Our National Psychosis

[ This is the transcript of the eponymous talk presented at the Mises Institute ’ s Ron Paul Symposium on November 7 , 2020 , in Angleton , Texas . ]
Hey , what a week for our sacred democracy .
Wow !
You know , it ’ s so sacred that just a few thousand votes in a few states here and there could have turned it from sacred into profane , couldn ’ t it ?
Real easy .
But no , as long as it goes a certain way , it shows the wisdom of the crowd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are three particular benefits to democracy and one of those benefits is a peaceful transfer of political power .
So , that ’ s increasingly being questioned , but Mises wrote about this way back in the 1920s .
He said this is why we need democracy .
He wrote about it again in the 1940s in Human Action .
He said this allows us to change from one government to another without violence .
That ’ s largely been true in the twentieth century , and in the seventy-odd years since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largely been true .
Human Action : The Scho ... Ludwig von Mises Best Price : $ 6.75 Buy New $ 15.36 But two of the other reasons that we ’ re told to revere democracy , I think , are not true , and one of them is that it creates a compromise , some sort of down-the-middle policy , so that the Far Left doesn ’ t get everything it wants , the Far Right doesn ’ t get everything it wants , but somewhere down the middle there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a little bit of what we want .
And of course we see that ’ s not true at all .
The whole country ’ s at each other ’ s throats , and what we really have is a sort of bureaucratic and oligarchic overclass and just a bunch of average , regular people like us who are unhappy with the results of democracy , so I don ’ t see any great compromises coming from it .
And then , of course , probably the worst excuse for democracy is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the governed .
So , in a country of 330 million people that becomes entirely meaningless , and I think we all get that .
So , I hope many of you I don ’ t know have read Hans-Hermann Hoppe ’ s Democracy : The God That Failed—came out in 2001 .
If you haven ’ t had a chance to read it , I wish you would .
Unfortunately , we don ’ t own the rights to that book , or there ’ d be a $ 6 paperback of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ purchasing , well worth reading .
There ’ s a PDF online which may or may not be pirated .
Not by us ; that ’ s the market , baby .
So , if you have a chance to look at that book , every chapter reads very well as a standalone chapter .
I encourage it .
There ’ s a great chapter in there disabusing you of conservatism and all these other things .
But the introduction to that book is all about what Hoppe sees as the turning point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went from what we might call the Old Right , which was a real liberalism rooted in property and self-determination , into mass democracy .
And so World War I , Hoppe says , is what changed everything , and it ’ s where we decided that all the benefits of Enlightenment rationalism and the Industrial Revolution would start to fray because we would turn them over into democracy .
And one thing he points out is that prior to Woodrow Wilson—you remember a year ago we were talking about Edward Bernays , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who came up with the phrase “ Make the world safe for democracy ” —prior to Wilson ’ s war and World War I , most wars were actually territorial .
They were about turf .
And so World War I , Hoppe tells us , was the first truly ideological war in human history , and that ’ s the result of mass democracy and wanting to impose democracy on other countries , our way of life on other people .
So , not coincidentally , Hoppe points out , there were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and disease than soldier casualties on battlefields in World War I. I wonder how many people know that .
And he says , This is not a surprise ; this is what happens when you have total wars as opposed to regional or territorial wars .
So , also because of ideology , the ideology of democracy , there couldn ’ t be any compromise with the Germans .
There could only be total surrender , humiliation , punishment , reparations , and we all know what came a few decades later .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the results of mass democracy ; it ’ s all about results .
So , we think of the marketplace as producing goods and services .
Governments produce bads , Hoppe says .
They produce bad things ; they take from us and they make things worse .
So , what do we get from democracy in terms of results ?
Well we get bad politicians , we get bad voters with high time preferences , we get bad policy , we get war , taxes , regulations , surveillance , cultural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other thing we get in terms of bads which the state produces in a democratic system is this centralization of state power .
Hoppe describes we had thousands upon thousands of city-states and principalities and territories which used to make up Europe , and now today they ’ ve turned it into these managerial superstates , like we think of the modern Germany , for instance .
And in the United States they turned fifty states ( you know , we used to say “ these United States ” —well , we didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say “ these United States ” ) into basically what are glorified federal counties—shabby glorified federal counties , I might say .
And it also put about 330 million people with wildly diverse interests under the boot of just a few thousand people in Washington , DC , and sometimes it ’ s even fewer than that .
Sometimes it ’ s just five or seven Supreme Court justices .
So , we think about democracy producing bad results .
But what Hoppe ’ s book doesn ’ t talk about , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially this week , is , What about process ?
We think about the results of democracy , what about the process ?
It turns out the process is lousy too .
You know , it produces another kind of bads , which is it takes the form , as we see this week and as we certainly saw in 2016 , of a national psychosis , this sort of emotional breakdown of people who are emotionally invested in government and politics and the winner of these elections .
And so , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re living under is actually another bad result of democracy , but from the process side .
Democracy u2013 The Go ... Hans-Hermann Hoppe Best Price : $ 24.77 Buy New $ 37.61 So , we have this election result still in limbo .
I think that Biden is going to prevail , however you want to call that prevailing , but we have maybe 100 million or more Americans whose entire psychological well-being over the next couple weeks is bound up in this process over which they have no control .
You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people in a few swing states will determine two completely different narratives for the next few years .
It ’ ll be like , Well , our sacred democracy : the Americans were too smart to be fooled again by this strange orange reality-show conman and they wisely chose Joe Biden .
Or it ’ ll be , America is this fascist reprobate state .
Just a few tens of thousands of votes are going to make the difference in that narrative .
That doesn ’ t make any sense to me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t work ; the process itself is dysfunctional , and millions of Americans like us , they just don ’ t accept the process as legitimate anymore , any part of it , from the vote counting to the recounts , to the campaign spending and the PACs and the dark money groups , to the voter registrations , the mail-in ballots , the deadlines , some of these dubious electronic systems .
I was thinking , Press the button and behind it it ’ s like that game , Operation , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it doesn ’ t go anywhere .
I don ’ t know .
You press a little button , who knows where it actually goes , right ?
It might just be a bare wire back there .
And so , people are also not going to accept the recounts and legal challenges—the whole process .
And if you think about it , it would actually be hard to design .
If some sadist wanted to design a process every four years that would produce more bads than our current system , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d do it .
Division , hatred , distrust , waste , and yet all of it at the end of the day settles nothing .
It doesn ’ t produce some sort of lasting compromise or sense of finality to it .
The next four years are going to just be one side saying “ not my president ” all over again .
So , the process does do one thing , though , for the state .
It hides the bad results .
The process becomes the thing , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and these votes , we forget about what we ought to be thinking about—the overseas wars , the debt , the devaluation , the surveillance—all the result side of democratic voting .
So , the question becomes , What do we do ?
That ’ s always the question , that ’ s always the frustration .
That ’ s what people ask me over and over and over , what should we do , where do we go ?
First of all , you have to start with this : everybody in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes to this national psychosis .
Everybody in this room has some natural antibodies , I think , to this whole thing .
We ’ ve already recovered , we ’ re already immune .
We understand and recognize what millions of Americans are just starting to understand , namely that it ’ s not just that mass democracy doesn ’ t work , but that it can ’ t work .
So , we don ’ t have any illusions .
That ’ s our benefit , that ’ s our bonus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so to speak , on this national psychosis , and I really think that ’ s a form of power which we all ought to employ in our personal lives and in our emotional well-being .
A Short History of Man ... Hoppe , Hans-Hermann Best Price : $ 5.95 Buy New $ 1.99 A couple of weeks ago , my wife happened upon an essay from 1978 by Vaclav Havel , the Czech dissident leader who was also the first president of the Czech Republic after the fall in 1989 , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Powerless.
” It was new to me .
My friend Pete Quiñones told me last night that it ’ s actually been circulating in the blogosphere for several years .
It ’ s really a fascinating essay , about eighty pages .
And so , he ’ s writing this in the ’ 70s when the former Czechoslovakia is still under Soviet domination but not as much Soviet domination as the USSR itself , perhaps .
So , I ’ m reading this essay ( and Vaclav Havel was also a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s a tremendous writer , and you guys should all find this , “ The Power of the Powerless , ” easy to find ) , and I ’ m struck by the fact that the parallels between the Eastern Bloc situation he ’ s describing ( the former Soviet Bloc ) and the atmosphere in the US today are so striking .
And I don ’ t mean to imply that we face anything close to the hardships that they did , but it ’ s striking .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s ominous .
It is happening here , and we can feel it ; I think we can feel it .
Not everything can be verbalized and intellectualized .
Sometimes it ’ s just a feeling .
So , the good news is that he ’ s writing this as a dissident in 1978 and not too much later [ in 1993 ] there was actually a happy outcome in the creation of the first Czech republic .
So , sometimes when things look particularly dark , maybe you got to keep on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to happen if you do so .
So , Havel talks about how the Czechs didn ’ t live under what we think of as a form of actual physical dictatorship .
It was sort of a soft totalitarianism .
In other words , he says , Well , it took the form of this almost hypnotic secularized religion where the metaphysical and existential realities of the world , they succumb to ideology .
And that ’ s what we think of when we think of the Soviet Union .
We think of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energy into something new , to create a new man and also to ignore , for example , the laws of economics—that this could be willed , that this could be done by fiat or by legislative action .
And so , when we think of communism , we think it ignores certain underlying metaphysical realities and realities of human nature .
That was one of the big criticisms of Soviet communism .
So , he says , Well , you know , this is happening here , but he talks about how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to themselves and their friends and family to remain in good standing in both society and with the party in Czechoslovakia .
And again , the analogy today : I ’ m sure you ’ ve seen this going around , that 2 + 2 = 5 .
Does 2 + 2 = 4 ?
Well , it depends because mathematics , like everything else , is not some hard science or some branch of logic where we just simply describe a reality which already exists and which is underlying and we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out .
No , no , no .
2 + 2 might equal 5 , depending on your outlook , depending on your identity and the circumstances , and maybe the color of your skin or your religion , or the country you come from .
And of course , this is a recipe for disaster .
This is a recipe for eliminating any basis of social cooperation amongst us , for having markets , for having prosperity , and of course it results in just somebody having to have the power to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anatomy of the State Murray Rothbard Best Price : $ 5.00 Buy New $ 5.82 Ideology enforced by the state becomes the only animating force in society .
So , Havel gives an interesting example .
He demonstrates this 2 + 2 = 5 mentality by talking about how in Czechoslovakia shopkeepers would dutifully put up the little sign that says Workers of the World Unite .
They would just sort of dutifully do this .
Like how back in the day people used to put up pictures of the presidents in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to foreign countries , oftentimes people still do that : in Latin America ; in Turkey , you ’ ll see pictures of Erdogan and sometimes you ’ ll see pictures of Ataturk on the walls .
So people revere these figures .
So he said , Nobody actually believed this , “ workers of the world unite.
” The grocer didn ’ t do this because he means it , it was just an act of rote conformity on his part , it was a signal .
It ’ s a signal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other shops do it , you do it too .
This is what it meant to be a greengrocer in Czechoslovakia in 1978 .
And we see this in America today .
We see the same kind of signaling , the same kind of acquiescence of things like masks or some of these goofy signs , All Lives Matter or Black Lives Matter or Back the Blue .
These are signals , and people put them up in their yard .
There ’ s that one that says This House Believes X , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s this sort of hectoring thing which is supposed to prove what a great person you are in that house .
So , we have the same thing happening in America today .
Most people in this room , though , are prepared to be dissidents today .
Most people in this room are not willing to just go along with this stuff , and most people in this room already consider themselves the real resistance , not the fake kind where you have all the support of the political parties and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and corporate America .
That ’ s not a resistance .
So , we ’ re already past any of these illusions about democracy or politics or constitutionalism .
I would argue that we ’ ve reached the point where loving our country requires us to identify and begin to separate the various nations which are within it .
I think there ’ s nothing more important today .
So , if you get an opportunity to read Hoppe ’ s book , I think you will find it enlightening .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems which he identifies , and I think you will come away with a better understanding of really what a radical experiment mass democracy really is .
It ’ s not what we imagined it to be .
There ’ s no sort of 51:49 electorate which gives anything legitimacy , because oftentimes votes are won with fewer than 51 percent .
Bill Clinton became president because of Ross Perot , with less than 51 percent of the electorate .
Even the Reagan revolution in 1984 , where he won every state , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guess , Mondale ’ s Minnesota and the District of Columbia—forty-nine-state route , something like 60:40 in the raw numbers , and yet what we think of as an absolute landslide , one of the biggest victories in electoral history in the United States for president , something like 24 percent of all Americans voted , cast an affirmative ballot for him .
So , if you begin to look at the numbers a little differently , you begin to question all of this , and you begin to wonder where it came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that people can start to think again a little bit more about having fifty states .
In other words , what happened last Tuesday , there were fifty state elections .
There wasn ’ t one national election , there were fifty state elections .
Yes , people were voting on who ’ s going to hold a national office known as the president , but it wasn ’ t a national election .
Those are two different things .
Power Of The Powerless Havel , Vaclav Buy New $ 5.59 So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great quote from Havel .
He says , “ Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world .
It offers human beings the illusion of an identity.
” How many libertarians get their identity from goofy libertarianism ?
“ It offers human beings the illusion of an identity , of dignity and of morality while making it easier to part with them.
” Told you this guy ’ s a poet .
“ It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence , their trivialization and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think that ’ s just an absolutely phenomenal way to put things , because I really believe that liberty , in the political sense , is not an ideology which you impose on other people ; it ’ s the absence of ideology .
It ’ s what happens when you leave people alone , when civil society and marketplaces are allowed to function and flourish .
It doesn ’ t need to be imposed on anyone—it ’ s the state which is the imposer—and of course it ’ s the natural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called his book Human Action , his magnum opus , Social Cooperation .
He says it ’ s the only way you can organize society peacefully .
But we have no choice , all of us here today , but to recognize that millions of Americans , millions upon millions of Americans—maybe a majority of Americans—simply don ’ t see the world the way we do .
That ’ s a fact .
So , the goal of this national psychosis , which they produce and impose on us every four years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anything .
Don ’ t let that happen .
Thanks very much .
Note : The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute .
The Best of Jeff Deist

[This is the transcript of the eponymous talk presented at the Mises Institute’s Ron Paul Symposium on November 7, 2020, in Angleton, Texas.]
Hey, what a week for our sacred democracy. Wow! You know, it’s so sacred that just a few thousand votes in a few states here and there could have turned it from sacred into profane, couldn’t it? Real easy. But no, as long as it goes a certain way, it shows the wisdom of the crowd.
We’re generally told that there are three particular benefits to democracy and one of those benefits is a peaceful transfer of political power. So, that’s increasingly being questioned, but Mises wrote about this way back in the 1920s. He said this is why we need democracy. He wrote about it again in the 1940s in Human Action. He said this allows us to change from one government to another without violence. That’s largely been true in the twentieth century, and in the seventy-odd years since he wrote that, that’s largely been true.
Human Action: The Scho... Ludwig von Mises Best Price: $6.75 Buy New $15.36 (as of 05:45 UTC - Details) But two of the other reasons that we’re told to revere democracy, I think, are not true, and one of them is that it creates a compromise, some sort of down-the-middle policy, so that the Far Left doesn’t get everything it wants, the Far Right doesn’t get everything it wants, but somewhere down the middle there’s a happy compromise, we all get a little bit of what we want. And of course we see that’s not true at all. The whole country’s at each other’s throats, and what we really have is a sort of bureaucratic and oligarchic overclass and just a bunch of average, regular people like us who are unhappy with the results of democracy, so I don’t see any great compromises coming from it. And then, of course, probably the worst excuse for democracy is that it represents some sort of consent of the governed. So, in a country of 330 million people that becomes entirely meaningless, and I think we all get that.
So, I hope many of you I don’t know have read Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed—came out in 2001. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, I wish you would. Unfortunately, we don’t own the rights to that book, or there’d be a $6 paperback of it, but nonetheless, well worth purchasing, well worth reading. There’s a PDF online which may or may not be pirated. Not by us; that’s the market, baby. So, if you have a chance to look at that book, every chapter reads very well as a standalone chapter. I encourage it. There’s a great chapter in there disabusing you of conservatism and all these other things. But the introduction to that book is all about what Hoppe sees as the turning point of World War I, when we went from what we might call the Old Right, which was a real liberalism rooted in property and self-determination, into mass democracy.
And so World War I, Hoppe says, is what changed everything, and it’s where we decided that all the benefits of Enlightenment rationalism and the Industrial Revolution would start to fray because we would turn them over into democracy. And one thing he points out is that prior to Woodrow Wilson—you remember a year ago we were talking about Edward Bernays, who was Woodrow Wilson’s propagandist who came up with the phrase “Make the world safe for democracy”—prior to Wilson’s war and World War I, most wars were actually territorial. They were about turf. And so World War I, Hoppe tells us, was the first truly ideological war in human history, and that’s the result of mass democracy and wanting to impose democracy on other countries, our way of life on other people. So, not coincidentally, Hoppe points out, there were actually far more civilian casualties from starvation and disease than soldier casualties on battlefields in World War I. I wonder how many people know that. And he says, This is not a surprise; this is what happens when you have total wars as opposed to regional or territorial wars. So, also because of ideology, the ideology of democracy, there couldn’t be any compromise with the Germans. There could only be total surrender, humiliation, punishment, reparations, and we all know what came a few decades later.
So, Hoppe’s book is about the results of mass democracy; it’s all about results. So, we think of the marketplace as producing goods and services. Governments produce bads, Hoppe says. They produce bad things; they take from us and they make things worse. So, what do we get from democracy in terms of results? Well we get bad politicians, we get bad voters with high time preferences, we get bad policy, we get war, taxes, regulations, surveillance, cultural degradation—the whole nine yards. But the other thing we get in terms of bads which the state produces in a democratic system is this centralization of state power. Hoppe describes we had thousands upon thousands of city-states and principalities and territories which used to make up Europe, and now today they’ve turned it into these managerial superstates, like we think of the modern Germany, for instance. And in the United States they turned fifty states (you know, we used to say “these United States”—well, we didn’t, but our grandparents used to say “these United States”) into basically what are glorified federal counties—shabby glorified federal counties, I might say. And it also put about 330 million people with wildly diverse interests under the boot of just a few thousand people in Washington, DC, and sometimes it’s even fewer than that. Sometimes it’s just five or seven Supreme Court justices.
So, we think about democracy producing bad results. But what Hoppe’s book doesn’t talk about, and what is so fascinating to me, especially this week, is, What about process? We think about the results of democracy, what about the process? It turns out the process is lousy too. You know, it produces another kind of bads, which is it takes the form, as we see this week and as we certainly saw in 2016, of a national psychosis, this sort of emotional breakdown of people who are emotionally invested in government and politics and the winner of these elections. And so, this kind of division which we’re living under is actually another bad result of democracy, but from the process side. Democracy u2013 The Go... Hans-Hermann Hoppe Best Price: $24.77 Buy New $37.61 (as of 09:25 UTC - Details)
So, we have this election result still in limbo. I think that Biden is going to prevail, however you want to call that prevailing, but we have maybe 100 million or more Americans whose entire psychological well-being over the next couple weeks is bound up in this process over which they have no control. You know, a few tens of thousands of people in a few swing states will determine two completely different narratives for the next few years. It’ll be like, Well, our sacred democracy: the Americans were too smart to be fooled again by this strange orange reality-show conman and they wisely chose Joe Biden. Or it’ll be, America is this fascist reprobate state. Just a few tens of thousands of votes are going to make the difference in that narrative.
That doesn’t make any sense to me. So, the process doesn’t work; the process itself is dysfunctional, and millions of Americans like us, they just don’t accept the process as legitimate anymore, any part of it, from the vote counting to the recounts, to the campaign spending and the PACs and the dark money groups, to the voter registrations, the mail-in ballots, the deadlines, some of these dubious electronic systems. I was thinking, Press the button and behind it it’s like that game, Operation, where the clown’s nose lights up and it doesn’t go anywhere. I don’t know. You press a little button, who knows where it actually goes, right? It might just be a bare wire back there. And so, people are also not going to accept the recounts and legal challenges—the whole process. And if you think about it, it would actually be hard to design.
If some sadist wanted to design a process every four years that would produce more bads than our current system, I don’t know how you’d do it. Division, hatred, distrust, waste, and yet all of it at the end of the day settles nothing. It doesn’t produce some sort of lasting compromise or sense of finality to it. The next four years are going to just be one side saying “not my president” all over again. So, the process does do one thing, though, for the state. It hides the bad results. The process becomes the thing, so we’re so preoccupied with politics and these votes, we forget about what we ought to be thinking about—the overseas wars, the debt, the devaluation, the surveillance—all the result side of democratic voting.
So, the question becomes, What do we do? That’s always the question, that’s always the frustration. That’s what people ask me over and over and over, what should we do, where do we go? First of all, you have to start with this: everybody in this room has an advantage when it comes to this national psychosis. Everybody in this room has some natural antibodies, I think, to this whole thing. We’ve already recovered, we’re already immune. We understand and recognize what millions of Americans are just starting to understand, namely that it’s not just that mass democracy doesn’t work, but that it can’t work. So, we don’t have any illusions. That’s our benefit, that’s our bonus. We have a head start, so to speak, on this national psychosis, and I really think that’s a form of power which we all ought to employ in our personal lives and in our emotional well-being. A Short History of Man... Hoppe, Hans-Hermann Best Price: $5.95 Buy New $1.99 (as of 06:55 UTC - Details)
A couple of weeks ago, my wife happened upon an essay from 1978 by Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident leader who was also the first president of the Czech Republic after the fall in 1989, and this essay is called “The Power of the Powerless.” It was new to me. My friend Pete Quiñones told me last night that it’s actually been circulating in the blogosphere for several years. It’s really a fascinating essay, about eighty pages. And so, he’s writing this in the ’70s when the former Czechoslovakia is still under Soviet domination but not as much Soviet domination as the USSR itself, perhaps. So, I’m reading this essay (and Vaclav Havel was also a literary guy and a poet, so he’s a tremendous writer, and you guys should all find this, “The Power of the Powerless,” easy to find), and I’m struck by the fact that the parallels between the Eastern Bloc situation he’s describing (the former Soviet Bloc) and the atmosphere in the US today are so striking. And I don’t mean to imply that we face anything close to the hardships that they did, but it’s striking. It’s still striking, and it’s ominous. It is happening here, and we can feel it; I think we can feel it. Not everything can be verbalized and intellectualized. Sometimes it’s just a feeling.
So, the good news is that he’s writing this as a dissident in 1978 and not too much later [in 1993] there was actually a happy outcome in the creation of the first Czech republic. So, sometimes when things look particularly dark, maybe you got to keep on moving forward and something good is going to happen if you do so. So, Havel talks about how the Czechs didn’t live under what we think of as a form of actual physical dictatorship. It was sort of a soft totalitarianism. In other words, he says, Well, it took the form of this almost hypnotic secularized religion where the metaphysical and existential realities of the world, they succumb to ideology. And that’s what we think of when we think of the Soviet Union. We think of people who tried to just command human energy into something new, to create a new man and also to ignore, for example, the laws of economics—that this could be willed, that this could be done by fiat or by legislative action. And so, when we think of communism, we think it ignores certain underlying metaphysical realities and realities of human nature. That was one of the big criticisms of Soviet communism. So, he says, Well, you know, this is happening here, but he talks about how people would just sort of purposely lie to themselves and their friends and family to remain in good standing in both society and with the party in Czechoslovakia.
And again, the analogy today: I’m sure you’ve seen this going around, that 2 + 2 = 5. Does 2 + 2 = 4? Well, it depends because mathematics, like everything else, is not some hard science or some branch of logic where we just simply describe a reality which already exists and which is underlying and we’re trying to grapple and figure it out. No, no, no. 2 + 2 might equal 5, depending on your outlook, depending on your identity and the circumstances, and maybe the color of your skin or your religion, or the country you come from. And of course, this is a recipe for disaster. This is a recipe for eliminating any basis of social cooperation amongst us, for having markets, for having prosperity, and of course it results in just somebody having to have the power to enforce 2 + 2 = 5. Anatomy of the State Murray Rothbard Best Price: $5.00 Buy New $5.82 (as of 05:45 UTC - Details)
Ideology enforced by the state becomes the only animating force in society. So, Havel gives an interesting example. He demonstrates this 2 + 2 = 5 mentality by talking about how in Czechoslovakia shopkeepers would dutifully put up the little sign that says Workers of the World Unite. They would just sort of dutifully do this. Like how back in the day people used to put up pictures of the presidents in their living rooms, and if you travel to foreign countries, oftentimes people still do that: in Latin America; in Turkey, you’ll see pictures of Erdogan and sometimes you’ll see pictures of Ataturk on the walls. So people revere these figures. So he said, Nobody actually believed this, “workers of the world unite.” The grocer didn’t do this because he means it, it was just an act of rote conformity on his part, it was a signal. It’s a signal of acquiescence, and since all the other shops do it, you do it too. This is what it meant to be a greengrocer in Czechoslovakia in 1978. And we see this in America today. We see the same kind of signaling, the same kind of acquiescence of things like masks or some of these goofy signs, All Lives Matter or Black Lives Matter or Back the Blue. These are signals, and people put them up in their yard. There’s that one that says This House Believes X, Y, and Z, and it’s this sort of hectoring thing which is supposed to prove what a great person you are in that house. So, we have the same thing happening in America today.
Most people in this room, though, are prepared to be dissidents today. Most people in this room are not willing to just go along with this stuff, and most people in this room already consider themselves the real resistance, not the fake kind where you have all the support of the political parties and the mainstream media and academia and Hollywood and corporate America. That’s not a resistance. So, we’re already past any of these illusions about democracy or politics or constitutionalism. I would argue that we’ve reached the point where loving our country requires us to identify and begin to separate the various nations which are within it. I think there’s nothing more important today.
So, if you get an opportunity to read Hoppe’s book, I think you will find it enlightening. I think you will identify a lot of the problems which he identifies, and I think you will come away with a better understanding of really what a radical experiment mass democracy really is. It’s not what we imagined it to be. There’s no sort of 51:49 electorate which gives anything legitimacy, because oftentimes votes are won with fewer than 51 percent. Bill Clinton became president because of Ross Perot, with less than 51 percent of the electorate. Even the Reagan revolution in 1984, where he won every state, forty-nine states, except for, I guess, Mondale’s Minnesota and the District of Columbia—forty-nine-state route, something like 60:40 in the raw numbers, and yet what we think of as an absolute landslide, one of the biggest victories in electoral history in the United States for president, something like 24 percent of all Americans voted, cast an affirmative ballot for him. So, if you begin to look at the numbers a little differently, you begin to question all of this, and you begin to wonder where it came from, and you begin to hope that people can start to think again a little bit more about having fifty states. In other words, what happened last Tuesday, there were fifty state elections. There wasn’t one national election, there were fifty state elections. Yes, people were voting on who’s going to hold a national office known as the president, but it wasn’t a national election. Those are two different things. Power Of The Powerless Havel, Vaclav Buy New $5.59 (as of 03:05 UTC - Details)
So, I want to leave you with this great quote from Havel. He says, “Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity.” How many libertarians get their identity from goofy libertarianism? “It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity and of morality while making it easier to part with them.” Told you this guy’s a poet. “It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization and their adaptation to the status quo.” I think that’s just an absolutely phenomenal way to put things, because I really believe that liberty, in the political sense, is not an ideology which you impose on other people; it’s the absence of ideology. It’s what happens when you leave people alone, when civil society and marketplaces are allowed to function and flourish. It doesn’t need to be imposed on anyone—it’s the state which is the imposer—and of course it’s the natural condition of social cooperation. Mises almost called his book Human Action, his magnum opus, Social Cooperation. He says it’s the only way you can organize society peacefully. But we have no choice, all of us here today, but to recognize that millions of Americans, millions upon millions of Americans—maybe a majority of Americans—simply don’t see the world the way we do. That’s a fact. So, the goal of this national psychosis, which they produce and impose on us every four years, is of course demoralization, more than anything. Don’t let that happen. Thanks very much.
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
The Best of Jeff Deist


lewrockwell--2020-11-16--Trump (Finally) Hires Neocon Slayer

Trump (Finally) Hires Neocon Slayer

In what may go down in history as a tragic example of “ a day late and a dollar short , ” President Trump today named US combat veteran Col. Douglas Macgregor to be senior advisor to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller .
Trump ’ s recently-fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper was another in a nearly four-year-long line of terrible personnel choices that together with the ongoing Democratic party-led slow-motion coup has crippled the Trump Administration in its most important mission : Putting America first when it comes to foreign policy .
Col. Macgregor is one of the most highly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those officers with high political ambitions has actually smelled the stench of war .
After blazing through Iraq in a tank in the first Gulf War , Col. Macgregor began to question the wisdom of a US global military empire that was emerging to take the place of the massive anti-Soviet machine that had sustained the mestastatic growth of the very military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address .
The Permanent Coup : Ho ... Smith , Lee Best Price : $ 19.95 Buy New $ 20.85 There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are among the best allies in the fight against war , and Macgregor is no exception .
His experience in the unwise application of massive US military force steeled him against those who would unleash those dogs too readily and with little consideration given to the actual interests of the United States .
As might be expected , Macgregor ’ s hesitation to sign on to the US global military empire made him public enemy number one to the Beltway neocons , who ’ ve never seen a war they don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a day in military uniform .
These are the wimps like Max Boot , who lob their scribbled missiles from the safety of their well-paid sinecures but who would need a change of skivvies at the slightest belch from an actual weapon .
One can only sit back and ponder what might have been , as we witness the culmination of nearly four years of a slow-motion coup against the duly-elected President of the United States , if President Trump had brought on board a full slate of men and women like Col. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breathing Trump ’ s campaign slogan of putting America first when it comes to foreign policy .
THE HAMMER is the Key ... Jones , Alan Buy New $ 4.99 With perhaps weeks left in the Trump Administration ( barring the miracle of actually counting valid votes ) , there is still a great deal that Trump and Macgregor can achieve .
Bring troops home from Afghanistan now .
Esper reportedly quit over that issue .
Bring troops home from Syria .
Defund NATO .
Declassify all the “ Russiagate ” documents .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ coup against Trump .
Col. Macgregor is , full disclosure , a cherished friend of your author .
He spoke at Dr. Paul ’ s Congressional Liberty Lunches and no doubt had great influence on Republican Members who were skeptical of endless war but also cautious over sounding too peacenik .
Macgregor embodies the idea of a muscular defense of the United States that rejects the siren song of the neocons and globalists .
We are grateful that Col. Macgregor has spoken at two Ron Paul Institute conferences .
Each time he outlined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump foreign policy .
What an historic tragedy that Trump only paid attention to this far too late .
Unless… The Best of Daniel McAdams

In what may go down in history as a tragic example of “a day late and a dollar short,” President Trump today named US combat veteran Col. Douglas Macgregor to be senior advisor to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. Trump’s recently-fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper was another in a nearly four-year-long line of terrible personnel choices that together with the ongoing Democratic party-led slow-motion coup has crippled the Trump Administration in its most important mission: Putting America first when it comes to foreign policy.
Col. Macgregor is one of the most highly decorated US combat veterans, who unlike those officers with high political ambitions has actually smelled the stench of war. After blazing through Iraq in a tank in the first Gulf War, Col. Macgregor began to question the wisdom of a US global military empire that was emerging to take the place of the massive anti-Soviet machine that had sustained the mestastatic growth of the very military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address. The Permanent Coup: Ho... Smith, Lee Best Price: $19.95 Buy New $20.85 (as of 03:52 UTC - Details)
There is a good argument that men of war are among the best allies in the fight against war, and Macgregor is no exception. His experience in the unwise application of massive US military force steeled him against those who would unleash those dogs too readily and with little consideration given to the actual interests of the United States.
As might be expected, Macgregor’s hesitation to sign on to the US global military empire made him public enemy number one to the Beltway neocons, who’ve never seen a war they don’t like but who have also never seen a day in military uniform. These are the wimps like Max Boot, who lob their scribbled missiles from the safety of their well-paid sinecures but who would need a change of skivvies at the slightest belch from an actual weapon.
One can only sit back and ponder what might have been, as we witness the culmination of nearly four years of a slow-motion coup against the duly-elected President of the United States, if President Trump had brought on board a full slate of men and women like Col. Doug Macgregor, who were living and breathing Trump’s campaign slogan of putting America first when it comes to foreign policy.
THE HAMMER is the Key ... Jones, Alan Buy New $4.99 (as of 08:40 UTC - Details) With perhaps weeks left in the Trump Administration (barring the miracle of actually counting valid votes), there is still a great deal that Trump and Macgregor can achieve. Bring troops home from Afghanistan now. Esper reportedly quit over that issue. Bring troops home from Syria. Defund NATO. Declassify all the “Russiagate” documents. Declassify everything that exposes the deep state coup against Trump.
Col. Macgregor is, full disclosure, a cherished friend of your author. He spoke at Dr. Paul’s Congressional Liberty Lunches and no doubt had great influence on Republican Members who were skeptical of endless war but also cautious over sounding too peacenik. Macgregor embodies the idea of a muscular defense of the United States that rejects the siren song of the neocons and globalists.
We are grateful that Col. Macgregor has spoken at two Ron Paul Institute conferences. Each time he outlined what would have been a highly successful Trump foreign policy. What an historic tragedy that Trump only paid attention to this far too late. Unless…
The Best of Daniel McAdams


lewrockwell--2020-11-16--The Modern Left Is Not Marxist, It’s Worse

Is the current left Marxist ?
In a provocative commentary , Bill Lind explores this genealogical question , and , unless I ’ m mistaken , the left and much of its media opposition would second his conclusions .
Since Antifa describes itself as Marxist , when it ’ s not calling itself anarchist , and since leading figures of the Democratic Party , like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , have certainly not shunned the Marxist label , it would seem today ’ s left is authentically Marxist .
But , except at its edges , the present left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Today ’ s left has a different origin and orientation from what has been historically understood as Marxist or Marxist-Leninist ; and using that term to designate the characteristics of our current left is at best problematic .
Neither Marxists nor Marxist-Leninist governments evidenced the cultural radicalism that today ’ s left expresses every day .
Although there have been Communist Party members in Western countries who have been sexual exhibitionists , and even a brief period in Russia after the November 1917 Revolution when free love was allowed , generally communists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues like homosexuality and the questioning of fixed sexual identities .
The traditional left would have attributed our LGBT activities to “ bourgeois decadence.
” The Strange Death of M ... Paul Edward Gottfried Best Price : $ 20.62 Buy New $ 21.95 In the Soviet Union and for a long time throughout the Soviet bloc , artistic experimentation was frowned upon , including music of the Second Viennese School ’ s twelve-tone technique , as well as abstract expressionism .
Communist regimes sent gays to labor camps , and communist revolutionaries like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homosexuality and , in Guevara ’ s case , blacks .
It is hard to view these Marxist revolutionaries as precursors of the present intersectional left .
Indeed , corporate capitalists stand much closer to this force than traditional Marxists do or did .
Are the executives at PepsiCo , Citibank , and the NFL , who support Black Lives Matter ( BLM ) and wish to stamp out opposition from the cultural right , economic revolutionaries yearning for a socialist society ?
Pardon my skepticism !
Real Marxism has been about socioeconomic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need for transgendered restrooms and the abolition of gender roles .
Communist parties in Western Europe after World War II vehemently opposed the immigration of cheap labor from abroad , viewing it as an attack on the indigenous workforce .
The current left , by contrast , is about open borders and filling Western countries with impoverished Third World populations as an act of contrition for white Christian racism , or as a source of so-called cultural enrichment .
After Liberalism : Mass ... Gottfried , Paul Edward Best Price : $ 24.30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Communist parties outside the Soviet Union condemned the Critical Theory philosophy of the Frankfurt School as a distortion of Marxism .
One can only imagine what they would have thought of the further evolution of what Lind and others have styled “ cultural Marxism.
” Lind correctly observes that the Frankfurt School in interwar Germany provided the cradle for this movement , which tried to fuse Freud ’ s theories about sexual repression with socialist economics .
But the result looked much more like a cultural war against reactionary social attitudes than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economy .
After Critical Theory migrated to the U.S. by way of Columbia University in the 1930s , it came to look even less like Marxism and much more like a prelude to our current cultural revolution .
Some socialist boilerplate remained attached to this brand of thinking , but it became extraneous to its real message , which is the subversion of what seemed to me as a child in the 1950s to be a normal society .
The Best of Paul Gottfried

Is the current left Marxist? In a provocative commentary, Bill Lind explores this genealogical question, and, unless I’m mistaken, the left and much of its media opposition would second his conclusions. Since Antifa describes itself as Marxist, when it’s not calling itself anarchist, and since leading figures of the Democratic Party, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have certainly not shunned the Marxist label, it would seem today’s left is authentically Marxist.
But, except at its edges, the present left is not what it claims to be. Today’s left has a different origin and orientation from what has been historically understood as Marxist or Marxist-Leninist; and using that term to designate the characteristics of our current left is at best problematic. Neither Marxists nor Marxist-Leninist governments evidenced the cultural radicalism that today’s left expresses every day. Although there have been Communist Party members in Western countries who have been sexual exhibitionists, and even a brief period in Russia after the November 1917 Revolution when free love was allowed, generally communists have been on the conservative side of issues like homosexuality and the questioning of fixed sexual identities. The traditional left would have attributed our LGBT activities to “bourgeois decadence.” The Strange Death of M... Paul Edward Gottfried Best Price: $20.62 Buy New $21.95 (as of 05:20 UTC - Details)
In the Soviet Union and for a long time throughout the Soviet bloc, artistic experimentation was frowned upon, including music of the Second Viennese School’s twelve-tone technique, as well as abstract expressionism. Communist regimes sent gays to labor camps, and communist revolutionaries like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara raged against homosexuality and, in Guevara’s case, blacks.
It is hard to view these Marxist revolutionaries as precursors of the present intersectional left. Indeed, corporate capitalists stand much closer to this force than traditional Marxists do or did. Are the executives at PepsiCo, Citibank, and the NFL, who support Black Lives Matter (BLM) and wish to stamp out opposition from the cultural right, economic revolutionaries yearning for a socialist society? Pardon my skepticism!
Real Marxism has been about socioeconomic contradictions and transformations, not about the need for transgendered restrooms and the abolition of gender roles. Communist parties in Western Europe after World War II vehemently opposed the immigration of cheap labor from abroad, viewing it as an attack on the indigenous workforce. The current left, by contrast, is about open borders and filling Western countries with impoverished Third World populations as an act of contrition for white Christian racism, or as a source of so-called cultural enrichment. After Liberalism: Mass... Gottfried, Paul Edward Best Price: $24.30 Buy New $27.80 (as of 03:40 UTC - Details)
The Soviet regime and Communist parties outside the Soviet Union condemned the Critical Theory philosophy of the Frankfurt School as a distortion of Marxism. One can only imagine what they would have thought of the further evolution of what Lind and others have styled “cultural Marxism.” Lind correctly observes that the Frankfurt School in interwar Germany provided the cradle for this movement, which tried to fuse Freud’s theories about sexual repression with socialist economics. But the result looked much more like a cultural war against reactionary social attitudes than a serious effort to plan a Marxist economy.
After Critical Theory migrated to the U.S. by way of Columbia University in the 1930s, it came to look even less like Marxism and much more like a prelude to our current cultural revolution. Some socialist boilerplate remained attached to this brand of thinking, but it became extraneous to its real message, which is the subversion of what seemed to me as a child in the 1950s to be a normal society.
Read the Whole Article
The Best of Paul Gottfried


lewrockwell--2020-11-16--The Lie Sheet Known as the NY Times Claims ‘No Election Fraud’

Election Data Team finds that in Georgia 17,877 people voted by mail who had previously filed National Change of Address forms with the US Post Office that they had changed their state of residence from Georgia .
That number alone is more than Biden ’ s margin of victory .
So far the team has found out of state move forms filed by 7,426 people who nevertheless were voted in Pennsylvania , 6,254 in Wisconsin , 5,145 in Nevada , 5,084 in Arizona , and 1,688 in Michigan .
Obviously , many people filed false out-of-state address changes or we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud .
# DELETED : Big Tech & rsq ... Bokhari , Allum Buy New $ 28.00 The team already has a list of 1,250,000 voters with anomalies in the 6 contested states .
There are numerous reports , such as this one , from poll watchers who were intentionally prevented from watching .
Many have had the courage to go public .
The presstitutes steadfastly refuse to investigate any whistleblower ’ s report and keep repeating “ no evidence of fraud.
” Social media takes down whistleblower ’ s reports .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was stolen and that those involved in the theft intend to keep the evidence of the theft suppressed : If the election was not stolen , investigation would bear that out , so why suppress information that should be investigated ?
THE HAMMER & SCORECARD were used by the Democrats to alter votes : In February 2009 , the Obama administration commandeered a powerful supercomputer system known as THE HAMMER .
THE HAMMER includes an exploit application known as SCORECARD that is capable of hacking into elections and stealing the vote , according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designed and built THE HAMMER .
The Manipulators : Face ... Hasson , Peter J .
Best Price : $ 15.00 Buy New $ 21.63 Sidney Powell , former federal prosecutor , reports that election theft technology used by US intelligence in foreign countries was used against Trump .
Tom Fitton , president of Judicial Watch , says state legislatures in the vote fraud states have the power to correct the situation as does Congress which can refuse to accept an uncorrected corrupted process .
Somali immigrant Ilhan Omar quickly learned how to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funds .
Where does Ilhan Omar get such large amounts of campaign money with which to pay her husband ?
I told you this would happen .
The Democrats will flood the country with immigrants and control their votes in all future elections .
Democracy is finished in the US .
Here is Attorney General Bill Barr explaining to press prostitute Wolf Blitzer , who doesn ’ t want to hear it , the inherent fraudulent nature of vote by mail .
The most dangerous aspect of the now divided American population is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ democracy in order to gain power are the ones who have the confidence and moral certainty to break the rules and organize for violence ( Antifa and BLM ) .
It is the alleged “ privileged white supremacists ” who live in fear and hide their opinions .
More than an election has been stolen .
Democracy has been stolen and America herself .
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts

Election Data Team finds that in Georgia 17,877 people voted by mail who had previously filed National Change of Address forms with the US Post Office that they had changed their state of residence from Georgia. That number alone is more than Biden’s margin of victory.
So far the team has found out of state move forms filed by 7,426 people who nevertheless were voted in Pennsylvania, 6,254 in Wisconsin, 5,145 in Nevada, 5,084 in Arizona, and 1,688 in Michigan. Obviously, many people filed false out-of-state address changes or we have a clear picture of organized vote fraud.
#DELETED: Big Tech&rsq... Bokhari, Allum Buy New $28.00 (as of 04:48 UTC - Details) The team already has a list of 1,250,000 voters with anomalies in the 6 contested states.
There are numerous reports, such as this one, from poll watchers who were intentionally prevented from watching. Many have had the courage to go public.
The presstitutes steadfastly refuse to investigate any whistleblower’s report and keep repeating “no evidence of fraud.” Social media takes down whistleblower’s reports. This intense censorship itself indicates that the election was stolen and that those involved in the theft intend to keep the evidence of the theft suppressed: If the election was not stolen, investigation would bear that out, so why suppress information that should be investigated?
THE HAMMER & SCORECARD were used by the Democrats to alter votes: In February 2009, the Obama administration commandeered a powerful supercomputer system known as THE HAMMER. THE HAMMER includes an exploit application known as SCORECARD that is capable of hacking into elections and stealing the vote, according to CIA contractor-turned-whistleblower Dennis Montgomery, who designed and built THE HAMMER.
The Manipulators: Face... Hasson, Peter J. Best Price: $15.00 Buy New $21.63 (as of 05:20 UTC - Details) Sidney Powell, former federal prosecutor, reports that election theft technology used by US intelligence in foreign countries was used against Trump. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, says state legislatures in the vote fraud states have the power to correct the situation as does Congress which can refuse to accept an uncorrected corrupted process.
Somali immigrant Ilhan Omar quickly learned how to build her family fortune out of campaign funds. Where does Ilhan Omar get such large amounts of campaign money with which to pay her husband?
I told you this would happen. The Democrats will flood the country with immigrants and control their votes in all future elections. Democracy is finished in the US.
Here is Attorney General Bill Barr explaining to press prostitute Wolf Blitzer, who doesn’t want to hear it, the inherent fraudulent nature of vote by mail.
The most dangerous aspect of the now divided American population is that the half that is comfortable destroying democracy in order to gain power are the ones who have the confidence and moral certainty to break the rules and organize for violence (Antifa and BLM). It is the alleged “privileged white supremacists” who live in fear and hide their opinions.
More than an election has been stolen. Democracy has been stolen and America herself.
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts


lewrockwell--2020-11-16--Lockdowns: Immoral, Illegal, and Ineffective

To lockdown a nation to prevent the spread of an infectious disease is a medical intervention never tried in the history of the world before 2020 and then almost immediately employed throughout most of the world .
This observation alone is worth in depth consideration .
Here I will make the case that , considered as a medical intervention , lockdowns are immoral , illegal and ineffective .
The immorality of the lockdowns is evident from many perspectives ( such as the non-aggression principle of libertarians ) .
Here I will focus on the Ten Points of the Nuremberg Code @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Nazi crimes during WWII .
This list is in terms of a medical experiment , but as implied above we are all guinea pigs now .
COVID-19 : Lockdowns on ... Betrus , Michael Buy New $ 16.99 • The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential .
• The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society , unprocurable by other methods or means of study , and not random and unnecessary in nature .
• The experiment should be so designed and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment .
• The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury .
• No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur ; except , perhaps , in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects .
• The degree of risk to be taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment .
• Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury , disability , or death .
• The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons .
The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment .
• During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible .
• During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage , if he has probable cause to believe , in the exercise of the good faith , superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury , disability , or death to the experimental subject .
Clearly , the most obvious and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1 and the related point 9 .
Lockdowns are applied without consent and nobody is allowed to opt out .
Point 2 is also violated .
More fruitful approaches are available as explained in the Great Barrington Declaration .
Point 3 is not directly applicable , but does highlight the fact that our rulers are flying blind with no animal or human pilot results to guide them ( more on this below ) .
The repugnant nature in which the lockdowns have been applied often are aimed to create physical and mental suffering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is always induced ) violating point 4 .
Point 6 is also important to emphasize .
What is the real importance of this problem .
To me the fabrications and frauds of the Covid story were evident in the WHO declaration of the pandemic in March .
The comparison of the infection fatality rate between Chinese hospitalized patients for Covid and the general population for flu was pure fraud .
It is clear from this UK radio interview that the epidemiologists who have concocted this intervention have not done anything to quantify the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Truths abou ... Berenson , Alex Buy New $ 5.71 I am not a lawyer so I will rely on Lord Sumption ’ s ( the former supreme court justice ) dissection of government illegality in the UK as a model of how governments have been acting .
Furthermore , it does not take a lawyer or health professional to note the violations of the Bill of Rights in the US .
Herein I will emphasize the more focused legal norms of the medical community .
The fundamental basis of regulatory affairs is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in vitro , ex vivo , in vivo preclinical and clinical testing that all medical interventions ( pharmaceuticals , devices , procedures ) are both effective and safe .
The gold standard of evidence is the controlled , randomized clinical trial ( CRCT ) .
Furthermore , this testing should be assessed for all groups affected ; men and women , different age groups , different race and ethnic groups .
The lack of CRCTs for other Covid related interventions has been the common critique of the medical community against , for example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that no CRCT has been performed to assess the efficacy or safety of national lockdowns .
The fact that such a trial is even difficult to imagine makes the case stronger not to apply this blunt instrument .
The fact that CRCTs are often severely compromised is not relevant to my argument here .
I noted above that there is no CRCT to prove the effectiveness of national lockdowns .
Nonetheless , we do have data on the experience of the different countries ( and US states ) that have employed lockdowns , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a control .
Getting all of the data ( which is always suspect today ) into a form for easy comparison is an enormous task that government officials refuse to perform .
Tom Woods has been collecting graphs from internet sources that should be required viewing by all citizens for their own wellbeing .
I reproduce one of those graphs here that alone makes a devastating case for ending all national lockdowns.Not only did lockdowns not reduce the first wave in Europe , they have set us up for the second wave .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ already noted that a similar analysis can be applied to other Covid responses such as mask mandates and vaccinations .
The Best of Ira Katz

To lockdown a nation to prevent the spread of an infectious disease is a medical intervention never tried in the history of the world before 2020 and then almost immediately employed throughout most of the world. This observation alone is worth in depth consideration. Here I will make the case that, considered as a medical intervention, lockdowns are immoral, illegal and ineffective.
Immoral
The immorality of the lockdowns is evident from many perspectives (such as the non-aggression principle of libertarians). Here I will focus on the Ten Points of the Nuremberg Code for medical ethics developed in the wake of Nazi crimes during WWII. This list is in terms of a medical experiment, but as implied above we are all guinea pigs now. COVID-19: Lockdowns on... Betrus, Michael Buy New $16.99 (as of 03:38 UTC - Details)
The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
Clearly, the most obvious and important violation of lockdowns is of point 1 and the related point 9. Lockdowns are applied without consent and nobody is allowed to opt out. Point 2 is also violated. More fruitful approaches are available as explained in the Great Barrington Declaration. Point 3 is not directly applicable, but does highlight the fact that our rulers are flying blind with no animal or human pilot results to guide them (more on this below). The repugnant nature in which the lockdowns have been applied often are aimed to create physical and mental suffering and injury (for example, fear is always induced) violating point 4. Point 6 is also important to emphasize. What is the real importance of this problem. To me the fabrications and frauds of the Covid story were evident in the WHO declaration of the pandemic in March. The comparison of the infection fatality rate between Chinese hospitalized patients for Covid and the general population for flu was pure fraud. It is clear from this UK radio interview that the epidemiologists who have concocted this intervention have not done anything to quantify the negative effects violating point 7. Unreported Truths abou... Berenson, Alex Buy New $5.71 (as of 07:13 UTC - Details)
Illegal
I am not a lawyer so I will rely on Lord Sumption’s (the former supreme court justice) dissection of government illegality in the UK as a model of how governments have been acting. Furthermore, it does not take a lawyer or health professional to note the violations of the Bill of Rights in the US.
Herein I will emphasize the more focused legal norms of the medical community. The fundamental basis of regulatory affairs is to assure, based on evidence from in vitro, ex vivo, in vivo preclinical and clinical testing that all medical interventions (pharmaceuticals, devices, procedures) are both effective and safe. The gold standard of evidence is the controlled, randomized clinical trial (CRCT). Furthermore, this testing should be assessed for all groups affected; men and women, different age groups, different race and ethnic groups. The lack of CRCTs for other Covid related interventions has been the common critique of the medical community against, for example, hydroxychloroquine. My key point is that no CRCT has been performed to assess the efficacy or safety of national lockdowns. The fact that such a trial is even difficult to imagine makes the case stronger not to apply this blunt instrument.
The fact that CRCTs are often severely compromised is not relevant to my argument here.
Ineffective
I noted above that there is no CRCT to prove the effectiveness of national lockdowns. Nonetheless, we do have data on the experience of the different countries (and US states) that have employed lockdowns, with the important case of Sweden as a control. Getting all of the data (which is always suspect today) into a form for easy comparison is an enormous task that government officials refuse to perform. Tom Woods has been collecting graphs from internet sources that should be required viewing by all citizens for their own wellbeing. I reproduce one of those graphs here that alone makes a devastating case for ending all national lockdowns.Not only did lockdowns not reduce the first wave in Europe, they have set us up for the second wave.
I am sure most readers will have already noted that a similar analysis can be applied to other Covid responses such as mask mandates and vaccinations.
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