countries to have opinions on their affairs .
Of course , is there a country on the planet Earth that interferes more in the affairs of other countries than the United States ?
Rhetorical .

If you were tuning into the Democratic Debate Wednesday night, you witnessed first-hand as the DNC installed Mike Bloomberg got annihilated on national television. The supposed knight in shining armor who was supposed to swoop in and save the Democrats from a Bernie Sanders victory proved to be in deep over his head. So it is of course no coincidence at all that no less than forty-eight hours after the Bloomberg debacle and just ahead of the Nevada caucuses, “US officials” informed Bernie Sanders that Russia is trying to help his campaign. This nonsense was published by the New York Times and became breaking news all across the country. Those Russians are at it again! First it was Donald Trump. Then, they moved on to Tulsi Gabbard. Now, they have settled on old socialist Bernie Sanders. If anything, those Russians seem awfully confused as to who they want to occupy the White House for the next four years.
Bernie flubbed his response to the smear. Instead of calling the charges of Russian interference on his behalf the absolute nonsense that it is, he capitulated and ‘told’ Russia to “stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.” Bernie did at least say “I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president.” Nonetheless, by accepting the DNC and National Security State’s made up report of interference on his behalf, Bernie just made their life a little easier.
War with Russia?: From... Cohen, Stephen F. Best Price: $8.99 Buy New $8.50 (as of 02:15 UTC - Details) Just yesterday, it was ‘revealed’ that Russia is already interfering in the 2020 election to help get Donald Trump re-elected. Increasingly terrified of actually losing to Trump again, Democrats and the National Security State have now fully hatched their contingency plan. This has been in the works for some time, mind you. Remember that during his testimony, Robert Mueller told Congress that Russian interference was happening “as we sit here.” This has always been the plan. Should Trump win again in 2020, it will not really be a “win.” It will be an assault on our precious democracy. The same efforts to undo Trump will intensify, and his presidency will be a longshot to make it to 2024 intact.
The DNC and National Security State may have been fist bumping each other over their smear of Bernie, but they should not be. As I write, Bernie is shredding the competition in Nevada and is on his way to yet another victory. It seems the voters in Nevada aren’t quite worried about those ole Russkis. The problem for the DNC goes beyond just Bernie, however. It was one thing to invent and weaponized an inane charge of foreign interference against another country with zero evidence. It is another to do the exact same thing to a fierce opponent of the President they claim Russia essentially installed in the White House. It was one thing to sell a furious Democratic party on petulant Trump as a foreign asset. It is an entirely different thing to sell that same party that its favorite candidate is one too.
In other words, the DNC and National Security State have overplayed their hand. Many Bernie Sanders supporters believe or believed the charge of Russian interference against Donald Trump. With their smear on a candidate with sky high support running to oppose Trump, they have now begun to kill what little credibility they have left. Don’t think for a second any Bernie Bros believe that Russia is intervening to aid him. Simply, the charge is pathetic and desperate, and shows how low the party and National Security State is willing to go to knock off candidates they disdain. The more this attack is used against others, the less effect it will have. The media and DNC have been are further exposing themselves as frauds. Whether their hubris allows them to see this as a fact is an entirely different issue.
Regardless of Mother Russia, it is time Americans wake up to a very simple fact: other countries have opinions on our elections. Who, pray tell, do Canada and Mexico want to win the presidency? France? Germany? Oh, and of course, Israel? Foreign leaders are going to have opinions on who should lead the United States. If Americans want to strut around and claim to live in the nation that is “the leader of the free world” and “the beacon of light for the world” then maybe, just maybe, they should expect other countries to have opinions on their affairs. Of course, is there a country on the planet Earth that interferes more in the affairs of other countries than the United States? Rhetorical.


lewrockwell--2020-02-28--Modern Monetary Theory is an Old Marxist Idea

There is nothing new under the sun Modern Monetary Theory , or “ MMT ” , has been getting a lot of attention lately , often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough .
However , there is absolutely nothing new about it .
The very basis of the theory , the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and therefore deficits don ’ t matter , actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist , Michael Kalecki ( 1899 – 1970 ) .
MMT says that the national debt means that we owe the money to ourselves , so the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and blessings of the political branch can now together spend as much as they want without facing any consequences .
In other words , we can print our way to prosperity .
The only real problem according to the theory is that there is not enough money and not that resources are scarce and therefore limited .
To understand the basic idea behind this , let ’ s use the game “ Monopoly ” as an example .
If players decide to double the amount of monopoly-money to play with , the logical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay much higher prices e.g .
for the same amount of locations .
Whenever more money is chasing the same amount of goods , prices will rise .
Another lesson is that the bank will always win , especially when it has the power to change the rules at any time during the game .
The Real Crash : Americ ... Peter D. Schiff Buy New $ 15.99 The main cause for most of the problems of our days is the current central banking system .
But how many people have ever thought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did it came into existence ?
How many know whether it was always used a debt security by government declaration or if it once was a property title , as it still pretends to be ?
Well , I can tell you that over the past decades , I haven ’ t met a lot of people who really thought about these questions .
At the same time , our public education system and the mass media ensure that the next generation won ’ t think about them either .
Meaningless distractions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effectively crush most inquisitive instincts .
It ’ s a process that Immanuel Kant recognized a long time ago and described in the following way : “ First , these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading strings to which they have fastened them .
Then , they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves .
Now this danger is really not very great ; after stumbling a few times they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walk.
” However , examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.
” With MMT , a massive shift in terms of centralization of power will take place .
Drastic changes in our current system would be possible , with a massive push away from the private sector and from individual freedom towards more government control .
This is extremely dangerous .
History is our witness that centralization in the hands of government , particularly when coming from a so-called “ morally superior ” ideology , never had a good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , institutional actors and those closest to the top of the power pyramid were the only ones to ever benefit from such systems .
MMT essentially gives carte blanche to those interest groups to boost government spending to astronomical levels .
At the same , it allows within a very short period of time a government-enforced , massive redistribution of wealth and a gigantic misallocation of capital .
Over the next few years , the biggest growth potential anywhere in the market , besides the military-industrial complex , will be found in everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You can be sure that governments will just print massive amounts of money and flood this sector with it , where you will find a tremendous number of formal politicians and bureaucrats creating artificial and well paid government-sponsored jobs .
The European Union alone wants to spend EUR1 trillion until 2030 on this new sector .
If Trump loses the next election , Americans can also be sure that MMT will finance the same moves over there too , most likely with the “ New Green Deal ” .
Let me quote Joan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friend of Kalecki , MMT ’ s inspirer , during his days at Cambridge University .
She summarized his theory as follows : “ the workers spend what they earn and the capitalists earn what they spend ” .
Interesting , isn ’ t it ?
This is how the original Marxist thinkers defined capitalism .
You might have understood that in their eyes the individual is the worker and when everything is under government control , the politicians and bureaucrats become the real capitalist .
This is exactly the opposite of my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only possible in a free and decentralized society .
Of course , it is important to understand that the term “ capitalism ” has been purposefully misdefined and hijacked from the beginning by Marxist thinkers .
MMT , also conveniently facilitates other dangerous policies and ideas , that so far seemed unrealistic , like Universal Basic Income and “ helicopter money ” that have been particularly propagated by government-sponsored economists for the past few years .
It sounds pretty cool that people will not have to work to make a living – they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free provided by the government .
But as we all know every coin has two sides , and to me as a fan of history , and monetary history in particular , an old saying comes to my mind : “ Gold is the money of kings , silver is the money of the bourgeoisie , barter is the money of peasants – and debt is the money of slaves.
” It would seem that the only thing history actually teaches us is that we learn nothing from it .
Nevertheless , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and open-source internet and the increasing connectivity and access to knowledge .
These ensure the competition of ideas , the emergence and evolution of different schools of thought , and the means for millions of people to learn about the world and to become conscious individuals with their own opinions .
In addition to that , our financial system is also being challenged and pushed towards a more positive and healthy direction , as hard assets , blockchain applications and cryptocurrencies are laying the foundation for a decentralized approach , where financial sovereignty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Man , Economy , and Stat ... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price : $ 23.43 Buy New $ 29.95 For now , however , we still live in a two-class society , divided between those who have to pay taxes and those who live off them .
As you can imagine , the above-mentioned changes and shifts are not welcome by government and its servants .
They see a return to a culture of public debate , based on respect and on the premise that we can “ agree to disagree ” , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows the truth , as a threat .
Therefore they enforce a de-industrialization agenda in combination with mass-migration , using the climate hoax as an excuse to speed up a cultural suicide .
They prefer to have a monoculture and are against the amazing beauty that lies in complexity , in different cultures , in different regions , with different languages and beliefs .
By splicing it all together , they destroy all of them at once .
At the end of the day , what MMT , the Green New Deal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any other sort of government promise or intervention have in common is that they are all collectivistic by definition , aimed against the individual and based on the crazy findings of the “ Economic School of Zimbabwe ” – where everyone became a trillionaire .
Henry Hazlitt described it best , in his “ Marxism in One Minute “ : “ The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence : Hate the man who is better off than you are .
Never under any circumstances admit that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own efforts , to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community .
Always attribute his success to the exploitation , the cheating , the more or less open robbery of others .
Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness , or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness , incompetence , improvidence or stupidity .
Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you .
This basic hatred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is its animating force.
” The Best of Claudio Grass

There is nothing new under the sun
Modern Monetary Theory, or “MMT”, has been getting a lot of attention lately, often celebrated as a revolutionary breakthrough. However, there is absolutely nothing new about it. The very basis of the theory, the idea that governments can finance their expenditures themselves and therefore deficits don’t matter, actually goes back to the Polish Marxist economist, Michael Kalecki (1899 – 1970).
MMT as a centralisation tool
MMT says that the national debt means that we owe the money to ourselves, so the central bank in combination with the approval and blessings of the political branch can now together spend as much as they want without facing any consequences. In other words, we can print our way to prosperity. The only real problem according to the theory is that there is not enough money and not that resources are scarce and therefore limited. To understand the basic idea behind this, let’s use the game “Monopoly” as an example. If players decide to double the amount of monopoly-money to play with, the logical outcome will be that people start to pay much higher prices e.g. for the same amount of locations. Whenever more money is chasing the same amount of goods, prices will rise. Another lesson is that the bank will always win, especially when it has the power to change the rules at any time during the game.
The Real Crash: Americ... Peter D. Schiff Buy New $15.99 (as of 06:00 UTC - Details) The main cause for most of the problems of our days is the current central banking system. But how many people have ever thought about what money is, or how did it came into existence? How many know whether it was always used a debt security by government declaration or if it once was a property title, as it still pretends to be? Well, I can tell you that over the past decades, I haven’t met a lot of people who really thought about these questions. At the same time, our public education system and the mass media ensure that the next generation won’t think about them either. Meaningless distractions, alternative facts and daily doses of fear effectively crush most inquisitive instincts. It’s a process that Immanuel Kant recognized a long time ago and described in the following way: “First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading strings to which they have fastened them. Then, they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk.” However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.”
With MMT, a massive shift in terms of centralization of power will take place. Drastic changes in our current system would be possible, with a massive push away from the private sector and from individual freedom towards more government control. This is extremely dangerous. History is our witness that centralization in the hands of government, particularly when coming from a so-called “morally superior” ideology, never had a good outcome for the people. State officials, institutional actors and those closest to the top of the power pyramid were the only ones to ever benefit from such systems.
MMT essentially gives carte blanche to those interest groups to boost government spending to astronomical levels. At the same, it allows within a very short period of time a government-enforced, massive redistribution of wealth and a gigantic misallocation of capital.
Over the next few years, the biggest growth potential anywhere in the market, besides the military-industrial complex, will be found in everything that is related to climate change. You can be sure that governments will just print massive amounts of money and flood this sector with it, where you will find a tremendous number of formal politicians and bureaucrats creating artificial and well paid government-sponsored jobs. The European Union alone wants to spend EUR1 trillion until 2030 on this new sector. If Trump loses the next election, Americans can also be sure that MMT will finance the same moves over there too, most likely with the “New Green Deal”.
Let me quote Joan Robinson, who used to be a friend of Kalecki, MMT’s inspirer, during his days at Cambridge University. She summarized his theory as follows: “the workers spend what they earn and the capitalists earn what they spend”. Interesting, isn’t it? This is how the original Marxist thinkers defined capitalism. You might have understood that in their eyes the individual is the worker and when everything is under government control, the politicians and bureaucrats become the real capitalist. This is exactly the opposite of my understanding of capitalism, which is also only possible in a free and decentralized society. Of course, it is important to understand that the term “capitalism” has been purposefully misdefined and hijacked from the beginning by Marxist thinkers.
Far-reaching consequences
MMT, also conveniently facilitates other dangerous policies and ideas, that so far seemed unrealistic, like Universal Basic Income and “helicopter money” that have been particularly propagated by government-sponsored economists for the past few years. It sounds pretty cool that people will not have to work to make a living – they can lay back and enjoy money for free provided by the government. But as we all know every coin has two sides, and to me as a fan of history, and monetary history in particular, an old saying comes to my mind: “Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of the bourgeoisie, barter is the money of peasants – and debt is the money of slaves.”
It would seem that the only thing history actually teaches us is that we learn nothing from it. Nevertheless, there is hope, due to the decentralized and open-source internet and the increasing connectivity and access to knowledge. These ensure the competition of ideas, the emergence and evolution of different schools of thought, and the means for millions of people to learn about the world and to become conscious individuals with their own opinions. In addition to that, our financial system is also being challenged and pushed towards a more positive and healthy direction, as hard assets, blockchain applications and cryptocurrencies are laying the foundation for a decentralized approach, where financial sovereignty is key and privacy is respected.
Man, Economy, and Stat... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price: $23.43 Buy New $29.95 (as of 08:10 UTC - Details) For now, however, we still live in a two-class society, divided between those who have to pay taxes and those who live off them. As you can imagine, the above-mentioned changes and shifts are not welcome by government and its servants. They see a return to a culture of public debate, based on respect and on the premise that we can “agree to disagree”, with the humble understanding that no one knows the truth, as a threat. Therefore they enforce a de-industrialization agenda in combination with mass-migration, using the climate hoax as an excuse to speed up a cultural suicide. They prefer to have a monoculture and are against the amazing beauty that lies in complexity, in different cultures, in different regions, with different languages and beliefs. By splicing it all together, they destroy all of them at once.
At the end of the day, what MMT, the Green New Deal, QE, NIRP, Helicopter Money or any other sort of government promise or intervention have in common is that they are all collectivistic by definition, aimed against the individual and based on the crazy findings of the “Economic School of Zimbabwe” – where everyone became a trillionaire. Henry Hazlitt described it best, in his “Marxism in One Minute“:
“The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others.
Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness, incompetence, improvidence or stupidity. Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you.
This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism. This is its animating force.”
Originally published under www.executive-global.com
The Best of Claudio Grass


Ranking Ruth

I recently unfairly baited the great baseball statistics thinker Bill James into responding at vast length to one of my snarky tweets , which got me thinking about what we could learn from baseball history about how the media often gets The Narrative wrong .
The intellectual rigor of baseball discourse , a formerly overly sentimental field , has improved dramatically over my lifetime .
Unfortunately , discussion of many other more important subjects , such as immigration policy , has gotten schmaltzier .
You might think , for example , that the success of new baseball stats suggests we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pick the best immigrants , the talented few whose presence will most benefit existing Americans , out of the 7 billion non-Americans , in much the way that sports teams today carefully draft the most promising young athletes .
And , indeed , after three years in office , the Trump administration has finally managed to get into effect this week a new , improved “ public charge ” rule to better screen out immigrants likely to wind up on welfare .
But this seemingly simple concept of America trying to more intelligently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigrants has outraged and baffled the great and the good .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Buy New $ 10.00 Baseball statistics has become a Safe Space for white guys who like to engage in acts of pattern recognition ever since a boiler-room attendant named Bill James began revolutionizing the study of baseball stats with his first self-published Baseball Abstract in 1975 .
On the other hand , as with any historic change , the victors are likely to exaggerate the backwardness of the defeated .
Hence , I like to tweak advocates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ sabermetrics ” ) by pointing out that many of their findings about who were the best baseball players in history were anticipated generations ago by little boys .
So I tweeted that the glass hadn ’ t been half empty , it had been half full : I went on to point out that the eight highest-achieving careers , according to the composite Wins Above Replacement ( WAR ) metric for estimating the best all-around players at the popular Baseball Reference website , belong to Ruth , Walter Johnson , Cy Young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ty Cobb , Hank Aaron , and Roger Clemens , all of whom were extremely famous during their careers among fans who had never heard of WAR or James ’ own rival composite statistic : Win Shares .
Interestingly , James avoided creating an all-around statistic for rank-ordering all the players in baseball until 2002 due to the inherent difficulties in doing it right , long feeling that it was more useful to answer many small questions well than one big question badly .
Even today there are multiple versions of WAR that @ @ @ @ @ @

I recently unfairly baited the great baseball statistics thinker Bill James into responding at vast length to one of my snarky tweets, which got me thinking about what we could learn from baseball history about how the media often gets The Narrative wrong.
The intellectual rigor of baseball discourse, a formerly overly sentimental field, has improved dramatically over my lifetime. Unfortunately, discussion of many other more important subjects, such as immigration policy, has gotten schmaltzier.
You might think, for example, that the success of new baseball stats suggests we should use “Moneyball” techniques to pick the best immigrants, the talented few whose presence will most benefit existing Americans, out of the 7 billion non-Americans, in much the way that sports teams today carefully draft the most promising young athletes.
And, indeed, after three years in office, the Trump administration has finally managed to get into effect this week a new, improved “public charge” rule to better screen out immigrants likely to wind up on welfare. But this seemingly simple concept of America trying to more intelligently select promising immigrants and keep out ill-omened immigrants has outraged and baffled the great and the good. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $10.00 (as of 08:25 UTC - Details)
Baseball statistics has become a Safe Space for white guys who like to engage in acts of pattern recognition ever since a boiler-room attendant named Bill James began revolutionizing the study of baseball stats with his first self-published Baseball Abstract in 1975.
Over the past 45 years, the progress in baseball analysis has been testimony to the value of intellectual freedom. There has been a revolution among baseball intellectuals because nobody has gotten canceled for saying something deemed immoral. The old order was overthrown because, mirabile dictu, they lost a long series of arguments, and eventually jobs. Mr. James, for example, was hired by the Boston Red Sox front office, from which he recently retired after seventeen years and four world championships.
On the other hand, as with any historic change, the victors are likely to exaggerate the backwardness of the defeated. Hence, I like to tweak advocates of the triumphant advanced analytics (or “sabermetrics”) by pointing out that many of their findings about who were the best baseball players in history were anticipated generations ago by little boys. So I tweeted that the glass hadn’t been half empty, it had been half full:
Sabermetricians congratulate themselves for noticing in retrospect what fans in the stands noticed at the time. E.g., Advanced Analytics has determined that the greatest baseball player of all time was…Babe Ruth! Who was also the most popular player ever.
I went on to point out that the eight highest-achieving careers, according to the composite Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric for estimating the best all-around players at the popular Baseball Reference website, belong to Ruth, Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, and Roger Clemens, all of whom were extremely famous during their careers among fans who had never heard of WAR or James’ own rival composite statistic: Win Shares.
Interestingly, James avoided creating an all-around statistic for rank-ordering all the players in baseball until 2002 due to the inherent difficulties in doing it right, long feeling that it was more useful to answer many small questions well than one big question badly.
Even today there are multiple versions of WAR that mostly but not always agree.
Read the Whole Article


lewrockwell--2020-02-28--Who Gets the Ticket?

Who Gets the Ticket?

What happens when the driver isn ’ t “ speeding ” – but the car is ?
Who gets the ticket ?
It ’ s a question bound to come up soon in traffic court given the fact that some new cars – like Sammy Hagar back in the day – can ’ t drive 55 .
Or rather , can be tricked into driving 85 when the speed limit is 35 .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Buy New $ 10.00 How do you trick a car to drive 50 MPH faster than the posted speed limit ?
By @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ 3 ” to an “ 8 ” on a speed limit sign .
McAfee ( the computer anti-virus software company ) researchers Shivangee Trivedi and Steve Povolny did exactly that and it fooled the apparently not-so-smart automated speed control system built into a late-model Tesla electric car .
Its Traffic Aware Cruise Control uses a camera to “ read ” speed limit signs – and automatically adjusts the car ’ s speed up or down accordingly – without any action by the driver .
When the camera “ saw ” 85 it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 85 – or tried to .
The researchers hit the brakes to prevent it from running amok , but the point was made .
If this hadn ’ t been a test – if the car “ saw ” 85 rather than 35 and the driver wasn ’ t paying attention , the result could be a very big ticket – or a very bad accident .
Teslas aren ’ t the only cars with this type of tech , either .
It ’ s is a building block of autonomous – of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the McAfee researchers just established – isn ’ t infallible and can be just as dangerous as a reckless driver .
Especially when the driver isn ’ t paying attention to a recklessly driving car .
Given that the whole point of automated driving tech is to enable the driver not to – and given the fact that technology is no more infallible than the human beings who create it – it ’ s inevitable that automated cars will drive fallibly .
The Best of Eric Peters

What happens when the driver isn’t “speeding” – but the car is?
Who gets the ticket?
It’s a question bound to come up soon in traffic court given the fact that some new cars – like Sammy Hagar back in the day – can’t drive 55.
Or rather, can be tricked into driving 85 when the speed limit is 35.
Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $10.00 (as of 08:25 UTC - Details) How do you trick a car to drive 50 MPH faster than the posted speed limit? By using black electrical tape to change the “3” to an “8” on a speed limit sign. McAfee (the computer anti-virus software company) researchers Shivangee Trivedi and Steve Povolny did exactly that and it fooled the apparently not-so-smart automated speed control system built into a late-model Tesla electric car.
Its Traffic Aware Cruise Control uses a camera to “read” speed limit signs – and automatically adjusts the car’s speed up or down accordingly – without any action by the driver. When the camera “saw” 85 it raised the car’s speed to 85 – or tried to.
The researchers hit the brakes to prevent it from running amok, but the point was made. If this hadn’t been a test – if the car “saw” 85 rather than 35 and the driver wasn’t paying attention, the result could be a very big ticket – or a very bad accident.
Possibly both.

Teslas aren’t the only cars with this type of tech, either. It’s is a building block of autonomous – of automated – driving tech. Which – as the McAfee researchers just established – isn’t infallible and can be just as dangerous as a reckless driver.
Especially when the driver isn’t paying attention to a recklessly driving car.
Given that the whole point of automated driving tech is to enable the driver not to – and given the fact that technology is no more infallible than the human beings who create it – it’s inevitable that automated cars will drive fallibly.
And fatally.
Read the Whole Article
The Best of Eric Peters