lewrockwell--2020-07-16--A Brief History of the Freedom of Speech in America

“ I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.
” — Voltaire ( 1694-1778 ) When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence , he included in it a list of the colonists ’ grievances with the British government .
Notably absent were any complaints that the British government infringed upon the freedom of speech .
In those days , speech was as acerbic as it is today .
If words were aimed at Parliament , all words were lawful .
If they were aimed directly and personally at the king @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Declaration — they constituted treason .
Treatise on Toleration ... Voltaire Best Price : $ 9.62 Buy New $ 9.49 Needless to say , Jefferson and the 55 others who signed the Declaration would all have been hanged for treasonous speech had the British prevailed .
Of course , the colonists won the war , and , six years afterward , the 13 states ratified the Constitution .
Two years after ratification , the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights .
The first ratified amendment prohibited Congress from doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the British government doing — infringing upon the freedom of speech .
James Madison , who drafted the Bill of Rights , insisted upon referring to speech as “ the ” freedom of speech , so as to emphasize that it preexisted the government .
If you could have asked Madison where he believed the freedom of speech came from , he ’ d have said it was one of the inalienable rights Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration .
Stated differently , each of the signatories of the Declaration and ratifiers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their unambiguous belief that the freedom of speech is a natural right — personal to every human .
It does not come from the government .
It comes from within us .
It can not be taken away by legislation or executive command .
Yet , a mere seven years later , during the presidency of John Adams , Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts , which punished speech critical of the government .
So , how could the same generation — in some cases the same human beings — that prohibited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statute that punished speech ?
Constitutional Chaos : ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 0.25 Buy New $ 5.01 To the some of the framers — the Federalists who wanted a big government as we have today — infringing upon the freedom of speech meant silencing it before it was uttered .
Today , this is called prior restraint , and the Supreme Court has essentially outlawed it .
To the antifederalists — or Democratic-Republicans , as they called themselves — the First Amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with or punishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice indicted and prosecuted and convicted antifederalists — among them a congressman — for their critical speech .
When Jefferson won the presidency and the antifederalists won control of Congress , the Federalists repealed the speech suppression parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts on the eve of their departure from congressional control , lest it be used against them .
During the Civil War , President Abraham Lincoln locked up hundreds of journalists in the North who were critical of his war efforts .
During World War I , President Woodrow Wilson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is trying to erase from its memory — arrested folks for reading the Declaration of Independence aloud or singing German beer hall songs .
Lincoln argued that preserving the Union was more important than preserving the First Amendment , and Wilson argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress , not the president .
Both arguments have since been rejected by the courts .
In the 1950s , the feds successfully prosecuted Cold War dissenters on the theory that their speech was dangerous and might have a tendency to violence .
Some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in prison .
It Is Dangerous to Be ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 1.10 Buy New $ 5.51 The government ’ s respect for speech has waxed and waned .
It is at its lowest ebb during wartime .
Of course , dissent during wartime — which challenges the government ’ s use of force to kill — is often the most important and timely speech .
It was not until 1969 , in a case called Brandenburg v. Ohio , that the Supreme Court gave us a modern definition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harangued a crowd in Hamilton County , Ohio and urged them to march to Washington and take back the federal government from Blacks and Jews , whom he argued were in control .
He was convicted in an Ohio state court of criminal syndicalism — basically , the use of speech to arouse others to violence .
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed his conviction and held that all innocuous speech is absolutely protected , and all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to rebut it .
The same Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sullivan that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage and protect open , wide , robust , even caustic and unbridled speech .
The speech we love needs no protection .
The speech we hate does .
The government has no authority to evaluate speech .
As the framers understood , all persons have a natural right to think as we wish and to say and publish whatever we think .
Even hateful , hurtful and harmful speech is protected speech .
Yet , in perilous times like the present @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the courts to block the publication of unflattering books .
We have seen state governors use the police to protect gatherings of protestors with whose message they agreed and to disburse critical protestors .
We have seen mobs silence speakers while the police did nothing .
A Nation of Sheep Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 1.00 Buy New $ 3.99 Punishing speech is the most dangerous business because there will be no end to it .
The remedy for hateful or threatening speech is not silence or punishments ; it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speaker .
Why do folks in government want to silence their opponents ?
They fear an undermining of their power .
The dissenters might make more appealing arguments than they do .
St. Augustine taught that nearly all in government want to tell others how to live .
How about we all say whatever we want and the government leaves us alone ?
The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano

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“I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire (1694-1778)
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists’ grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints that the British government infringed upon the freedom of speech.
In those days, speech was as acerbic as it is today. If words were aimed at Parliament, all words were lawful. If they were aimed directly and personally at the king — as Jefferson’s were in the Declaration — they constituted treason. Treatise on Toleration... Voltaire Best Price: $9.62 Buy New $9.49 (as of 03:35 UTC - Details)
Needless to say, Jefferson and the 55 others who signed the Declaration would all have been hanged for treasonous speech had the British prevailed.
Of course, the colonists won the war, and, six years afterward, the 13 states ratified the Constitution. Two years after ratification, the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights. The first ratified amendment prohibited Congress from doing what the colonists never seriously complained about the British government doing — infringing upon the freedom of speech.
James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, insisted upon referring to speech as “the” freedom of speech, so as to emphasize that it preexisted the government. If you could have asked Madison where he believed the freedom of speech came from, he’d have said it was one of the inalienable rights Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration.
Stated differently, each of the signatories of the Declaration and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights manifested in writing their unambiguous belief that the freedom of speech is a natural right — personal to every human. It does not come from the government. It comes from within us. It cannot be taken away by legislation or executive command.
Yet, a mere seven years later, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which punished speech critical of the government.
So, how could the same generation — in some cases the same human beings — that prohibited congressional infringement upon speech have enacted a statute that punished speech? Constitutional Chaos: ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $0.25 Buy New $5.01 (as of 04:40 UTC - Details)
To the some of the framers — the Federalists who wanted a big government as we have today — infringing upon the freedom of speech meant silencing it before it was uttered. Today, this is called prior restraint, and the Supreme Court has essentially outlawed it.
To the antifederalists — or Democratic-Republicans, as they called themselves — the First Amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with or punishing any speech.
Adams’ Department of Justice indicted and prosecuted and convicted antifederalists — among them a congressman — for their critical speech.
When Jefferson won the presidency and the antifederalists won control of Congress, the Federalists repealed the speech suppression parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts on the eve of their departure from congressional control, lest it be used against them.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln locked up hundreds of journalists in the North who were critical of his war efforts. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson — whom my alma mater Princeton University is trying to erase from its memory — arrested folks for reading the Declaration of Independence aloud or singing German beer hall songs.
Lincoln argued that preserving the Union was more important than preserving the First Amendment, and Wilson argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress, not the president. Both arguments have since been rejected by the courts.
In the 1950s, the feds successfully prosecuted Cold War dissenters on the theory that their speech was dangerous and might have a tendency to violence. Some of the victims of this torturous rationale died in prison. It Is Dangerous to Be ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $1.10 Buy New $5.51 (as of 11:50 UTC - Details)
The government’s respect for speech has waxed and waned. It is at its lowest ebb during wartime. Of course, dissent during wartime — which challenges the government’s use of force to kill — is often the most important and timely speech.
It was not until 1969, in a case called Brandenburg v. Ohio, that the Supreme Court gave us a modern definition of the freedom of speech. Brandenburg harangued a crowd in Hamilton County, Ohio and urged them to march to Washington and take back the federal government from Blacks and Jews, whom he argued were in control. He was convicted in an Ohio state court of criminal syndicalism — basically, the use of speech to arouse others to violence.
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed his conviction and held that all innocuous speech is absolutely protected, and all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to rebut it. The same Supreme Court had just ruled in Times v. Sullivan that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage and protect open, wide, robust, even caustic and unbridled speech.
The speech we love needs no protection. The speech we hate does. The government has no authority to evaluate speech. As the framers understood, all persons have a natural right to think as we wish and to say and publish whatever we think. Even hateful, hurtful and harmful speech is protected speech.
Yet, in perilous times like the present, we have seen efforts to use the courts to block the publication of unflattering books. We have seen state governors use the police to protect gatherings of protestors with whose message they agreed and to disburse critical protestors. We have seen mobs silence speakers while the police did nothing. A Nation of Sheep Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $1.00 Buy New $3.99 (as of 04:45 UTC - Details)
Punishing speech is the most dangerous business because there will be no end to it. The remedy for hateful or threatening speech is not silence or punishments; it is more speech — speech that challenges the speaker.
Why do folks in government want to silence their opponents? They fear an undermining of their power. The dissenters might make more appealing arguments than they do. St. Augustine taught that nearly all in government want to tell others how to live.
How about we all say whatever we want and the government leaves us alone?
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano


lewrockwell--2020-07-16--The Covid Set-Up Is Now Fully in Play as CDC Outlines Plan for Death

“ There ’ s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through .
And when I ’ ve said this to others , they kind of put their head back , they don ’ t understand what I mean… We ’ re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time.
” “ I am worried .
I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are probably going to be one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experienced in American public health because of what you said — the co-occurrence of Covid and influenza , and this is where I ’ d like to continue to work with you to get the American public to embrace the influenza vaccine so we can try to minimize the impact of inluenza , because I think those two respiratory pathogens hitting us at the same time do have the potential to stress our health system.
” The Politics of Obedie ... Etienne de la Boetie Best Price : $ 7.00 Buy New $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , made both these ‘ predictive ’ statements about the future of this orchestrated coronavirus pandemic .
The first comment was a few months ago as reported in this article on April 21 , and the second quote was from an interview held yesterday with the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association .
In my opinion , these are not simply prognostications , but are warnings of things already planned and known .
Part of the reason for these announcements is to set the stage for the final nail in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prepare the sheep for mass death purposely created to advance this sinister agenda of total population control .
The CDC , and therefore the state , will recommend the flu vaccine followed by the Covid vaccine , and both will infect all recipients with multiple viruses and poisons at a time when the bulk of society is most vulnerable .
This is by design .
The state ’ s scandalous pandemic response is the major part of this plan that can guarantee more sickness and death ; sickness and death purposely sought by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to perpetuate great harm through the manipulated weakening of the immune systems of most all Americans .
After several months of lockdowns , a carrot was dangled for a brief period , with promises of reopening .
That reopening never actually happened in full , as the restrictions remained during the pause , and then the stopgap plan of arranged fake racial strife , rioting , looting , and property destruction was allowed to continue until the next part of this plot could be released on the public .
The beginning strategy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case increases , enough to instill fear in an already beaten down populace that is once again being told to isolate , mask , distance , and lockdown .
The final part of this second phase will come with the first sign of cold weather , and this has already been put into motion due to the near complete decimation of general health due to the government response to this hoax .
Twilight of Democracy : ... Applebaum , Anne Buy New $ 20.99 What the CDC head is indicating with his comments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ season coming will be much more devastating than normal , and that all sickness and death will be blamed on a virus that has never been properly scientifically isolated , identified , or verified .
That will matter not , as after 8 months of mandated isolation and lockdowns , deadly oxygen-stealing mask wearing , of vitamin deficiencies , lack of exercise , job loss , depression , and extreme stress , the entire population will be at great risk of becoming sick , and the evil controllers of this fraud that plotted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use the purposely created weakness of the masses to advance their agendas of control .
This coming flu season will not be like last year when total deaths were close to normal , even with the introduction of a fraudulent virus .
This next flu season will see not only the old and infirmed getting sick and dying , but people of all ages will be highly affected due to deliberately introduced lockdown measures implemented by the elite controllers .
These controllers include the big banking sector , the government at every level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pharmaceutical companies , the medical and healthcare industry , the giant tax-free foundations , and others .
These are the only entities that will benefit from this great reset and new world order .
They will still benefit monetarily of course , as the wealth transfers will continue in earnest , but they will benefit most by gaining total power and control over all aspects of society and people worldwide .
This Covid set-up is going forward without pause , and the governing system ’ s anticipation of carnage is based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death and destruction .
The children , young , and somewhat healthy were spared this past year because there was no real pandemic other than the one created out of thin air .
That will not be the case this coming year , as the government response , mandated isolation , and restrictions have been effective in weakening the entire population , and that will lead to an immune system breakdown that will not be exclusive of age .
The state fully understands the implications of what they have created , and are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant to destroy all that is held dear by humanity .
The fact that so many will die is not any concern of those perpetrating this fraud , as they know exactly what they are doing , and they know exactly what they seek .
Manipulating The World ... Martin Armstrong Check Amazon for Pricing .
This is the most dangerous time in the history of man .
The seriousness of this plot can not be underestimated .
It is not due to any threat of conventional war , and it is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it is based on the fact that this is a psychological war waged by psychopaths against all mankind , and it is being advanced by a small group of monsters that have taken control of the minds of the masses through long-term indoctrination and policies meant to breed dependency .
Fear is the new weapon of mass destruction , not because it is legitimate , but because the people have lost all will to be free , have lost all ability to think , and seek shelter and comfort as a collective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ society that is based on totalitarian rule .
“ Poor , wretched , and stupid peoples , nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good !
You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues ; your fields are plundered , your homes robbed , your family heirlooms taken away .
You live in such a way that you can not claim a single thing as your own ; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very lives .
All this havoc , this misfortune , this ruin , descends upon you not from alien foes , but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is , for whom you go bravely to war , for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death .
He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes , only two hands , only one body , no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you.
” The Case Against Masks ... Heckenlively , Kent Buy New $ 12.99 The people of this country are teetering on the precipice of annihilation .
Hundreds of millions of American citizens hide under their beds , cover their face until they can not breathe , submit to forced financial ruin , succumb to obvious lies and deceit , allow their property to be plundered and burned without resistance , allow their children to be poked and prodded , and injected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , never again to live a free and normal life .
All this is done on orders from a few , from a criminal and corrupt government that is evil beyond imagination , and that is vile and immoral at its very core .
The blame for this travesty falls not so much on those that have fooled the people , but on the people themselves .
Voluntary serfdom is deserved , because people unwilling to defend themselves , their families , their neighbors , their livelihoods , and their very freedom , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for freedom without the courage to claim it is a meaningless endeavor , as any real demand by the masses would leave the governing elite naked and afraid .
All that is necessary to achieve liberty is to want it , and this alone can defeat tyranny .
Fauci : The Bernie Mado ... Ortleb , Charles Buy New $ 5.99 A VOYAGE IN IMAGINATIO ... Holmes , Dr Joel S Buy New $ 9.95 The Invisible Enemy Garrett , Mr. Gregory L ... Buy New $ 26.94 Murder by Injection Mullins , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buy New $ 25.00 The Best of Gary D. Barnett

“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through. And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean… We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time.”
“I am worried. I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are probably going to be one of the most difficult times that we’ve experienced in American public health because of what you said — the co-occurrence of Covid and influenza, and this is where I’d like to continue to work with you to get the American public to embrace the influenza vaccine so we can try to minimize the impact of inluenza, because I think those two respiratory pathogens hitting us at the same time do have the potential to stress our health system.”
The Politics of Obedie... Etienne de la Boetie Best Price: $7.00 Buy New $7.00 (as of 05:45 UTC - Details) The CDC Director, Robert Redfield, made both these ‘predictive’ statements about the future of this orchestrated coronavirus pandemic. The first comment was a few months ago as reported in this article on April 21, and the second quote was from an interview held yesterday with the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association. In my opinion, these are not simply prognostications, but are warnings of things already planned and known. Part of the reason for these announcements is to set the stage for the final nail in the coffin of freedom, and to prepare the sheep for mass death purposely created to advance this sinister agenda of total population control. The CDC, and therefore the state, will recommend the flu vaccine followed by the Covid vaccine, and both will infect all recipients with multiple viruses and poisons at a time when the bulk of society is most vulnerable. This is by design.
The state’s scandalous pandemic response is the major part of this plan that can guarantee more sickness and death; sickness and death purposely sought by the perpetrators of this fraud in order to perpetuate great harm through the manipulated weakening of the immune systems of most all Americans. After several months of lockdowns, a carrot was dangled for a brief period, with promises of reopening. That reopening never actually happened in full, as the restrictions remained during the pause, and then the stopgap plan of arranged fake racial strife, rioting, looting, and property destruction was allowed to continue until the next part of this plot could be released on the public. The beginning strategy of this second phase was based on false case increases, enough to instill fear in an already beaten down populace that is once again being told to isolate, mask, distance, and lockdown. The final part of this second phase will come with the first sign of cold weather, and this has already been put into motion due to the near complete decimation of general health due to the government response to this hoax. Twilight of Democracy:... Applebaum, Anne Buy New $20.99 (as of 03:37 UTC - Details)
What the CDC head is indicating with his comments is that he knows that the flu season coming will be much more devastating than normal, and that all sickness and death will be blamed on a virus that has never been properly scientifically isolated, identified, or verified. That will matter not, as after 8 months of mandated isolation and lockdowns, deadly oxygen-stealing mask wearing, of vitamin deficiencies, lack of exercise, job loss, depression, and extreme stress, the entire population will be at great risk of becoming sick, and the evil controllers of this fraud that plotted this outcome from the beginning, will use the purposely created weakness of the masses to advance their agendas of control.
This coming flu season will not be like last year when total deaths were close to normal, even with the introduction of a fraudulent virus. This next flu season will see not only the old and infirmed getting sick and dying, but people of all ages will be highly affected due to deliberately introduced lockdown measures implemented by the elite controllers. These controllers include the big banking sector, the government at every level, the WHO, the CDC, the pharmaceutical companies, the medical and healthcare industry, the giant tax-free foundations, and others. These are the only entities that will benefit from this great reset and new world order. They will still benefit monetarily of course, as the wealth transfers will continue in earnest, but they will benefit most by gaining total power and control over all aspects of society and people worldwide.
This Covid set-up is going forward without pause, and the governing system’s anticipation of carnage is based on reality and the desired expectation of mass death and destruction. The children, young, and somewhat healthy were spared this past year because there was no real pandemic other than the one created out of thin air. That will not be the case this coming year, as the government response, mandated isolation, and restrictions have been effective in weakening the entire population, and that will lead to an immune system breakdown that will not be exclusive of age. The state fully understands the implications of what they have created, and are using it to continue to advance agendas meant to destroy all that is held dear by humanity. The fact that so many will die is not any concern of those perpetrating this fraud, as they know exactly what they are doing, and they know exactly what they seek. Manipulating The World... Martin Armstrong Check Amazon for Pricing.
This is the most dangerous time in the history of man. The seriousness of this plot cannot be underestimated. It is not due to any threat of conventional war, and it is not due to any threat of nuclear decimation, it is based on the fact that this is a psychological war waged by psychopaths against all mankind, and it is being advanced by a small group of monsters that have taken control of the minds of the masses through long-term indoctrination and policies meant to breed dependency. Fear is the new weapon of mass destruction, not because it is legitimate, but because the people have lost all will to be free, have lost all ability to think, and seek shelter and comfort as a collective herd only capable of existence in a society that is based on totalitarian rule.
“Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you.” The Case Against Masks... Heckenlively, Kent Buy New $12.99 (as of 04:52 UTC - Details)
Excerpt From: Étienne de la Boétie. “The Politics of Obedience.” iBooks.
The people of this country are teetering on the precipice of annihilation. Hundreds of millions of American citizens hide under their beds, cover their face until they cannot breathe, submit to forced financial ruin, succumb to obvious lies and deceit, allow their property to be plundered and burned without resistance, allow their children to be poked and prodded, and injected with poisons, and voluntarily imprison themselves, never again to live a free and normal life. All this is done on orders from a few, from a criminal and corrupt government that is evil beyond imagination, and that is vile and immoral at its very core.
The blame for this travesty falls not so much on those that have fooled the people, but on the people themselves. Voluntary serfdom is deserved, because people unwilling to defend themselves, their families, their neighbors, their livelihoods, and their very freedom, are not worthy of respect. Longing for freedom without the courage to claim it is a meaningless endeavor, as any real demand by the masses would leave the governing elite naked and afraid. All that is necessary to achieve liberty is to want it, and this alone can defeat tyranny.
Fauci: The Bernie Mado... Ortleb, Charles Buy New $5.99 (as of 02:55 UTC - Details) A VOYAGE IN IMAGINATIO... Holmes, Dr Joel S Buy New $9.95 (as of 04:21 UTC - Details) The Invisible Enemy Garrett, Mr. Gregory L... Buy New $26.94 (as of 05:21 UTC - Details) Murder by Injection Mullins, Eustace Clarence Best Price: $37.99 Buy New $25.00 (as of 08:21 UTC - Details)
The Best of Gary D. Barnett


lewrockwell--2020-07-16--Exposing Deception: Minimal Risk to the Healthy From COVID-19

According to recent polls , 75 percent of Americans worry about their communities re-opening too soon from the corona lockdowns .
More than eight in ten say they are likely to stay home if there is a new spike of cases in the area where they live .
And by a margin of almost four to one , most Americans believe the U.S. economy is being reopened too quickly rather than too slowly .
These figures indicate that the majority of us believe we are in the midst of a dangerous epidemic .
The levels of anxiety and fear have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier survey found that many Americans thought that extreme measures – such as complete closure of K-12 schools and most businesses – were justified to mitigate the threat posed by the coronavirus disease .
But is this fear justified ?
Is this virus really so dangerous that we need to shut down large portions of our society and dramatically curtail our engagement in everyday activities ?
What is the actual risk of harm and death posed by this pathogen to an ordinary healthy individual ?
Feardom : How Politicia ... Connor Boyack Best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6.98 It may come as something of a surprise , but this kind of information is not very easy to come by .
This is remarkable to say the least given that so much has been said and written about the various aspects of this crisis .
We read the frightening headlines , hear about the death and case counts and listen to heart-rending individual stories of those sickened by the virus .
But we almost never come across articles or reports that would present hard data or objective metrics which would indicate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus to the average person .
Since the mainstream media do not do their job in this regard , those who want to know have to do some research themselves .
When you conduct internet searches , you can , indeed , find considerable amount of raw data .
Most of it , however , is presented in technical manner and therefore not easy to understand by the layperson .
But there are some places where such information is presented in a way that can be readily understood by most people .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wikipedia titled Mortality due to COVID-19 .
One , of course , always needs to be cautious when getting information from Wikipedia .
To begin with , the data presented there is often less than rock solid .
Secondly , it is well known that Wikipedia tends to suffer from a leftist bias .
This has been stated by – of all people – Larry Sanger , one of Wikipedia ’ s co-founders .
Sanger recently posted a lengthy article titled “ Wikipedia is Badly Biased ” in which he documents the online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inaccuracy due to its leftward bent .
In our case , however , Wikipedia ’ s bias can be to our advantage , since it essentially serves as a safeguard to keep us from underestimating the seriousness of the threat posed by COVID-19 .
This is because the Left ’ s overall inclination so far has been to overstate the danger to the maximum extent possible .
The motivation for this is quite obvious .
The greater the perceived danger , the better the chances of havoc in the American economy and society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the re-election prospects of Donald Trump for whom , as Sanger points out , Wikipedia seems to harbor a special dislike .
We can , therefore , reasonably assume that Wikipedia ’ s editors and writers are likely to interpret the data which they use as the basis for their work on COVID-19 in a way that would magnify the danger rather than the other way around .
Resistance ( At All Cos ... Strassel , Kimberley Best Price : $ 21.36 Buy New $ 12.04 With this in mind , let us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mortality due to COVID-19 to see what we can learn about the threat posed by the virus .
The entry is based on data streams from various sources which include government agencies , peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals and hospital reports among others .
Wikipedia collates and processes this data and presents the results in the form of easy to read tables .
Altogether there are seven data tables in the entry .
The one that is of most interest to us is called “ Percent of infected people who die – infection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The title is self-explanatory .
The table shows the percentage of people – across different age brackets – who die after being infected with the virus .
The Infection Fatality Rate is by far the more accurate indicator of a disease ’ s deadliness than the often-used Case Fatality Rate , because the former takes into account the actual number of cases in the population rather than only those confirmed by tests .
And since only a fraction of those infected are ever actually confirmed through testing , the Infection Fatality Rate is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate .
The Wikipedia table breaks down the rate for men and women , but for now we are only concerned with the average across the sexes , which is indicated in the bottom row called “ Total.
” We reproduce the diagram below : Before we proceed , we mention two facts in order to give the figures above some context .
The first is that the combined mortality rate across all age brackets for seasonal influenza is typically around 0.1 percent .
We say “ typically , ” because this figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ depending on the virulence of each year ’ s strain .
The second fact we need to bear in mind is that the vast majority of people – some 90 percent – who succumb to COVID-19 are either old or have at least one serious health condition .
This is how Wikipedia acknowledges this reality : “ Deaths are ten times more common in those aged over 60 years and those with co-morbidities.
” What this means is that only one tenth of all COVID victims are healthy individuals with whom age is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us look at the information presented in the table .
For young people in the 0-19 age bracket the infection fatality rate is 0.001 percent .
This means that the chances of an infected child dying of COVID-19 are 1 in 100,000 .
In other words , out of every 100,000 children who contract the SARS-CoV-2 virus one will pass away .
Machiavelli : The Art o ... Boucheron , Patrick Best Price : $ 6.19 Buy New $ 5.99 To see just how small these chances are in the context of real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this probability with the probability of death from other rare causes .
Below are our one-year odds of dying from various mishaps : An injury of any kind : 1 in 1,334 ( 75 out 100,000 ) Accidental poisoning : 1 in 5,243 ( 19 out of 100,000 ) A motor vehicle accident : 1 in 8,303 ( 12 out of 100,000 ) Shot by a firearm : 1 in 23,439 ( 4 out of 100,000 ) Struck by a motor vehicle while walking : 1 in 42,600 ( 2 out of 100,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a child between the ages of 0 and 19 has more than 10 times greater chance of perishing in a car accident than dying from infection by SARS-CoV-2 .
It also has a 70 times greater chance of dying from an injury and 200 percent greater chance of being killed by a car while walking in the street .
Given the extremely small probability of children coming to harm from this disease , it is truly remarkable that at one point some 90 percent of Americans supported the closure of K-12 schools .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ deceptive way in which this disease has been mispresented to the American public .
But there is another calculation to be made .
Even though the numbers above are extremely small , they still greatly overstate the threat to healthy children .
This is because the 0.001 mortality figure includes the 90 percent of children who suffer from a serious pre-existing medical condition at the time of their passing .
Therefore , the infection fatality rate for healthy children will be one tenth of this number , which comes to 0.0001 percent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a million which is , for all practical purposes , zero .
In other words , HEALTHY children do not die of COVID-19 .
The risk is also extremely low for young people in the 20 to 29-years-old age bracket where the infection mortality rate stands at 0.007 percent .
This means seven out of every 100,000 infected individuals from this cohort 7 will die of COVID-19 .
For those belonging to this category , the chances of dying of COVID-19 are nearly two times less than their yearly odds of being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if we perform the 90 percent adjustment for pre-existing conditions , the chances become much lower still .
They essentially come to nil .
In the 30 to 39-year-old bracket the infection fatality rate goes up to 0.02 percent .
This translates to 20 out 100,000 people .
And even though this is appreciably higher than the rates for the previous two groups , the risk of dying of COVID-19 for people in this category is still less than their chances of dying of an injury in the next twelve months .
Adjustment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such a small number that it becomes negligible .
Among the 40 to 49-year-olds the infection fatality rate figures at 0.06 percent , which converts to 60 deaths per 100,000 infections .
This is three times the rate of the previous bracket , but still below the average death rate for the annual flu .
The 50 to 59-year-old cohort is the first age bracket where the numbers would warrant some concern .
The infection fatality rate for this group is 0.2 , which is twice the flu mortality rate .
This translates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This may seem relatively high , but if we perform the 90 percent adjustment for pre-existing conditions , the infection mortality rate for the healthy this age category goes down to 0.02 .
This in turn converts to 200 per 100,000 .
Although this is not an insignificant number , it is considerably less than the average influenza death rate .
Virus Mania : How the M ... Kennedy , Robert Best Price : $ 23.32 Buy New $ 18.31 What all this shows is that for healthy individuals under the age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greater risk than from other relatively rare threats .
The low risk demographics encompassed by this age boundary include school children , young adults , college students and most people of a productive age .
For healthy children , young adults and college students the risk is so low as to be practically irrelevant .
For healthy adults of productive age , the danger is below the average risk of death from the annual flu .
The fact that a high proportion of the US population fear for their safety and approve of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , universities and most businesses shows that people are grossly misinformed about the risk posed by the coronavirus .
Closing schools and universities , for example , makes little sense from a health point of view .
Some proponents of the drastic across-the-board lockdowns would contend that part of the reason is to limit the spread of the virus in order to protect the vulnerable .
There is , however , no evidence that children spread the virus in the first place .
But the larger question is why do we not lockdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are truly vulnerable ?
Why do we insist on locking down everyone – even those who face no particular risk from the disease – and crashing the economy in the process while causing all kinds of other damage as well .
That much of the population goes along with such a misguided approach is – more than anything – a disgraceful testimony to the deceptive reporting by the traditional media .
By failing to provide proper context for their stories and headlines , the media have perpetrated a fraud on the American public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deal of fear and confusion .
We call on the journalists responsible for this deception to do the right thing and review the hard facts .
They can start with the information on the coronavirus disease presented by Wikipedia .
They should have no hesitation about turning to this particular outlet , since Wikipedia essentially serves as the Left ’ s organ of reality validation .
Americans have been fed Fake News by the traditional media outlets and they have fallen for it .
It is imperative that we expose this journalistic malpractice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level of threat .
If we do not succeed , the cost of this fraud may in the end prove to be more than we can withstand .
The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer

According to recent polls, 75 percent of Americans worry about their communities re-opening too soon from the corona lockdowns. More than eight in ten say they are likely to stay home if there is a new spike of cases in the area where they live. And by a margin of almost four to one, most Americans believe the U.S. economy is being reopened too quickly rather than too slowly.
These figures indicate that the majority of us believe we are in the midst of a dangerous epidemic. The levels of anxiety and fear have reached such a high pitch that an earlier survey found that many Americans thought that extreme measures – such as complete closure of K-12 schools and most businesses – were justified to mitigate the threat posed by the coronavirus disease.
But is this fear justified? Is this virus really so dangerous that we need to shut down large portions of our society and dramatically curtail our engagement in everyday activities? What is the actual risk of harm and death posed by this pathogen to an ordinary healthy individual? Feardom: How Politicia... Connor Boyack Best Price: $4.12 Buy New $6.98 (as of 11:35 UTC - Details)
It may come as something of a surprise, but this kind of information is not very easy to come by. This is remarkable to say the least given that so much has been said and written about the various aspects of this crisis. We read the frightening headlines, hear about the death and case counts and listen to heart-rending individual stories of those sickened by the virus. But we almost never come across articles or reports that would present hard data or objective metrics which would indicate the actual level of danger posed by the virus to the average person.
Since the mainstream media do not do their job in this regard, those who want to know have to do some research themselves. When you conduct internet searches, you can, indeed, find considerable amount of raw data. Most of it, however, is presented in technical manner and therefore not easy to understand by the layperson. But there are some places where such information is presented in a way that can be readily understood by most people. One such place is a page on Wikipedia titled Mortality due to COVID-19.
One, of course, always needs to be cautious when getting information from Wikipedia. To begin with, the data presented there is often less than rock solid. Secondly, it is well known that Wikipedia tends to suffer from a leftist bias. This has been stated by – of all people – Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s co-founders. Sanger recently posted a lengthy article titled “Wikipedia is Badly Biased” in which he documents the online encyclopedia’s tendency toward distortion and inaccuracy due to its leftward bent.
In our case, however, Wikipedia’s bias can be to our advantage, since it essentially serves as a safeguard to keep us from underestimating the seriousness of the threat posed by COVID-19. This is because the Left’s overall inclination so far has been to overstate the danger to the maximum extent possible. The motivation for this is quite obvious. The greater the perceived danger, the better the chances of havoc in the American economy and society. This, of course, diminishes the re-election prospects of Donald Trump for whom, as Sanger points out, Wikipedia seems to harbor a special dislike. We can, therefore, reasonably assume that Wikipedia’s editors and writers are likely to interpret the data which they use as the basis for their work on COVID-19 in a way that would magnify the danger rather than the other way around. Resistance (At All Cos... Strassel, Kimberley Best Price: $21.36 Buy New $12.04 (as of 04:39 UTC - Details)
With this in mind, let us now turn to Wikipedia’s article Mortality due to COVID-19 to see what we can learn about the threat posed by the virus. The entry is based on data streams from various sources which include government agencies, peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals and hospital reports among others. Wikipedia collates and processes this data and presents the results in the form of easy to read tables. Altogether there are seven data tables in the entry. The one that is of most interest to us is called “Percent of infected people who die – infection fatality rate (IFR).”
The title is self-explanatory. The table shows the percentage of people – across different age brackets – who die after being infected with the virus. The Infection Fatality Rate is by far the more accurate indicator of a disease’s deadliness than the often-used Case Fatality Rate, because the former takes into account the actual number of cases in the population rather than only those confirmed by tests. And since only a fraction of those infected are ever actually confirmed through testing, the Infection Fatality Rate is always much lower than the Case Fatality rate. The Wikipedia table breaks down the rate for men and women, but for now we are only concerned with the average across the sexes, which is indicated in the bottom row called “Total.” We reproduce the diagram below:
Before we proceed, we mention two facts in order to give the figures above some context. The first is that the combined mortality rate across all age brackets for seasonal influenza is typically around 0.1 percent. We say “typically,” because this figure is not fixed as it varies somewhat depending on the virulence of each year’s strain.
The second fact we need to bear in mind is that the vast majority of people – some 90 percent – who succumb to COVID-19 are either old or have at least one serious health condition. This is how Wikipedia acknowledges this reality: “Deaths are ten times more common in those aged over 60 years and those with co-morbidities.” What this means is that only one tenth of all COVID victims are healthy individuals with whom age is not a factor.
Let us now us look at the information presented in the table. For young people in the 0-19 age bracket the infection fatality rate is 0.001 percent. This means that the chances of an infected child dying of COVID-19 are 1 in 100,000. In other words, out of every 100,000 children who contract the SARS-CoV-2 virus one will pass away. Machiavelli: The Art o... Boucheron, Patrick Best Price: $6.19 Buy New $5.99 (as of 03:30 UTC - Details)
To see just how small these chances are in the context of real life, it will help to juxtapose this probability with the probability of death from other rare causes. Below are our one-year odds of dying from various mishaps:
An injury of any kind: 1 in 1,334 (75 out 100,000)
Accidental poisoning: 1 in 5,243 (19 out of 100,000)
A motor vehicle accident: 1 in 8,303 (12 out of 100,000)
Shot by a firearm: 1 in 23,439 (4 out of 100,000)
Struck by a motor vehicle while walking: 1 in 42,600 (2 out of 100,000)
From this we can see that a child between the ages of 0 and 19 has more than 10 times greater chance of perishing in a car accident than dying from infection by SARS-CoV-2. It also has a 70 times greater chance of dying from an injury and 200 percent greater chance of being killed by a car while walking in the street. Given the extremely small probability of children coming to harm from this disease, it is truly remarkable that at one point some 90 percent of Americans supported the closure of K-12 schools. It is also a testimony to the deceptive way in which this disease has been mispresented to the American public.
But there is another calculation to be made. Even though the numbers above are extremely small, they still greatly overstate the threat to healthy children. This is because the 0.001 mortality figure includes the 90 percent of children who suffer from a serious pre-existing medical condition at the time of their passing. Therefore, the infection fatality rate for healthy children will be one tenth of this number, which comes to 0.0001 percent. This in turn translates into 1 out of a million which is, for all practical purposes, zero. In other words, HEALTHY children do not die of COVID-19.
The risk is also extremely low for young people in the 20 to 29-years-old age bracket where the infection mortality rate stands at 0.007 percent. This means seven out of every 100,000 infected individuals from this cohort 7 will die of COVID-19. For those belonging to this category, the chances of dying of COVID-19 are nearly two times less than their yearly odds of being killed in a car accident. And if we perform the 90 percent adjustment for pre-existing conditions, the chances become much lower still. They essentially come to nil.
In the 30 to 39-year-old bracket the infection fatality rate goes up to 0.02 percent. This translates to 20 out 100,000 people. And even though this is appreciably higher than the rates for the previous two groups, the risk of dying of COVID-19 for people in this category is still less than their chances of dying of an injury in the next twelve months. Adjustment for co-morbidities further reduces the risk to such a small number that it becomes negligible.
Among the 40 to 49-year-olds the infection fatality rate figures at 0.06 percent, which converts to 60 deaths per 100,000 infections. This is three times the rate of the previous bracket, but still below the average death rate for the annual flu.
The 50 to 59-year-old cohort is the first age bracket where the numbers would warrant some concern. The infection fatality rate for this group is 0.2, which is twice the flu mortality rate. This translates to 200 fatalities for every 100,000 infections. This may seem relatively high, but if we perform the 90 percent adjustment for pre-existing conditions, the infection mortality rate for the healthy this age category goes down to 0.02. This in turn converts to 20 per 100,000. Although this is not an insignificant number, it is considerably less than the average influenza death rate. Virus Mania: How the M... Kennedy, Robert Best Price: $23.32 Buy New $18.31 (as of 03:58 UTC - Details)
What all this shows is that for healthy individuals under the age of sixty the SARS-CoV-2 virus poses no greater risk than from other relatively rare threats. The low risk demographics encompassed by this age boundary include school children, young adults, college students and most people of a productive age. For healthy children, young adults and college students the risk is so low as to be practically irrelevant. For healthy adults of productive age, the danger is below the average risk of death from the annual flu.
The fact that a high proportion of the US population fear for their safety and approve of extreme measures such as shutting down schools, universities and most businesses shows that people are grossly misinformed about the risk posed by the coronavirus. Closing schools and universities, for example, makes little sense from a health point of view. Some proponents of the drastic across-the-board lockdowns would contend that part of the reason is to limit the spread of the virus in order to protect the vulnerable. There is, however, no evidence that children spread the virus in the first place.
But the larger question is why do we not lockdown, quarantine and otherwise protect those who are truly vulnerable? Why do we insist on locking down everyone – even those who face no particular risk from the disease – and crashing the economy in the process while causing all kinds of other damage as well. That much of the population goes along with such a misguided approach is – more than anything – a disgraceful testimony to the deceptive reporting by the traditional media. By failing to provide proper context for their stories and headlines, the media have perpetrated a fraud on the American public which has given rise to a great deal of fear and confusion. We call on the journalists responsible for this deception to do the right thing and review the hard facts. They can start with the information on the coronavirus disease presented by Wikipedia. They should have no hesitation about turning to this particular outlet, since Wikipedia essentially serves as the Left’s organ of reality validation.
Americans have been fed Fake News by the traditional media outlets and they have fallen for it. It is imperative that we expose this journalistic malpractice by informing the public of the true level of threat. If we do not succeed, the cost of this fraud may in the end prove to be more than we can withstand.
The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer


lewrockwell--2020-07-16--I Love the Chinese

I Love the Chinese

I know I ’ m supposed to hate the Chinese for their killing of two million Americans , or whatever the totally fake China Virus estimate from Neil Ferguson ’ s crystal ball was , but truth be told I don ’ t .
I know I ’ m supposed to believe the narrative about this or that bio lab and be ready to cheer on drastic action .
Also , I ’ m supposed to hate Beijing for what they are doing in Hong Kong and insist upon war .
That attack on that special city , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enjoyed freedoms that the rest of us could only dream of .
In the 1950s , while technocrats in the West were just starting to make a whole slew of fake science out of monitoring people , John Cowperthwaite was hard at work preventing the collection of statistics in Hong Kong .
Statistics — what an ugly word — the data of the state .
How much better off the world would be if more people refused to cooperate in such a toxic study and sought to simply live their lives .
Knowledge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be used as a weapon in the hands of the state .
The Bitcoin Manifesto Allan J Stevo Best Price : $ 7.54 Buy New $ 12.73 If I knew much about the American biological weapons program and the Chinese biological weapons program , I ’ m sure I ’ d be the first to have some kind of self-righteous opinion about the whole thing .
But what I know is my own life and my own interaction with Chinese people .
Isn ’ t that more important than whatever statistics get published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bible that we call the Economist or by the Office of Management and Budget ?
I really like pretty much every Chinese person I ’ ve ever met .
This week I needed a lightbulb in one of these awful American cities that is still on lockdown .
It ’ s the 128th day .
So I made a quick trip to the store to grab an incandescent lightbulb since I ’ m quite partial to their warm color spectrum and not too bothered by the fact that the packaging claims they cost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fluorescent light over the course of a year , or some other Ferguson-esque hyperbole .
The secret in moments like this is to divide everything a western expert says by 1,000 on the low end and 1,000,000 on the high end and you are likely to get far more accurate readings .
Overestimation bias is real .
No one wants to hear about the 5-inch bluegill you caught .
No one wants to hear about the 400 cases of mad cow disease that accurate models of the disease would predict .
But a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the street or the 84-foot man-eating fish you caught , that might turn heads .
“ If it bleeds , it leads , ” is no longer limited to being the motto of cynical newsroom editors .
It is the motto of Royal College epidemiologists too .
In their paper “ US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research , ” ( 2013 ) Fanelli and Ioannidis write : “ Science is a struggle for truth against methodological , psychological , and sociological obstacles .
Increasing efforts are devoted to studying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publication , because these represent a threat for human health , economic resources , and scientific progress.
” Eager to get my incandescent lightbulb , I allotted about ten minutes for the process and walked into my local hardware store .
The hardware store had a wall of lightbulbs , not a single one useful to me .
There was a 25 watt incandescent bulb ( too dim ) , a 200 watt incandescent bulb ( too hot ) , and incandescent orange flood lamps ( Orange Man bad ) .
Everything else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ LEDs , which are turning into quite nice lightbulbs compared to what they once were , but are still not that wonderful warm glow of a kaolin clay lined , tungsten filament , argon filled incandescent .
Rub with Love Chinese ... Buy New $ 6.95 ( $ 1.99 / Ounce ) The hardware store was out of stock , and they weren ’ t expecting anymore .
Incandescent bulbs had been banned since January 1 , 2020 , under Gavin Newsom ( not Chinese ) I soon learned , as part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began federally in the awful Bush 43 ( not Chinese ) administration in 2007 .
You know that president , the one who inherited what was called “ Pax Americana ” from the war monger Bill Clinton ( not Chinese ) and his warmonger Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ( not Chinese ) , the one who started a giant Middle East nightmare with the aid of Donald Rumsfeld ( not Chinese ) , Dick Cheney ( not Chinese ) , Richard Perle ( not Chinese ) , Paul Wolfowitz ( not Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , Scooter Libby ( not Chinese ) , Condoleezza Rice ( not Chinese ) , Karl Rove ( not Chinese ) , Bill Kristol ( not Chinese ) , Charles Krauthammer ( not Chinese ) , Colin Powell ( not Chinese ) , Sean Hannity ( not Chinese ) , Brett Stevens ( not Chinese ) , John McCain ( not Chinese ) , Lindsey Graham ( not Chinese ) , Chuck Schumer ( not Chinese ) , and Joe Lieberman ( not Chinese ) after campaigning on what was effectively non-intervention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of US liberty during peacetime since FDR ( not Chinese ) — FDR being the worst of the bunch since Lincoln ( not Chinese ) — that president who was replaced by Barack Obama ( not Chinese ) , the one who continued his wars and led the biggest slaughter of people of color by any US President ever and who was himself succeeded in an America first backlash by President Trump ( not Chinese ) , who has not ended the awful Bush-Obama wars , and has overseen the implementation of corona @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on American liberty .
“ Oh well , ” I thought , as I stood in the lightbulb aisle , “ I ’ ll just get them off Amazon .
Amazon has everything I really need anyway .
Should have done that to begin with and saved myself the trip.
” Despite some valid criticism against the company , Amazon is so good at what it does , and brings so much human happiness to so many people .
A quick search on my phone turned up my favorite incandescent bulbs at Amazon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on buying two boxes of those .
Thanks to Amazon , this trip , even after a hiccup , was really only going to be a ten-minute trip after all .
I breathed a sigh of relief , grateful for that moment decades ago when Jeff Bezos took the chance of making his vision for the future into a reality .
Then a special screen popped up .
How to Win America for ... Stevo , Allan J Best Price : $ 23.33 Buy New $ 17.95 “ Sorry this item can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” it read .
Amazon wouldn ’ t ship incandescent lightbulbs to California .
They are too illegal .
I ’ ve worked in the 11-year-old Bitcoin industry for 7 years .
I wrote the Bitcoin Manifesto .
Skirting silly restrictions is commonplace for anyone who has watched that industry develop .
I know better than most how the free market segment of the interwebs will happily provide for me in a moment like this , so it occurred to me that I could order the contraband lightbulbs from the so called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use Monero to make the purchase even harder for anyone to trace back to me .
The contrasts between the difficulty in buying a contraband lightbulb and buying a substance that will actually cause harm are phenomenal .
The local Four Seasons hotel this spring was shuttered by the government and then when it was left with no other way of making money , it was rented out to the government .
On Saturday , two days prior , one of the homeless men now staying in the Four Seasons , care of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Paramedics rushed him out the door of the once very upscale hotel and to the safety of a hospital .
Heroin can be purchased with ease in this city .
Downtown even offers “ The Three Block Guarantee.
” There is someone at any given moment with a needle dangling out of their arm in broad daylight within three blocks .
If I turn on the police scanner , the most common call I hear is for people overdosing .
All that I can do here , but purchasing an incandescent lightbulb , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That makes sense .
The Shar-Pei Face I Lo ... Buy New $ 23.99 It makes sense when you realize Americans just aren ’ t serious about very much .
Vast parts of the country have turned into a total joke .
When you value your own life and the lives of others , this is not how you interact with reality .
When you don ’ t take life seriously , you end up exactly here .
A culture that teaches their children to anthropomorphize Mickey Mouse because “ that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TV , movie , or other ) babysit their pride and joy and the future of humanity because that ’ s the easy and popular thing to do , is a culture that raises the baby boomers and makes a child ’ s relationship with reality near impossible .
Parents become a child ’ s worst enemy as they raise them to adulthood with minds of mush .
Project the trajectory of that aberrant vector globally and over two to three generations and who can be surprised when 3,000 abortions a day is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ page news .
Yes .
Of course , we shut down an economy that was the pinnacle of economic advancement over the entire course of world history because of a bad flu season .
Yes of course everyone is hiding their hard won individuality , represented in their faces , behind face masks and suddenly ignoring their healthy immune systems which have protected them their entire lives .
Yes , of course everyone is hiding at home .
Because Americans have become a frivolous people .
Expect nothing but the most frivolous of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t have it .
Amazon doesn ’ t have it .
I guess the dark web it is .
I opened my Tor browser and then it occurred to me that there might be a Chinese website that would ship incandescent lightbulbs to me .
I wouldn ’ t even need the dark web .
Though we constantly hear about how unfree the Chinese are , Chinese entrepreneurs have basked in the gray market and black market business opportunities of the internet that uncowed Americans once happily provided alongside service with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wonderful Chinese vendors I knew online .
Then it occurred to me that there might be an “ in real life ” Chinese person in this metropolis that would dare carry incandescent lightbulbs , unlike these compliant California-born who run the hardware store .
At that moment , one of the Karens working at the store got on the employee intercom .
A man had been spotted in aisle seven without a face mask on .
Attention , a man had been spotted in aisle seven without a face mask on .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Tradit ... Buy New $ 21.99 In less than a minute , three employees descended upon me and broke social distancing to tell me that I was in violation of the face mask order , one of whom was not wearing a face mask .
What a fiasco this trip had turned into .
I walked to a Chinese store I knew .
On the way , I reflected on a few Cantonese phrases .
Cantonese , not Mandarin .
The Chinese people who speak Cantonese had been around awhile .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They may not have come from Hong Kong , but they often have an intimate understanding of the affairs of Hong Kong .
The Chinese people who speak Mandarin tend to be newcomers , they tend to like the communists .
Marxists in America would prefer these distinctions be swept under the rug .
Marxists tend to hate easy-to-study control groups , in which ethnically identical populations can be compared next to each other with little difference beyond the political systems they live under : Hong Kong ( largely free economy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of capitalist aspects with considerable oppression ) are a great example .
American collectivists and Chinese collectivists alike need this example to go away .
They need the statue of Hong Kong torn down .
Every day it stands , it offers the most potent ridicule to Marxism .
Seemingly in contrast , neo-conservatives and global interventionists of all parties stand ready to “ protect freedom ” in Hong Kong , a view that this observer finds insincere , as he witnessed how poorly they protected freedom in places such as the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American collectivists are united in their general support of proposals that will spell the end of Hong Kong as we know it , with some minor disagreement on specific tactics .
Pronounced and public examples like Hong Kong v. Mainland make it hard for Marxists to parade around their moldy old racist chestnut and try to feed it to people .
What the Marxists offer is pure racism : white people have privilege ( that ’ s biological determinism , of which racism is a sub-segment ) , and black people are inevitably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ determinism ) .
And then I turned the corner , walked into the store , and there it was , a wall of incandescent lightbulbs .
Communism outside these walls , free markets within .
I bet the Chinese husband and wife who own the store never said to themselves “ Let ’ s leave friends , family , language , and culture behind in our ancestral lands and let ’ s move to America where we can be treated like crap by the government , start over from scratch , and own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of free market ideals of trade , peace , and prosperity in the midst of the growing morass that is American communism.
” No , they probably never said that .
But that ’ s what it is .
2 Boxes Ormosia / Red ... Buy New $ 25.00 ( $ 1.04 / Count ) In under a minute I was able to have my incandescent lightbulb in hand .
No one said a thing about a face mask .
And one of the ladies working brought me a shopping basket to invite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Most Americans don ’ t have a clue how much of their freedom they are throwing away through little acts like wearing a face mask , acceding to the racism and lies that BLM needs believed for its Marxist revolt to succeed , letting their toilets be low-flush , letting their lightbulbs be mercury-filled , government-enforced , migraine-inducing pieces of crap , letting their gasoline canisters be safety versions , letting their cars be safety versions , letting their lives be riskless and bubble wrapped safety versions .
It ’ s the niggling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death by a thousand paper cuts so much more awful than any death caused by taking courageous risk .
How the diminutive Lilliputians of Jonathan Swift ’ s parable occupy themselves with the trivial , and how brutally oppressive and mighty that collective is in their net effect .
The petty bureaucrat , the compliant Karen , the cowering Ken are no different .
America in 2020 is the height of frivolity .
And the frivolous have enforcement authority .
Steer clear of the frivolous .
It could rub off on you .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not wearing a face mask matters because it is you exempting yourself from the frivolity .
It is you insisting you won ’ t let your life be run by the compliant , cruel , and frivolous .
How the man standing across from me at the cash register accepting a dollar bill in exchange for a lightbulb is denying all of that — not in word , but in his action as a human .
With that , he speaks most loudly of his values .
I love the Chinese , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the better they seem to be at caring about doing business and not caring about the rest .
Their American born kids are usually hopeless .
But that ’ s a matter for another day .
The Best of Allan Stevo

I know I’m supposed to hate the Chinese for their killing of two million Americans, or whatever the totally fake China Virus estimate from Neil Ferguson’s crystal ball was, but truth be told I don’t.
I know I’m supposed to believe the narrative about this or that bio lab and be ready to cheer on drastic action.
Also, I’m supposed to hate Beijing for what they are doing in Hong Kong and insist upon war. That attack on that special city, I’m opinionated about. Hong Kong has enjoyed freedoms that the rest of us could only dream of. In the 1950s, while technocrats in the West were just starting to make a whole slew of fake science out of monitoring people, John Cowperthwaite was hard at work preventing the collection of statistics in Hong Kong.
Statistics — what an ugly word — the data of the state. How much better off the world would be if more people refused to cooperate in such a toxic study and sought to simply live their lives. Knowledge in the hands of the state will be used as a weapon in the hands of the state.
The Bitcoin Manifesto Allan J Stevo Best Price: $7.54 Buy New $12.73 (as of 05:50 UTC - Details) If I knew much about the American biological weapons program and the Chinese biological weapons program, I’m sure I’d be the first to have some kind of self-righteous opinion about the whole thing. But what I know is my own life and my own interaction with Chinese people.
Isn’t that more important than whatever statistics get published in the back of the technocrats’ bible that we call the Economist or by the Office of Management and Budget? I really like pretty much every Chinese person I’ve ever met.
This week I needed a lightbulb in one of these awful American cities that is still on lockdown. It’s the 128th day. So I made a quick trip to the store to grab an incandescent lightbulb since I’m quite partial to their warm color spectrum and not too bothered by the fact that the packaging claims they cost me $4,000 more than a compact fluorescent light over the course of a year, or some other Ferguson-esque hyperbole.
The secret in moments like this is to divide everything a western expert says by 1,000 on the low end and 1,000,000 on the high end and you are likely to get far more accurate readings.
Overestimation bias is real. No one wants to hear about the 5-inch bluegill you caught. No one wants to hear about the 400 cases of mad cow disease that accurate models of the disease would predict. But a study that tells the story of blood on the street or the 84-foot man-eating fish you caught, that might turn heads. “If it bleeds, it leads,” is no longer limited to being the motto of cynical newsroom editors. It is the motto of Royal College epidemiologists too.
In their paper “US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research,” (2013) Fanelli and Ioannidis write:
“Science is a struggle for truth against methodological, psychological, and sociological obstacles. Increasing efforts are devoted to studying unconscious and conscious biases in research and publication, because these represent a threat for human health, economic resources, and scientific progress.”
Eager to get my incandescent lightbulb, I allotted about ten minutes for the process and walked into my local hardware store.
The hardware store had a wall of lightbulbs, not a single one useful to me. There was a 25 watt incandescent bulb (too dim), a 200 watt incandescent bulb (too hot), and incandescent orange flood lamps (Orange Man bad). Everything else were those sickly green colored CFL or LEDs, which are turning into quite nice lightbulbs compared to what they once were, but are still not that wonderful warm glow of a kaolin clay lined, tungsten filament, argon filled incandescent. Rub with Love Chinese ... Buy New $6.95 ($1.99 / Ounce) (as of 03:40 UTC - Details)
The hardware store was out of stock, and they weren’t expecting anymore. Incandescent bulbs had been banned since January 1, 2020, under Gavin Newsom (not Chinese) I soon learned, as part of sweeping executive action across the country that began federally in the awful Bush 43 (not Chinese) administration in 2007.
You know that president, the one who inherited what was called “Pax Americana” from the war monger Bill Clinton (not Chinese) and his warmonger Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (not Chinese), the one who started a giant Middle East nightmare with the aid of Donald Rumsfeld (not Chinese), Dick Cheney (not Chinese), Richard Perle (not Chinese), Paul Wolfowitz (not Chinese), Douglas Feith (not Chinese), Scooter Libby (not Chinese), Condoleezza Rice (not Chinese), Karl Rove (not Chinese), Bill Kristol (not Chinese), Charles Krauthammer (not Chinese), Colin Powell (not Chinese), Sean Hannity (not Chinese), Brett Stevens (not Chinese), John McCain (not Chinese), Lindsey Graham (not Chinese), Chuck Schumer (not Chinese), and Joe Lieberman (not Chinese) after campaigning on what was effectively non-intervention, led the most concentrated grand curtailing of US liberty during peacetime since FDR (not Chinese) — FDR being the worst of the bunch since Lincoln (not Chinese) — that president who was replaced by Barack Obama (not Chinese), the one who continued his wars and led the biggest slaughter of people of color by any US President ever and who was himself succeeded in an America first backlash by President Trump (not Chinese), who has not ended the awful Bush-Obama wars, and has overseen the implementation of corona communism, overshadowing all prior peacetime restrictions on American liberty.
“Oh well,” I thought, as I stood in the lightbulb aisle, “I’ll just get them off Amazon. Amazon has everything I really need anyway. Should have done that to begin with and saved myself the trip.”
Despite some valid criticism against the company, Amazon is so good at what it does, and brings so much human happiness to so many people. A quick search on my phone turned up my favorite incandescent bulbs at Amazon in under 15 seconds.
I decided on buying two boxes of those.
Thanks to Amazon, this trip, even after a hiccup, was really only going to be a ten-minute trip after all.
I hit the “Buy Now!” button and Voila!
I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for that moment decades ago when Jeff Bezos took the chance of making his vision for the future into a reality.
Then a special screen popped up. How to Win America for... Stevo, Allan J Best Price: $14.36 Buy New $17.95 (as of 04:37 UTC - Details)
“Sorry this item can’t be shipped to your selected address,” it read.
Amazon wouldn’t ship incandescent lightbulbs to California. They are too illegal.
Sucks to you Amazon!
Hardware store won’t sell it.
Amazon won’t sell it.
I’ve worked in the 11-year-old Bitcoin industry for 7 years. I wrote the Bitcoin Manifesto. Skirting silly restrictions is commonplace for anyone who has watched that industry develop. I know better than most how the free market segment of the interwebs will happily provide for me in a moment like this, so it occurred to me that I could order the contraband lightbulbs from the so called “dark web.” I could even use Monero to make the purchase even harder for anyone to trace back to me.
The contrasts between the difficulty in buying a contraband lightbulb and buying a substance that will actually cause harm are phenomenal.
The local Four Seasons hotel this spring was shuttered by the government and then when it was left with no other way of making money, it was rented out to the government. On Saturday, two days prior, one of the homeless men now staying in the Four Seasons, care of the taxpayer, overdosed on heroin. Paramedics rushed him out the door of the once very upscale hotel and to the safety of a hospital. Heroin can be purchased with ease in this city.
Downtown even offers “The Three Block Guarantee.” There is someone at any given moment with a needle dangling out of their arm in broad daylight within three blocks. If I turn on the police scanner, the most common call I hear is for people overdosing.
All that I can do here, but purchasing an incandescent lightbulb, that’s forbidden.
Yeah. That makes sense. The Shar-Pei Face I Lo... Buy New $23.99 (as of 03:40 UTC - Details)
It makes sense when you realize Americans just aren’t serious about very much. Vast parts of the country have turned into a total joke. When you value your own life and the lives of others, this is not how you interact with reality. When you don’t take life seriously, you end up exactly here.
A culture that teaches their children to anthropomorphize Mickey Mouse because “that’s cute,” lets a screen (TV, movie, or other) babysit their pride and joy and the future of humanity because that’s the easy and popular thing to do, is a culture that raises the baby boomers and makes a child’s relationship with reality near impossible. Parents become a child’s worst enemy as they raise them to adulthood with minds of mush. Project the trajectory of that aberrant vector globally and over two to three generations and who can be surprised when 3,000 abortions a day is meaningless, but puppy mills are front page news.
Yes. Of course, we shut down an economy that was the pinnacle of economic advancement over the entire course of world history because of a bad flu season. Yes of course everyone is hiding their hard won individuality, represented in their faces, behind face masks and suddenly ignoring their healthy immune systems which have protected them their entire lives. Yes, of course everyone is hiding at home. Because Americans have become a frivolous people. Expect nothing but the most frivolous of behavior from frivolous people.
Hardware store doesn’t have it.
Amazon doesn’t have it.
I guess the dark web it is.
I opened my Tor browser and then it occurred to me that there might be a Chinese website that would ship incandescent lightbulbs to me. I wouldn’t even need the dark web.
Though we constantly hear about how unfree the Chinese are, Chinese entrepreneurs have basked in the gray market and black market business opportunities of the internet that uncowed Americans once happily provided alongside service with a smile. I reflected on several wonderful Chinese vendors I knew online.
Then it occurred to me that there might be an “in real life” Chinese person in this metropolis that would dare carry incandescent lightbulbs, unlike these compliant California-born who run the hardware store.
At that moment, one of the Karens working at the store got on the employee intercom. A man had been spotted in aisle seven without a face mask on. Attention, a man had been spotted in aisle seven without a face mask on.
I was in aisle seven. Love Written in Tradit... Buy New $21.99 (as of 03:40 UTC - Details)
In less than a minute, three employees descended upon me and broke social distancing to tell me that I was in violation of the face mask order, one of whom was not wearing a face mask.
What a fiasco this trip had turned into.
I walked to a Chinese store I knew. On the way, I reflected on a few Cantonese phrases. Cantonese, not Mandarin. The Chinese people who speak Cantonese had been around awhile. They tend not to care for the communists. They may not have come from Hong Kong, but they often have an intimate understanding of the affairs of Hong Kong.
The Chinese people who speak Mandarin tend to be newcomers, they tend to like the communists. Marxists in America would prefer these distinctions be swept under the rug. Marxists tend to hate easy-to-study control groups, in which ethnically identical populations can be compared next to each other with little difference beyond the political systems they live under: Hong Kong (largely free economy to date) and Mainland China (lots of capitalist aspects with considerable oppression) are a great example.
American collectivists and Chinese collectivists alike need this example to go away. They need the statue of Hong Kong torn down. Every day it stands, it offers the most potent ridicule to Marxism.
Seemingly in contrast, neo-conservatives and global interventionists of all parties stand ready to “protect freedom” in Hong Kong, a view that this observer finds insincere, as he witnessed how poorly they protected freedom in places such as the United States, Iraq, and Libya. American collectivists are united in their general support of proposals that will spell the end of Hong Kong as we know it, with some minor disagreement on specific tactics.
Pronounced and public examples like Hong Kong v. Mainland make it hard for Marxists to parade around their moldy old racist chestnut and try to feed it to people. What the Marxists offer is pure racism: white people have privilege (that’s biological determinism, of which racism is a sub-segment), and black people are inevitably oppressed by white people (more biological determinism).
And then I turned the corner, walked into the store, and there it was, a wall of incandescent lightbulbs. Communism outside these walls, free markets within.
I bet the Chinese husband and wife who own the store never said to themselves “Let’s leave friends, family, language, and culture behind in our ancestral lands and let’s move to America where we can be treated like crap by the government, start over from scratch, and own a store that can be an island of free market ideals of trade, peace, and prosperity in the midst of the growing morass that is American communism.” No, they probably never said that. But that’s what it is. 2 Boxes Ormosia / Red ... Buy New $25.00 ($1.04 / Count) (as of 03:40 UTC - Details)
In under a minute I was able to have my incandescent lightbulb in hand.
No one said a thing about a face mask.
And one of the ladies working brought me a shopping basket to invite me to stay and shop awhile.
I love the Chinese.
Most Americans don’t have a clue how much of their freedom they are throwing away through little acts like wearing a face mask, acceding to the racism and lies that BLM needs believed for its Marxist revolt to succeed, letting their toilets be low-flush, letting their lightbulbs be mercury-filled, government-enforced, migraine-inducing pieces of crap, letting their gasoline canisters be safety versions, letting their cars be safety versions, letting their lives be riskless and bubble wrapped safety versions.
It’s the niggling little strictures of life that make this death by a thousand paper cuts so much more awful than any death caused by taking courageous risk.
How the diminutive Lilliputians of Jonathan Swift’s parable occupy themselves with the trivial, and how brutally oppressive and mighty that collective is in their net effect. The petty bureaucrat, the compliant Karen, the cowering Ken are no different.
America in 2020 is the height of frivolity. And the frivolous have enforcement authority. Steer clear of the frivolous. It could rub off on you. If you must interact with the Lilliputians, not wearing a face mask matters because it is you exempting yourself from the frivolity. It is you insisting you won’t let your life be run by the compliant, cruel, and frivolous.
How the man standing across from me at the cash register accepting a dollar bill in exchange for a lightbulb is denying all of that — not in word, but in his action as a human.
With that, he speaks most loudly of his values.
I love the Chinese, and the less English they know, the better they seem to be at caring about doing business and not caring about the rest.
Their American born kids are usually hopeless. But that’s a matter for another day.
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