The “hesitant” – as people who aren’t interested in trusting the pharmaceutical cartels or the government to “keep them safe” from a sickness that doesn’t meaningfully threaten them are being styled – have more than just that reason to eschew the “vaccine” that’s being hard-sold like a time-share condo.
It is a reason that goes beyond everything being discussed – and yet isn’t being discussed much. Hence the importance of discussing it.
That reason is, simply,: If they can do it this time they can do it the next time. And the time after that, ongoing.
Your “vaccine status” – plural – to become public business. Maybe you are ok with this shot. How about the next one? And the one after that? Where does it end? It doesn’t end.
That’s what’s on the table.
Precedents are everything. Lawyers live by this motto because that is how you win or lose cases. It is the basis upon which laws are passed and expanded – and upon which appeals stand or fall. If it is decided in law that the government can force you to hand over 1 percent of whatever you earn the principle has been encoded that it can force you to hand over the other 99 percent. The precedent has been established. All that remains going forward is haggling over the degree. The fundamental, defining thing has been conceded.
Similarly, if the government can force people to submit to being injected with a “vaccine” by declaring it a public health necessity it can force people to submit to being injected with any vaccine, on the same basis.
The precedent will have been set and the principle underlying it codifed. Then it will be expanded.
That is how laws work in a legalistic system, where legal precedent – what is called case law – supplants the natural law, as imperfectly stated and reluctantly conceded by the tacking-on of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. Not the Constitution, which is a lawyerly document written purposefully to establish a system of case law that would – in time – do away with the natural law conceptions articulated in the Bill of Rights. Which was literally tacked on to the Constitution to appease men like George Mason of Virginia and others mistrustful of the Constitution, which makes no mention of anyone’s rights but which is full of artful language about the powers the government shall have to modify, curtail and – ultimately – dispense with those rights altogether.
Lawyerly language about the general welfare, for instance – which can and has been construed by lawyers to erode natural rights to the point that they are becoming (if they have not already become) conditional privileges.
It is also not by accident that life, liberty and property became life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – which sounds wonderful precisely because it is poetry and not sense. How can one be “happy” when one’s property – including the property one has in oneself, as in the sanctity of their own body – may be violated, legally, anytime the law says so?
Such ugly things are no longer taught, precisely because of what it tells those who become aware of them about the nature of the system they are yoked to.
And it is no longer merely the law that is the violator of natural rights. Corporations are now arguably a much greater threat to them since they aren’t even obliged to pass laws for that purpose. They can postulate policies – and these have the force and effect of laws in a system such as ours, because corporations control practically all employment and the peripheral things that are necessary to employment, such as banks – without which it is rather difficult to get paid by a corporate employer or even do business independently of corporate employment.
If these corporations set forth a policy that everyone who is employed by the corporation or wishes to do business with the corporation must provide proof they have been injected with whatever they say people must be injected with, then it becomes extremely difficult for most people to decline to be injected because most people have to work in order to live.
And they have to work – to the end of their lives – because of the government, which steals a third to half of what they earn and then steals more, endlessly, in the form of such things as what are styled “taxes” applied to their very homes, such that they can only remain in those home so long as they continue paying the “taxes” – which obliges almost all of them to work until they die. Which applies tremendous economic pressure to submit to whatever the corporations that employ the majority of them require they submit to.
Fait meets accompli.
Some will defend the supposed “right” of “private” corporations to impose whatever policies they wish but this is a suicidally idiotic defense of the primary thing destroying the concept of private property. Corporations are government property, in the first place. Creations of government, for purposes that benefit the government and the corporations – always at a cost to natural rights. It’s just their policy – and you’re free to work somewhere else! Except everywhere else has the same policies – and they are all protected by the same government.
There is also an element of cruelty in this. Of giving people the “choice” to submit – or starve. It is like bum fighting, the despicable practice of offering desperate and destitute street people a few bucks to throw fists at one another for the amusement of those who pay them (I am indebted to a reader for this observation). They are free to say no in a legalistic sense but the fact doesn’t make the thing less despicable.
If most people weren’t so enserfed by a system that keeps them that way by violating their right to property at every turn, the property of their bodies would not be threatened at every turn. They could say no – without repercussions – because their right to say no would be regarded as the natural law, as it once was.
Instead, we have case law – and now a case is being made to compel everyone to roll up their sleeves for this “vaccine.” Which will become the next “vaccine,” once the precedent is established. Which will set the precedent for the literal surrender of control over our very bodies to the government-corporate nexus, for whatever “treatment” they decide we require.
Like animals being taken to the vet.
And that is why principled refusal is so critically important, the hill that must be defended at all costs – else it will cost us everything.
. . .
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some good comments on this article and some not so good
saving it
thanks eric
You bet, Not You!
I’m hoping to talk about this some more today on Bryan Hyde’s show.
If I may…..
“William Regnery was a mild-mannered moderate conservative. His sin is that he was not anti-white. The vitriolic hatred spewed against him by progressive Rob Kall who did not know him shows that the progressive movement is driven by irrational hatred and regards all white conservatives as white supremacist scum whose graves are to be pissed on. How can a country survive this extreme form of hatred?”
https://tinyurl.com/49rsm6yu
Supreme Court precedent for compulsory vaccination was set in 1905 with the smallpox vaccine. Case law — stare decisis — is no longer a reliable indicator of judicial rule. Judges are agents of the state and are anointed to protect the state’s well-being. Their ad hoc decisions now reflect their values and ideologies tempered by their assigned role as governmental guardians. We haven’t been a nation of laws in quite some time now. Maybe we will be again following a catastrophic collapse.
After teh collapse, we will be a defeated nation with defeated people’s therein.
Things are getting interesting in the UK. It’s one of the most vaccinated countries on earth. Yet it recorded 50,000 covid cases today (subject to the usual caveats about PCR testing; thresholds; etc).
Meanwhile, all remaining restrictions on social gatherings in England are to be lifted on Monday. A group of scientists warned that the combination of high infections in a highly vaccinated population “creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge.” — AP News
In other words, a highly vaccinated population applies greater selection pressure to the virus to mutate in ways that impair vaccine effectiveness. A higher case rate speeds up the mutation rate. Indeed, it’s already happened, with the UK’s infection rate back to two-thirds of its winter peak, despite a mass vax campaign that’s reached 88% of British adults.
Like an alcohol-addicted rat futilely pressing the lever on an empty bottle of hooch, the UK government is still shilling for more vaccination to reduce hospitalization, as the original goal of stopping ‘cases’ failed to be met.
With the British government’s top medical adviser warning that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 could hit “quite scary” levels within weeks, pressure will mount on the government to ‘do something.’ But what?
Embarrassingly, the vaccine proved not to be the magic bullet that was expected. Now the Narrative is in trouble, and a new one will have to be crafted on the fly. Thinking caps on, lads!
New “cases” equals those with gene therapy adverse reactions.
There is nothing embarrassing about it it to the sociopaths in charge like Boris the Spider Johnson, Immanuel Macron and others. They are directors of a massive eugenics program which will in the end, subjugate most all of mankind to their tyranny.
Eric, thanks for this article – IMO it is one of the most insightful and powerful articles you’ve published. See The Myth Of The Rule Of Law by John Hasnas, where he points out something similar aboot how the constitution and precedents are the basis of lawyerly arguments. The way I think of it, when you get into one of those kinds of arguments you have already greatly handicapped yourself by violating Sun Tzu’s admonishment to fight where you’re strong, not where your enemy is strong. He gives the great example of how
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; .. .”
can be interpreted to death, without even any malice, depending on the mental models of the arguer. Then he asks if, based on that fragment, if the answers to a series of sentences are true or false. For example, the first sentence is
“In time of war, a federal statute may be passed prohibiting citizens from revealing military secrets to the enemy.” True or False? Based on your understanding of that first amendment fragment.
Then later, he points out that: If your response to question 1 was “True,” you chose to interpret the word “no” as used in the First Amendment to mean “some.”
There is a copy of it here: https://archive.org/stream/THEMYTHOFTHERULEOFLAWByJohnHasnas47/THE%20MYTH%20OF%20THE%20RULE%20OF%20LAW%20by%20John%20Hasnas-47_djvu.txt
“To recap at this point: the alleged “pandemic” was created by a test that produces false positives, thus greatly exaggerating the infection rate. The deaths were created by incorrect treatment, the absence of treatment, and by counting all deaths as Covid deaths. The fear that was intentionally hyped was used to get gullible and fearful people to accept unapproved “vaccines” that are proving to be as dangerous or more so than the Covid virus. The dire situation cannot be corrected, because Big Pharma and its associated health authorities, hired scientists, indoctrinated medical personnel, and presstitutes will not permit any questioning of the narrative.”
https://www.unz.com/proberts/how-the-covid-pandemic-was-orchestrated/
Eric, just come out and say it, the shots to be forced on people is a property grab with a person’s body being their first and foremost private property. After that all property becomes the government’s property, everything anyone owns is property of the government without any composition. Where is this going? No more Constitution because if people do not own any property, than the Constitution is an oxymoron and that goes for all state Constitutions as well. No Second Amendment, if you don’t own your own body and you belong to the government, the government will protect you and of course your property your guns belong to the government. No more property taxes because the government owns your home, you pay rent and no need for renters insurance, you don’t own anything, remember? Bottom line: a person’s body is their crown jewel of private property. The people who are refusing the shots likely know over 1,000,000 (one million) people have died and/or have been injured by the shots in Europe. By current information over 10,000 Americans have died form the shots, not counting the injured. The shot refusers are First Line Patriots standing up for all Americans Rights and Freedoms. The proof that is true is the over the top smear job by Fake News and Lackeys in government who are slandering good and decent Americans over their God giving Rights. The gates of Hell have been forced open and the Godless Marxist are trying to forcefully shove people through the open gates.
All good what you said except a creeping sense of Christian theology “Godless marxist”, which should be a no-no to a real libertarian
Hi ma-sh,
Nothing in libertarian theory prevents one from professing religious faith, nor requires that one do.
Cheers,
Jeremy
A couple of thoughts.
First, if the GovCo/Corporate nexus demands whatever and the response is, “start your own business”, just remember, GovCo will then own you via business licenses, etc. It’s not an escape route.
Second, note the verbiage of the Declaration of Independence. We have Rights endowed by the Creator. That IN ORDER TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS governments are instituted…deriving their just powers, etc. What Jefferson was laying out was that our Rights can be abused by NON-government actors without government existing. The “libertarian” argument that corporations are “private” and therefore can deny our Rights is utter bull-oney. I would ask these “libertarians”, if it’s OK for private entities to force jabs, is it OK for them to own humans outright as well?
A corporation could “own” someone if that ownership was entered into voluntarily and contractually by the person being owned. Walter Block has written on this topic of voluntary slavery.
When it comes to these anti-property arguments, the folks making them should just admit they have left the world of libertarianism and are now espousing some other theory in order to remediate the abuses they perceive, such as national socialism like the Daily Stormer guy in the Unz link I posted below.
If Libertarianism means acceptance of tyranny as long as it is private oligarchs doing it on their private property (property which encompasses most of the world/economic system), yeah, why would anyone who values their life subscribe to such a thing?
I almost name dropped you in these comments because Daily Stormer dude’s arguments were so similar to things you write on this issue. Are you him? If you follow this guy’s logic chain it goes from if I (or this Fuentes cut out who is also straight out of 3 letter agency central casting) can’t spew my bile on your property (internet, website, home, whatever) that means private businesses, holders of private property will prevent me from buying food. Well, even your biggest booster, our esteemed host here, doesn’t allow certain commenters to post if they violate his (quite liberal, but with a limit) terms of service, so to speak. The banned cry censorship, in response to which they’re told only the gov’t can censor. That’s libertarianism. I watch how people act, not necessarily what they say.
You’ve got some serious comment game, I’ll give you that. The way you dispatched “Steven” was roughneck but I think it might belie some other issues. I’ve watched other folks go this route before. Chris Cantwell was a good writer and a decent libertarian at one time. Funny as hell, too. Now he’s in jail for chasing some alt-right chimera.
Property is the basis of liberty. Pushing arguments that torture definitions so that private property becomes “subjective” or “situational” undermines liberty. You will not like what you find. If anything, libertarians (if you are one) should be arguing 100% in the direction of property rights. Taking it to its logical conclusion. If not, what is your alternative, your remedy, really, for property holders that enforce terms of service you disagree with?
“If you follow this guy’s logic chain it goes from if I (or this Fuentes cut out who is also straight out of 3 letter agency central casting) can’t spew my bile on your property (internet, website, home, whatever) that means private businesses, holders of private property will prevent me from buying food.”
Yes, in principle, it does. These people have been banned from the ability to transact on the internet or use banks, fly, register a domain, etc, not just hosting their opinions on the sites of others. So why wouldn’t they ban someone for any or no reason from buying food? Having internet? Water? Electricity? What is the difference between not letting someone speak or transact, through rejecting of service, verses not letting someone buy food (or anything else), through rejection of service? What is the difference in principle? There is none. In fact, they would be very libertarian to do so, apparently:
“My position has always been that libertarians should argue property rights to their logical conclusion, represented by, for instance, a business’s right to reject service for any or no reason.”
Any business. Any private actor. Any reason at all (even if the reason is immoral). Or no reason at all.
“Well, even your biggest booster, our esteemed host here, doesn’t allow certain commenters to post if they violate his (quite liberal, but with a limit) terms of service, so to speak.”
Eric isn’t one of the few oligarchs/property owners/gatekeepers providing a venue for speech. Anyone he bans has near unlimited alternative options. Eric’s site is not an essential part to living in this economic system. Anyone he bans has no risk of starving. Much different from someone required to adhere to a mask/vax cult/religion in order to keep a job or buy food in certain areas.
“The banned cry censorship, in response to which they’re told only the gov’t can censor. That’s libertarianism.”
Is that actually your position? You’re down with tyranny, as long as it is a private entity doing it? No wonder people aren’t receptive to libertarianism.
Literally, all the government needs to do in this case is lease their buildings from private entities, give the roads/sidewalks to private entities, sell USPS, sell the parks, outsource whatever else they do to private entities, and we are then complete slaves to the private property argument. Our rights will apply nowhere. They will protect us even less than they do now. The private property owners will be able to do anything to us because private property.
“Property is the basis of liberty. Pushing arguments that torture definitions so that private property becomes “subjective” or “situational” undermines liberty. You will not like what you find.”
I don’t like what I see on the other side, either. Where the collective property owners, the owners of the economic system, can kill me through exercising their absolute property rights. Again, property rights has never defended me, but it defends them.
“If anything, libertarians (if you are one) should be arguing 100% in the direction of property rights.”
No, if being a libertarian means being okay with a potential vax passport, or exclusionary caste system, or the corporate feudalism, or corporatism, or fascism, or whatever you want to call it, no, I won’t defend that.
“If not, what is your alternative, your remedy, really, for property holders that enforce terms of service you disagree with?”
Well, let’s look at my libertarian options. I could somehow obtain my own property, without the cooperation of the system’s property owners. Then assuming I could pay the annual taxes somehow, without the use of the private roads, the private mail system, or private payment processing methods online, assuming the private internet or power entities didn’t reject me service… and assuming I even had fiat to pay with, since I can’t get a job without the terms the property owners have set to get one… I guess I’d have to start my own farm. I would still need the private grocery stores until I got everything going, but they reject me so I can’t use them. Hopefully I have some trees on my land so I can build a shelter, or burn wood for heat, but, I’m not allowed to buy an axe or a saw, or anything. I suppose the other thing I could do is violate the NAP and crawl under the private interstate bridge, hope I don’t get trespassed from the property (to where? The private jail I guess), and die a slow death.
My fantasy is for a system based on morality. If me and my friends effectively owned all of the world’s property, the economic system, it would be immoral of me/us to require a humiliating or deadly condition/term of service in order to allow those people who didn’t control the world’s property/economic system the ability to transact… to compensate me and my friends to use the system we control, their only real option, since we control all alternatives, to preserve their life.
That very thing can be done to us, is being done to us, on the basis of private property. I do not have the ability to come up with an alternative. I don’t have everything figured out. But I won’t defend immorality. I won’t defend the philosophy being used to enslave/kill me.
Apparently, your reality is 99% different than mine. You seem to revel in negativity. I’ve never quite run into someone with such a dark view of their fellow humans. No vision of family, kinship, friendship, or voluntary mutual cooperation. No fun, adventure, growth or living. No human action. No vision for the future. No hope. Just being banned by everybody for everything for no good reason other than that evil private property and those evil folks who own it. And the throwaway line of “like, ya know, me and my peeps owning all the property and creating a moral “system”, man.”
Hi Zek,
I thought this might be a good moment to interject a bit o’ fun. Just got back from some sideways, tail-out and 360 degree tactical atomic blast burnouts in the Mustang Mach 1. Like Ruk the android in the What Are Little Girls Made Of? episode of classic Trek, I remember now! Yes! This is what it’s all about!
Good for you. Seriously. I’ve had about enough of the demoralization squad on here. I’m thinking Free rhymes with T but maybe I’m trippin’… I guess as long as he stays away from discussing “the shrimp” with RG everything’s cool… Sitting here getting nice listening to the Foo Fighters (yeah, they suck now vis a vis vaxports, but I’m transporting back to ‘94 now) cover Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty. It’s an import but good stuff if you can find it. Heavier.
In your reality is the government mandating that all “private” businesses ban people for the oh-so-very-reasonable reason of not wanting to be mutated by experimental injections? Because that’s exactly what’s developing in actual reality. Fait accompli in France, and inevitable policy in the US. This business of “Just-being-banned-by-everybody-for-everything-for-no-good-reason” is actually happening, without the need to assert rarified hypotheticals. Sure, the government and “private” businesses are happily colluding in the program, but how does “defending property rights” accomplish anything of value when you’re a lamb in the Abattoir?
Exactly right. If the “gubmint” sells your property (under eminent domain), along with the properties of all your neighbors, to Private Co., Inc., and then Private Co. decides to enforce its “property rights” by evicting your neighborhood, libertarians literally have no way of dealing with that.
It pains me to say this, as a formerly devoted AnCap, but the advent of Covidism has proven libertarianism to be woefully inadequate to provide for solutions (or even resistance, or even meaningful guidance) when things get really dire.
I mean, look at Mises Wire. They’re still posting obscurantist nonsense about marginal interest rates, the virtues of “industrialism, and praxeological pricing equilibrium, while the vast majority of Earth is being forcibly mutated.
It shows you how valuable “principles” are, when the SHTF…
[Eric, this is Free_Phi’s first post here. Love your site…long-time lurker…but know nothing about cars! Be gentle!]
Hi Freelance!
The property rights issue in the context of modern corporatism is, indeed, a thorny topic though I don’t think it needs to be.
In the first place, most of what’s being argued about begins arguing about it without taking into account the compromised nature of property in a corporatist system such as ours. None of us truly own anything, excepting clothes and other such minor items. Everything else is conditionally possessed, with the corporate state asserting functional (as opposed to legal) ownership by controlling its use and by imposing serial rent payments (styled “taxes”) as the condition of being allowed to retain legal title. This is not property in the proper sense. Neither your home nor your business. But especially your business as you are beholden to operate it in ways that affect other people and to impose things on other people (as well as upon yourself). A “private” business is become essentially an adjunct of the corporatist state, which tells the business who it must do business with, who it must not do business with, the terms of doing business – and so on.
It seems silly to me to speak of private property rights in this context. The putative “owners” have the right to do as they are told. They have no right, as an example, to free association – and I have yet to hear or read a single misguided (in my view) major libertarian writer who insists these businesses have the “right” to refuse service to a person who does not wear a Face Diaper (or provide proof of Needling) say a peep about the right of private businesses to not do business with people for other reasons. For any reason at all.
I think it is because they are myopic or they are afraid of being cat-called (you’re a racist!). But the point remains: If “private property” meant anything substantive it would mean the right to choose – freely – whether to do business with an Undiapred person or not do business with someone else, for whatever reason and without legal repercussions.
Instead, we have this sick and dangerous one-sided defense of “private property” when “private property” is being used by the corporatist state to abuse people’s liberty but no attempt is made to defend private property owners’ rights to control their property, absolutely. Just when it comes to doing what the state says they must do. Then we are obliged to obey – and to defer to their “right” to do what the state decrees.
So much effort was – and continues to be – spent by people arguing over the obligation of property rights-defenders to respect the “right” of “private businesses” to enforce corporatist policies while almost none was exerted defending private property in fact, by asserting the actual right of a business to do business without even a corporatist permission slip, under no other terms and conditions than free exchange.
So I think we ought to start there, as the basis of further discussion; i.e., let’s work to re-establish actual property rights rather than defend the sham of “private property” rights to do as the corporatist state decrees. Doing so will only serve to further undermine the principle of property until we are all the property of the corporatist state.
PS: Glad you’ve surfaced and thanks for the kind words!
RE: “So I think we ought to start there, as the basis of further discussion; i.e., let’s work to re-establish actual property rights”
Bionic Mosquito has written a fair amount that Natural Law is the only route to get that done.
Natural Laws are the wheels which are currently not being used in Libertarianism, An-Cap, etc.. and why that car won’t move.
Bionic Mosquito’s stuff is worth reading, imho.
I agree, Helot –
I like Bionic’s stuff as well!
Natural law should also include not doing unto others (animals included) that you wouldn’t want done to you.
Biblical principle (Luke 6:31)
My position has always been that libertarians should argue property rights to their logical conclusion, represented by, for instance, a business’s right to reject service for any or no reason. I do find strange your notion that we are starting at zero with respect to property rights currently (since as you say they are conditional, subject to control, impaired, etc.) and there is literally nothing to defend, while doing so undermines those rights. You say on here at times in other contexts that you “own” your cars and home outright, then in this you argue you don’t. It can’t be both. And now property rights can’t really exist without achieving a state of absolute non-existence of gov’t? Seems to me like you’re setting up the perfect as the enemy of the good.
Hi Zek,
I was trying to elaborate the idea that property rights must first of all be articulated as absolute and that principle defended, vigorously. But at the same time, it is no defense of property rights to defend state-adjunct “property” used to tyrannize people, as has been done with regard to Face Diapers recently but also for many other things, for generations now.
These two positions are not mutually exclusive, in my view – though I understand some disagree.
I sympathize immensely with private businesses forced to serve the corporatist state as the price of being allowed to do business. But the fact is they are forced to serve it precisely because they are de facto agents of the corporatist state, obviating the otherwise unassailable private property argument.
This is not to suggest we have a right to abuse private property. It is an assertion of our right to not be tyrannized by a Potemkin Village facade of it.
I understand the perfect as the enemy of the good argument and I don’t dispute the essence of it. But we are now at a point of metastasis with regard to “private property” – in the business sense – that the reverse applies, in my view. “Private businesses” are so wholly the creatures of the corporatist state that they are the enemy of the good – including property rights.
It is no longer merely the various ugsome forms of “cooperation” that businesses must accede to (as for example the collection of taxes on behalf of the corporatist state). It has devolved to outright tyranny, including the very real possibility of leveraging basic necessities such as food to suborn obedience to measures that can and have killed people, leaving aside the degrading, invasive and humiliating aspects of it.
We are fools if we defend this blindly, on the basis of their “right” to do so.
This is quite literally a life and death situation; not merely a matter of inconvenience or petty bureaucratic annoyance.
I concede there are examples of your notion of extreme metastasis, Farcebook is one in the news today. I think the cancer analogy is apt. The patient of property may be sick, terminal even but it’s not dead yet. Treatment, rehabilitation perhaps is needed. I just don’t think we should be making the arguments of our political enemies and philosophical opponents for them in order to kill the patient in hopes of some miraculous resurrection of it in a perfected form.
Amen, Zek –
And I don’t think we are making their arguments. I think we are defending our principles against their (cueing Major Jack D. Ripper) preversions of our principles!
It’s interesting how the arc began here. When libertarians start to dabble in anti-property rights arguments, it is sort of like when Christians start to dabble in occultism. Don’t be surprised when the metaphorical “demons” of “defeatism” are summoned.
Hi Zek,
I don’t think I have ever contested property rights. The absolute self-ownership of the individual, of himself and all of his work product and everything he owns, absolutely.
I have contested corporate “rights,” which are government-created special privileges.
You are not Wal Mart. And Wal Mart is not you!
Interesting to hear how you believe libertarianism is defective and that you admit you have, indeed, left it. I do look forward to hearing further insights from you on how one should “work” towards actually remedying the situation at hand.
Sorry. “Solutions” aren’t not my shtick.
As far as I can see at this point, we’re all on Death Row. The Rain of Needles has begun, and it is not going to let up until there are no natural humans left. All the debates in favor of liberty were lost generations ago, as were all the political battles in defense of it. At this point, not only do we plebs not own anything…but somebody else owns us. (And now has no need for us.)
Rank-and-file Herdsters like me are not participants any more. “We” are now prisoners in a Gulag-Psychodrome, awaiting liquidation.
Frank Zappa said that when the Illusion of Freedom was no longer profitable, we would all be shown “the brick wall at the back of the theater.” At this point, we haven’t just been shown the brick wall. Our backs are up against it. Arguing about “property rights” is beside the point, and it is just an exercise in vanity.
Libertarianism only would have proved itself valuable if it had built a foundation for resistance and preservation of humanity when a universal existential threat to the human race emerged. A community of action. But it did not, and it obviously will not. It has proved itself merely an academic debate club, that provides nothing of value outside the confines of middle class comfort, baseline political stability, and bourgeois privilege. Now that those have been taken away, libertarianism just keeps claptrapping on as if nothing has changed! I don’t know what ideology COULD have provided for a community of resistance. Maybe none. But if there was a candidate, it would clearly need to be predicated on some principle other than “property rights” or “non-aggression.”
Hi FP,
All major political movements begin small and are regarded as quirky and impotent aberrations at first – Communism, for example. But ideas are incredibly powerful, for good and bad. And libertarian ideas are, I believe, immensely powerful as they are based upon some pretty self-evident truths. And, they are humane and decent and defensible on those grounds – once properly explained. Jefferson and Paine were on the right track but didn’t go far enough when they wrote about the rights of man and about “republican” government. They failed, specifically, to clearly identify the individual as the sovereign and then to flesh out/extrapolate from that to political theory.
That is the job of our time. It will take time for these ideas to gain traction but I believe they will because they already are. Libertarian concepts are now discussed widely; not by a majority, obviously – but by many more people than even 20 years ago. I’ve been involved in this – as a journalist and a polemicist – for going on 30 years now and I have witnessed it, personally. The “conservatism” of the ’90s is dying out; it is being replaced by something else. Some of it is manifested in Trumpism but even within Trumpism there is a nod to libertarian notions of real liberty, not the “conservative” idea of it.
Be patient.
We may not – as a man once said – live to see the thing we strive for come to fruition. But that doesn’t mean it will not come to fruition – unless, of course, we give up before it does.
I think my point is that the virtues of libertarianism are context-dependent. The whole concept only has moral force or ethical prescriptive value within certain cultural parameters, where common humans have some degree of property and leverage to begin with, and in particular they have the freedom to use a medium of exchange as currency in commerce, and there is an advanced level of industrial division of labor.
What we are now in is Techno-Feudalism. The fiat currency we are forced to use has been rendered scrip, good only at the company store. Our humble residential plots are mere rented tenements, subject to re-assignment at any time to a corporate crony or special-interest rent-seeker. The global “stakeholders” (as the WEF calls the players in the New Order) no longer measure their wealth in the same currency denominations as the masses. Their wealth is now measured in land, resources, and (yes) people. (The term “peoplenaire” is actually used by investors in Human Capital markets. Real thing.) The advantage They have in terms of technological and martial sway over the Herd is astronomical.
Invoking “libertarianism” now makes as much sense as it would have in the feudalism of the Dark Ages. Tell a toiling peasant about the “sanctity of property rights.” He’ll just scratch his head. In fact, if he understands you at all, he’ll justifably respond by swiping at you with his hoe!
Morning, FP –
I take your points – which are sound – but don’t see that they require giving up libertarian ideas in favor of statist ideas. Is it not possible to continue to advocate for individual sovereignty, free exchange and so on even within the context you describe and while using whatever means are necessary to oppose our enemies? I think so. It is a thing I learned from perhaps the most masterful politician of the modern era – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, aka Lenin. An evil bastard, certainly. But a smart one. Unlike the “principled idiots” of the Menshevik faction, Lenin understood the importance of not allowing the perfect (his ideology) to be the enemy of the good (i.e., political success). This is why I will support things that advance our ideas, even if they are not “perfect” or perfectly applied.
More broadly: We’re not beaten, yet. Property still exists, though it is compromised and under attack. Same as regards free speech and gun ownership, etc. But the point is, we still have these invaluable assets and we must, I believe, use them as necessary to recover them fully. And this is something that can be done. We’re not at the Stalin stage, yet.
But we will be, if we just give up!
Full agreement that statism remains an enemy, and that any statist “solution” will always be a trap.
But at this point, states are merely the tools and appendages of something much bigger and darker, capable of commanding every political body on Earth simultaneously with perfect synchronicity. An Enemy that transcends the human state and that cannot be challenged by a mere challenge to the human state. Libertarianism is a valid and laudable challenge to the state, but is useless against the predatory Machine currently running things.
Hi Free-Phi,
I once considered it to be an obvious and unassailable fact that, in the partnership between corporations and the State, the State is the senior partner. After all, the State possesses what no corporation does, a nearly unchallengeable belief (among the rulers and the ruled) that its’ exercise of power is legitimate. Democracy, far from being a check on the power of the State, is its’ greatest enabler.
Thus it made sense that libertarians should focus primarily on the State. Not that corporations don’t violate human liberty and cause harm, but that they are allowed, and encouraged, to do so by the State. Now, it appears increasingly likely to me that the State will be destroyed, not by a flourishing of anarchist thought, but by corporations and the power elite, no longer dependent on the “legitimacy” provided by it.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Hatteraszek,
I’m not sure what “anti-property” arguments you’re talking about. Seems to me, a lot of discussion in many threads on this topic are about what constitutes legitimate property. Discussing that does not require “leaving the world of libertarianism”.
Cheers,
Jeremy
You sit in judgment of what is legitimate property. Ok. It’s an entertaining internet comment section affectation but when the rubber hits the road in real life, not too many other people will pay attention to what you have to say on the matter. I know I don’t. I think it’s just another way of saying “if I don’t like or wish to comply with a property owner’s terms of service I will call his title illegitimate so as to violate it whilst claiming the moral high ground” Leftists talk like this all the time. One can also call it leaving libertarianism.
Hi Hatt,
I don’t sit in judgment, I suggest the it is important to discuss what constitutes legitimate property rights. That some libertarians think this is out of bounds baffles me. Is questioning whether an entity that acquired its’ property through eminent domain (theft) has legitimate property rights out of bounds? Seems not to me. The following was written by someone who has clearly “left the libertarian world”.
“This, in fact, is the way utilitarian free-market economists invariably treat the question of property rights. Note, however, that the utilitarian has managed to smuggle into his discussion an unexamined ethic: that all goods “now” (the time and place at which the discussion occurs) considered private property must be accepted and defended as such. In practice, this means that all private property titles designated by any existing government (which has everywhere seized the monopoly of defining titles to property) must be accepted as such. This is an ethic that is blind to all considerations of justice, and, pushed to its logical conclusion, must also defend every criminal in the property that he has managed to expropriate.
Libertarians must take their stand on a theory of just versus unjust property; they cannot remain utilitarians. They would then say to the king: “We are sorry, but we only recognize private property claims that are just that emanate from an individual’s fundamental natural right to own himself and the property which he has either transformed by his energy or which has been voluntarily given or bequeathed to him by such transformers. We do not, in short, recognize anyone’s right to any given piece of property purely on his or anyone else’s arbitrary say-so that it is his own. There can be no natural moral right derivable from a man’s arbitrary claim that any property is his. Therefore, we claim the right to expropriate the ‘private’ property of you and your relations, and to return that property to the individual owners against whom you aggressed by imposing your illegitimate claim.”
Do you know who wrote this?
Cheers,
Jeremy
For you to discuss and consider, sure. To judge and act, not so much. For instance, if you were to come to my home/property and start adjudicating the legitimacy of my title and tell me that, in your judgment, it was illegitimate and needed to be expropriated to you in order to remedy some ancient affront to the Native American spirit dancers who lived on the “lands of the sinking sands” prior to the 1600s, you’d need a lot more than your Rothbard texts to act on that… Just sayin’
Hi Hatt,
I have never proposed doing anything like that, nor have I ever said that recognizing the illegitimacy of a property claim confers upon me a right to take it (Rothbard said that, not me). I have argued that legitimate acquisition matters, especially to a libertarian. I have also argued that “private” businesses, acting as State agents, can be viewed as State agents. Neither of these are “anti-property” arguments.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Had an encouraging brief convo w/our pastor today. Asked him to provide a Biblical basis for a religious exemption. Of course, we can provide our own, as well, but looking for backup from an authoritative voice. Told him we weren’t looking for him to affirm our specific position,just provide a foundation from which to assert the exemption. We have already prepared a legal/medical/scientific offensive, as well.
This is in re our daughter being “encouraged” by several officials at her college and athletic conference to get the jab, or else.
Came across this on Unz.com. Apparently written by the Daily Stormer guy about what he styles the “totalitarian-libertarian state.” He obviously is anti-libertarian but, strangely, his arguments have a familiar ring to them vis-a-vis some of the anti-property arguments I’ve seen on here. The comments are quite the bar in Star Wars as well. The political zeitgeist seems to be swirling around these issues, purposely perhaps, in a bad way.
https://www.unz.com/aanglin/notes-on-nick-fuentes-twitter-ban-and-the-future-of-the-totalitarian-libertarian-state/#new_comments
Why is discussion of these issues a bad thing?
I knew that libertarians would mostly balk at Anglin’s “totalitarian-libertarian” phrase out of hand, failing to see that he KNOWS they’re opposites. He coined it as a deliberate oxymoron, much like “Anarcho-Tyranny.” In the same way “Anarcho-Tyranny” means anarchism for the favored, tyranny for the disfavored, Anglin’s “Lib-Tote” expression means libertarian principles are being selectively weaponized in favor of a totalitarian system. Libertarianism for me; totalitarianism for you. (Also: Profits are privatized; costs are socialized.)
I find it to be an apt and evocative neologism.
Libertarians making a variation on that observation (such as your truly, perhaps) are “Anti-Property.” They’re merely making the point that when an entire system is un-free, an actor within it won’t get anywhere closer to freedom by defending or advancing “pure” principles. Those principles will merely act in service of the totalitarian State because…
All Ways Are the Queen’s Ways.
Should read “are NOT ‘Anti-Property.'”!
No edit function, huh?
Hi F_P,
Many libertarians similarly dismiss Proudhon, failing to understand that “Property is Theft” is an intentionally provocative title, designed to create cognitive dissonance.
Cheers,
Jeremy
So now you are a libertarian? Big change since this morning’s intro, huh? Interesting you’re over here fluffing that guy’s piece now. Oh it’s so deep, so clever, so misunderstood. The missing factor in your definitions of anarcho-tyranny and “lib-tote” (how cute) as well as a main player in socializing losses is what? Hint: starts with a G ends with a T. But yeah, libertarianism bad. BTW, what is a groyper anyway? Apparently it has superseded the term alt-right.
I think I might have been referenced in an EP article. I’m honored! 😀
Now the question looms: It has been put quite clearly that there is a difference between modern “corporations” and the classical understanding of a “private business”.
My thoughts are, that we need to somehow sever the tendrils of government from business, in effect ending what is now known as “corporations” and likely killing many of them outright, or turning them, effectively, into “partnerships”.
I am reminded of Conan ripping the horn (government) from the monster-god Dagoth (corporation) in Conan the Destroyer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdgSo4Ts7D4
It will be difficult and painful.
Secondly, I own an (not yet operational) LLC. Should I change that before becoming a full-fledged business in order to maintain my autonomy and/or morality?
Hi BaDnOn,
Partnerships are required to have two or more shareholders, what happens if there is one shareholder – should that individual not be allowed the same protection as a multi person business? Also, why would you want to shutdown your LLC? That leaves your only alternative to be a sole proprietor. Even if we forego any type of liability protection you are going to get slaughtered in taxes. Sole proprietorships pay the highest taxes of any business out there. The US Treasury and Uncle Sam thank you.
I’m open to suggestions, Raider Girl. Now, I know my having an LLC should be inconsequential as far my maintaining a freedom-loving and righteous business goes. It is under my control, and I won’t be coercing any needles into any arms or having people fight in the street… Until it is NOT under my control from some reason.
I guess that’s the ultimate enemy: The ability of government to coerce your cooperation, or favor the enemies of freedom with special treatment.
IMO, for the vast majority of small privately held businesses, with just a few owners, who actively work the business, a sub chapter S corporation is the way to go.
Hi Mike,
For the most part I will agree that an LLC taxed as an S corporation is probably the biggest bang for your buck for a small business looking at the current tax code, but it really is dependent on a few other factors – if one has a conniving ex spouse a C corp may be a better fit, or if foreign shareholders are involved a C or a partnership is more beneficial. If the business is going to only be operational for a year or two a sole prop or SMLLC (single member limited liability company) would be feasible.
I expect if the Biden Administration changes the Tax Code I would anticipate a few S corps to convert to C corporations for the benefit of lesser taxes dependent upon the final tax rates and the elimination of the QBID.
As Eric pointed out in this article, if the state has power to tax your income, there’s not a damn thing stopping it from taking it all. Any and all tax havens or tax advantages can be erased in the next session of congress, and in the current tax happy environment it’s entirely possible it will. As with all other corporate “rights”, all corporations regardless their structure have only the tax advantage government grants them, and can just as easily take them away.
An “S” sub chapter is for IRS on how taxes are files, an LLC is the bail a business is structured under. Two different things altogether.
Hi BaDnOn,
The LLC is just an entity structure, it is not a taxation structure and is recognized through the state. The taxation structure can be a sole propertiorship, partnership, S corp, or C corp. The SMLLC/disregarded entity is going to allow you to have the liability protection, but the taxation structure stays the same as a sole propertiorship.
The LLC partnership (can also be an LLP or L.C. or L.P.) is made up of multiple members and the percentage of your ownership flows to you to be taxed on a personal income level through a K-1 form.
The S corp can be a sole owned business or a multiperson business that also flows through your personal return (also through a K-1), but requires salary to be paid to active shareholders of the business. So you would actually receive a W2 and become an employee of the business that you own. The benefit of this is the profit that flows through to you is not subject to self employment taxes, where it would be as a sole prop or a partnership.
The C corp is a separate entity of itself. The profit does not flow to your personal tax return, but is paid for by the business. When people hear C corporations they also think double taxation. That is possible, but it can also be avoided. Double taxation means the profit of the business is taxed (currently the US tax rate is 21%), but then the dividends (provided to officers/shareholders) are also taxed and are not deductible to the business, but are subject to taxation on the individual level.
There are pluses and minuses to all of the setups. It is really is dependent upon the company’s business plan, the size and how long you expect the business to operate, the number of partners (are some foreign shareholders), and forecasted revenue and expenses.
The government can mandate all they want. I am lucky where my business is still operational and I don’t have to jump through hoops. I never enforced a mask mandate. I deal with the public one on one so I did not have to worry about a store full of customers seeing one without a mask and then reporting them (or me). I felt my clients were big people and could decide for themselves if they wanted to wear a mask or not. I, for one, did not wear one, but I realize many store front businesses did not have that same luxury.
By the way, RG, thank you for all of this input. My previous reply didn’t express this. 😉
You’ve given me much to explore. But, I guess, the central problem with business doesn’t change. Sometimes, just too many rotten people control things, and some are taken off guard because they didn’t see it coming.
I did. Wasn’t so hard to see. Now it’s time to begin a resilient economy outside their grasp. It will be difficult, but not impossible. Just takes some ingenuity and grit.
The Tech Lords and others who have become the Leviathan’s tentacles have attained that position not only because they were favored by governmental forces, but largely because of economic forces. People bought their own shackles. But they’ll also buy the hacksaws that remove them.
So corporations are not private businesses, because they are subsidized by the state with tax breaks others don’t enjoy.
Yes and no. It is the taxation of the business not the size of the business that determines which tax breaks are enjoyed. For the most part 90% of any business share the same tax breaks as any other business, whether that organization is a sole propertiorship or a C corporation. Note: I am excluding business taxation at a local level, because municipalities may offer additional tax breaks for employers that are willing to build and produce in their area.
If my small business is a C corporation I have the same tax breaks as another C corporation. If my business is a sole propertiorship and I have a profit of $80K per year my tax breaks are the same as another sole propertiorship who profits $1.8 million per year.
I know some on here have no love for corporations, but instead of focusing on whether a small corporation (say a picture framer who is setup as a C corporation) is government owned (it isn’t, at least as of yet) versus a multinational conglomerate like Apple is comparing apples (no pun intended) and oranges. Unfair tax advantages exist for multinational companies, but they do not have to be corporations, they can very well be partnerships. Actually, I believe many would be surprised how many publicly traded companies are in fact, partnerships and not corporations. Anyone who owns stock in a REIT or a gas/oil production company these are usually established as partnerships. How can you tell? On the annual K-1 that the shareholder receives it states on the top left hand side that it is a 1065 publicly traded company. No corporation at all. Form 1065 is a partnership form.
One can be angry at the Tax Code that allows a multinational company like Burger King to avoid taxation because it can choose which country it wishes to be headquartered as their tax haven (e.g. think Caymans or Ireland).
The little picture framer on the corner of Main and Elm Streets does not have that luxury. All he is trying to do is protect his assets and decrease his tax liability on profit. Some would consider this a sin. I don’t. I consider it smart. It is no different than parents taking the child tax credits, college students taking the tuition credits, or homeowners taking the credit for RE taxes and mortgage interest. Only a fool would not take advantage of a tax deduction or tax credit when offered to him/her.
RG,
I’ve read your commentary and it is much to digest. Suffice it to say I don’t have any great reason from migrating away from the LLC model at this time. All it really ever meant to me is that someone could sue me and take all of my business assets, but leave my meager personal belongings alone.
I have never said any corporation is owned by the state, only that they are a function of it. The Fed for an extreme but applicable example. Corporations are beholden to the state, to keep what rights the state has granted them, and can take away tomorrow. Nothing but friction and gravity prevent you from waking tomorrow and discovering LLCs are subject to the will of the state and are required to use vaccine passports.
In a nutshell, the state does not own the corporation, but is in absolute control of it.
And that control is for sale, which is why it often appears the corporations control the state.
An LLC, when liquidated, becomes the state’s business. You aren’t able to sell until the state says it is okay.
From indirect experience, that is what does happen. An LLC is going to be a pain, check all legislation before proceeding. You will be a shareholder and no longer an owner, the LLC is the owner of all fiduciary activity.
Check the state codes, find out how LLC’s are structured, you probably need to reconsider.
Drump, even Massachusetts does not require the state’s approval of a sale of an LLC interest.
Example: you, Eric, Raider Gal, and Nunzio each hold a 25% interest in Jabs-for-You, LLC. You decide to sell your interest to Grover the Clover. As long as the sale is permitted by the LLC’s operating agreement, or if there is no operating agreement and Eric, Raider Gal, and Nunzio do not object, there would be no state involvement.
However, if there is no operating agreement and Eric, Raider Gal and Nunzio do not consent to the sale, or if the operating agreement requires their approval, you would not be able to sell your interest to Grover the Clover.
Thanks, Mike. Hence, the importance of operating agreements when dealing with multiple shareholders.
Same for customized by-laws and stock purchase / restriction on sales agreements for stockholders of corporations.
Sorry, drumphish, I disagree. The LLC is a much easier structure than that of a corporation to establish and dissolve.
Anything liquidated becomes the state’s business. Try selling an investment property that is in your name only. The state still wants to know the cost basis, improvements, and sales price so they know how much to tax you on.
Honestly, I have been doing this for almost two decades. I have never had an issue on dissolving a business with the state. As long as your i’s are dotted and your t’s are crossed it is a pretty simple matter. I realize that some businesses are more complex than others, but I deal with small business owners, not liquidating businesses the size of Walmart.
Simple enough. Must or can vary from state to state.
Whether or not a dissolution is easy or difficult, I refused to sign the agreement to form an LLC. Nothing but headaches. Avoid them like the plague.
A shyster lawyer would be all for it.
No thanks.
What happened in 2020 changed my entire outlook on owning/operating a business. A line was crossed and a form of political risk exists now that never had before. Irrespective of novel libertarian theory to the contrary that is routinely espoused on this board by our esteemed host and some of the comment crew, I do not believe gov’t overreach inheres in any specific form of legal organization.
Regarding your question, when operating a business, complete autonomy is unrealistic and morality resides in the individuals involved. There are benefits and drawbacks to each and every type of legal organization, none of which achieve the purity that would be required to satisfy some. That being said, I operated an LLC with my wife for 10 years. It was a clean accounting tool for separation of business and personal. I needed an accountant to Sherpa the filings for us. Shit’s complicated, and we had to pay taxes every year. It was my property in proportion to my 50% ownership stake. Same goes for the profits, a large portion of which were earned from folks who were straight up gov’t employees or on some kind of transfer payment. I considered this often but determined that, due to the mixed nature of our entire economy, it did not cause my business to constitute a gov’t entity. I paid the state $200 a year to register my LLC. It was not a license to commit fraud or crime. Liability in those respects flowed through to the officers/partners/members/shareholders.
Thanks for the info, Hatts. The “clean accounting tool for separation of business and personal” was all that ever drove me in the LLC direction.
Off topic, but a total mask drop moment:
https://readpassage.com/its-time-to-ban-the-sale-of-pickup-trucks/
Pfff.. WHAT?! Is this an “Onion” type site, is my first thought. Should be a fun read.
Oh i would love to see the commiecrat party run on this platform. This would go over so well with the population of this country. I want to see alexandra o’dummy o cortez present this proposal to congress. Let the communist news network and msdnc beat the drums for getting rid of pickups. This is a winning platform right here i’m sure of it. And why worry if it doesn’t play well in flyover country its not who votes but who counts the votes that matters.
I dream lately of an XB-71 high over DC… dropping a 20 megaton egg….
If someone could let me know before this happens I would like to hightail it out of town prior to this episode taking place. A heads up would be very considerate.
…Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Eric dreams of Washington being nuked by a high-speed fantasy bomber…
Hi BaDnOn,
The Valkyrie was real! Two flying examples were made; one crashed (not its fault). The other is on display. Mach 3 nuclear bomber, baby! B52s are for pussies! Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-y8Brwlp-8&ab_channel=AIRBOYD
Eric,
I’m with ya, brother. 😉 But the Valkyrie was the XB-70, not 71. Perhaps you had conflated the SR-71 and XB-70?.. Which, I’m sure, could only be a bad-ass plane as well.
Cool video, though, with the eponymous opera.
A little Richard Wilhelm to get sharpened up for the of the old… Ultraviolence.
(for *some* of the old)
Ach, these typos!
I often pine for the days when writers could rely on a good copy editor to prevent these glitches from getting into print!
You’re an excellent writer, Eric. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 😉
I SAW IT IN PERSON! The last example of the XB-70 is at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH.
I keep hoping for the asteroid making a direct hit on DC, hopefully on a day when all members of the PTB are there. 😆
Clearly written by someone in a big city and probably not even in a big one in a fly-over Midwest or Western state. The county where I reside is larger than about half the New England states. No personal vehicles, what a buffoon. Now I know this poor moron only sees us as rural rubes but where exactly does he think his food and power come from? They seem to think you just get power from the holes and food just comes from a store shelf. No consideration that while 70% of the population lives on 10% of the land the other 30%/90% is ranches, farms, mines and power stations; and the people who work them. And since their government never seems too worried about fixing roads that don’t serve the capital city we actually kind of *need* our 4wd pickups just to get around half the time.
I think it is time to start pontificating like these fools. Let’s start wondering out loud how much greenhouse gas emission we can prevent if we start limiting reproduction for people who do not do anything that contributes to society like farming and start dubbing certain jobs as extraneous and wasting resources like gender studies professors in an effort to reduce the carbon emissions of population centers.
Hey, J. That’s a good point!
I’d often wondered about the greenhouse emissions produced by having to wait at traffic lights and having to drive around bullshit medians and other civic engineering nonsense.
The very same people who love diapers never noticed that closing down restaurant dining rooms led to so much more idling at drive-thrus as well as created drive thrus for places that never did take out.
Okay, Jim, having read that steaming pile of tyranny:
What I agree with: “The goal of modern truck grilles—especially the larger, Heavy Duty spec trucks—seems to be less about getting the required cooling air and more about creating a massive, brutal face of rage and intimidation.” That seems to be somewhat accurate.
I, personally, haven’t understood the giant truck craze. My ’90 Chevy full-size truck is big enough and the 350 can pull anything I want to pull. The enormous trucks of today are too much for me. I wouldn’t like the lack of maneuverability, having to try and wash the damn thing, or paying for the gargantuan tires.
That said, let’s roast the rest!
Part of this statist diatribe is about the large trucks being unsafe (saaaaafety!). Unsafe for anyone or anything they hit, that is. If you’re in the truck, you’re probably going to live, unless you’re really out of control and flip the thing. If you manage to flip one of these giants, well double-dumbass on you!
Now, with regards to emissions, we’ll go ahead and go with the idea that CO2 is ravaging the planet. By my math and the data used for the article…
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html
…I calculate that about 7.5% of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions are from light-duty (passenger) trucks. 7.5%. Wow, Bob, wow.
The data also indicate a trend: People are switching from driving cars to driving trucks. So, if you were to ban trucks there, people would switch back to cars. You wouldn’t save a whole hell of a lot on CO2 emissions that way. Perhaps 3-4% if we are being generous. Fine work.
The rest of the increase in emissions from vehicles can easily be explained from the Canadian population increase of ~11.6 million since 1990.
Now, of course, this asshole is of the opinion that “we need to shift away from relying on private vehicles entirely”. I’m not surprised.
I could go on for some time, but I think I’ll leave with this: A quick trip to Wikipedia says that China emitted 16 gigatons of CO2 in 2014 (from production sources). Canada, according to this data emitted 0.722 gigatons that year (and has been mostly steady since), about 4.5% of China’s emissions. So you want to take everyone’s trucks away to make this tiny sliver of difference. What a fuckin’ hero.
John Whitehead on dealing with Brownshirts.
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_right_to_be_let_alone_what_to_do_when_covid_strike_force_teams_come_knocking
Ok. Maybe I’ve had to much coffee, but here goes.
If people weren’t so goddamn weak, none of this shit would have occurred in the first place. I’ve often wondered where all the tough-guy outlaws went. You know, say the tough-guy Harley rider or the rebellious skateboarder. The fact is, with a few exceptions, they never really existed. It was all just an act. Some people talk a tough game and fool many, but those willing to take a principled stand are very rare indeed. Cowardice is rampant in the world and despots take full advantage of it.
“Well, you don’t understand, I have to mask/vaccinate to keep my job.” “Fine, but I had to put on a mask, otherwise I couldn’t buy food.” “I don’t believe in this mask stuff, but I don’t want to make other people uncomfortable.” “I don’t want to get into a fist fight.”
MY RESPONSE: “Take a stand you fucking coward! It’s people like you that go along to get along that enables all of this shit.
-Go find another job. Your employer sucks.
-Don’t get into so much debt that you absolutely have to do whatever your employer says (i.e. don’t become a debt slave).
-You have a moral responsibility to allow people to feel uncomfortable when they engage in sickness psychosis. Going along with it further reinforces the behavior.
-Walk into the grocery store without a mask anyway. I assure you, the $12 ph worker is a pussy and won’t stop you.
-Push back against these morons a bit. You’ll be surprised how effective and empowering it is.
-You don’t have to get into a fist fight, just say no.”
Why is it so difficult for people to say no and stand by it? It boggles the mind.
Amen, Mister!
That’s been my policy all along. I’m not a “tough guy” but I refuse to put up with evil bullshit – and (as you properly put it) it is not some kind of heroic, Herculean effort to just say no!
I believe there are still many Americans who are willing to say it – but it depresses me to come to grips with how many not only say yes but insist we do, too.
I have been stopped and accosted by the $11 per hour retail worker for not wearing a mask on several occasions. I have been kicked out of stores on several occasions for my refusal to don a mask. I do make exceptions for my job. Unless you are making $10.00 per hour working at a place that is “currently hiring,” I am bound to do what my employer says to the point of injecting a messenger RNA genetic editing solution into my system.
All that said, I proudly have pushed back on wearing masks wherever I go when I am free.
I 100 percent agree that I have the right to make people as uncomfortable as they make me. I am repulsed by mask wearers and those who take the jab.
Hi Swamp,
I know this is bad of me, but I’ve just had it… I’ve begun saying Freak! as I walk past Diaper Wearers. Exceptions being the old and those who appear sick. But I love doing this to soy boy types.
Indeed, everyone has a right to be offended.
I think it’s an odd mix of “rule followers,” people who don’t believe they have a choice, and the true believers. The last ones are the most vocal, but what of the rule follower? Most of them are in a high risk category or two, are educated and indoctrinated, and consume mainstream media. Many probably work or have worked for Uncle or an Uncle-adjacent industry. I would also imagine many are retired from such work so they look back fondly at their time working for Uncle and forget the incompetence. So if “experts” say to get the jab, they get the jab. And wonder why we don’t listen to the “experts,” never thinking that the generation that replaced them aren’t quite as dedicated, maybe is a little more interested in self-perseveration and blindly following orders, might not have gotten their job on merit.
These are Biden’s people. They just wanted things to “get back to normal,” as if the Orange Man could really make that much of a change in society with a tax reform bill. They were told that it is normal for North Korea and Russia to be pariah states. They were told it is normal for gasoline to be expensive. They were told it is normal to take ridiculous risks in stock markets with your retirement nest egg. They were told that The White Album was the best music ever created. So now instead of Trump derangement syndrome (TDS), we now have Biden delirium syndrome (BDS™). Everything is just fine now, but YOU aren’t playing along! YOU who LARPed the Capital. YOU who won’t watch TV or refer to Facebook as “The Internet.” YOU who won’t take the jab (or your meds).
So you see, everything was perfect in 1997. If we can just get back to those halcyon days, when minoxidil and viagra were prescription only, white collars on colored dress shirts were cool (no they weren’t), the Internet sucked but Playboy was on the newsstand (and the wife’s boobs were still pretty perky anyway) everything would be truly great (again).
The White Album?! Blah. Only if one cannot sleep and needs something to doze off to with their glass of warm milk. I would say Led Zeppelin IV, AC/DC’s Back in Black, or STP’s Thank You are way better. Not a bad song on any of them. But, I do agree with your point (which had nothing to do with music).
Hi RG,
Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road; the man is a genius. For those not hip, listen to this (live): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8hvGmaY_FM&ab_channel=PhilipAnness
Hi Eric,
Agreed. Elton John and Bernie Taupin are phenomenal songwriters. I remember when he rewrote Candle in the Wind for Princess Diana’s funeral and I cried throughout the whole song – that is embarrassing to admit.
Also, Cosmo’s Factory by CCR is soooo good. I love John Fogerty, he could sing the phone book and I would happily listen. It just breaks my heart that he is a liberal. 🙁
John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Scarecrow’ is also quite good. I listened to that album a lot growing up.
In my experience, most people’s taste in music is largely governed by what the listened to when coming of age, in their early 20s. Which also happens to be when most artists are at their most creative. That’s when Asimov wrote the foundation trilogy, for example.
Maybe for most people, but I have loved and listened to music as long as I can remember. I constantly have it on (at work, in the house, in the car) and is really is dependent on my mood. I can listen to Bobby Darin to Aretha Franklin to Linkin Park within a 20 minute span. The first song I remember really loving is the Happy Days theme (Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock). I think I was 3. 😊 Remember when TV shows actually had theme songs and they were pretty good? No creativity today. I honestly cannot think of a show with a memorable theme song in the last 15 years. Pretty much every show in the 1970s and 80s and even a few in the 90s had a catchy theme.
And Nigel Olsson, EJ’s drummer back in those days, is one of the most UNDERRATED DRUMMERS EVER! His drum work is crisp and precise; his transition between slow and fast beats is amazing; and so on. Just listen to “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting”; listen to the drum work; and you’ll be BLOWN AWAY! Nigel Olsson was a genius with the drums…
Hosannahs and amens, Mark!
I grew up listing to Elton John (among others) and have always regarded him (and his band and Bernie Taupin) as the snow leopards of music. That is to say, rare, magnificent beasts that operate at altitudes lesser beings can only aspire to.
What can I add to that?
Hi Eric,
If you’ve never heard this song, check out Elton John’s Burn Down the Mission from his Tumbleweed Connection album. Absolutely brilliant work on the piano!
Martin
Yea. Don’t own Lead Zeppelin IV, don’t intend to ever listen to the complete album having had force fed to me at a young age. That’s probably why I don’t get make out very often (some here will get the reference). I was more into Rush, Yes and King Crimson, and all the old big band jazz bands that were dying off.
But there is a ton of really fantastic music being made these days, but you’ll know nothing of it if you don’t go looking for it. https://www.aprilsmithmusic.com/ is a recent find. Reminiscent of something you’d hear in a club south of the Mason Dixon line, with a good helping of Mae West’s (or Lilly Von Shup) attitude.
Hi RK,
Rush’s Peart is probably one of the most underrated drummers. Everybody always talks of Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and of course, John Bonham, but Peart is very talented and is definitely in the Top 5 of all time (at least on my list).
Thanks for the reference for April Smith I will check her out. There isn’t too much music I like today. I am partial to the blues and rock and roll. That is just not being produced in this day and age. Everything now (at least on the radio) is autotuned and way too poppy for my taste. I do like Marcus King. He is a killer blues player and the kid is only in his mid 20s. He has a song called “The Well” that is quite good if you like the blues sound.
Hi RG,
While we’re on this subject: Jerry Rafferty is – was – another absolutely brilliant artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tynWSAesAo&ab_channel=GerryRafferty-Topic
Hey RK, where is this brilliant music BTW ? youre right nothing makes it to the airwaves (or spotify where we now get it). Infact some time back on a financial channel they had the CEO of Fender or something and the whole talk was about how young people no longer listen to or play the guitar, so they’re now moving into making all sorts of tat with their brand on it….
I happened to come across a band called greta van fleet – but quite liked them. fine – they have quite shamelessly replicated zeppelin, but hows that a bad thing!! Anyone else follow them?
Hi Nasir,
I agree with others here who have said that quality music is being made; but it is largely not being heard. Mass/popular music – the stuff on the air – is noisome dreck; either Bix Noodian “rap” or squealing, auto-toned electronic-repetitive boom-boom-boom. It’s worse than fingernails on chalkboard. The death anthem of Western civilization.
Us who are over 40 grew up when there was good music on the radio. No genre-specific, but music – as opposed to atonal noise.
Guess I’m older than most here since my faves are about 10 years earlier- Simon&Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Joan Baez. Anti-war and mellow, 50 years later not much different.
Hi Nasir,
I like Greta Van Fleet. Yes, they do sound a lot like Zeppelin, but I like Zeppelin so I don’t consider that a bad thing. I give them kudos for writing their own songs and playing their own instruments, which most artists today don’t do. I wish main stream radio would play their music a bit more.
‘Everything was perfect in 1997.’ — ReadyKilowatt
Well, nearly. True, the loquacious Bill Clinton and his brilliant, blushing bride — the perfect two-lawyer Democrat couple — were in the White House. But some disturbing cracks were starting to develop around the edges of their giclée Camelot poster.
First, in Feb 1993 an explosion ripped through the parking garage of the World Trade Center, opening a crater 150 feet wide and several stories deep underneath the North Tower.
Two days later, Janet Reno (the real father of the Clintons’ daughter Chelsea) began a siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco which ended up burning alive 76 people on April 19th.
A year later to the day, a truck bomb blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City. When attorney Jesse Trentadue FOIA’d from the FBI the tapes of four security cameras aimed at the building, all four were blank at the moment of the explosion.
Then on July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Paris-bound 747 out of JFK, blew up off the coast of Long Island. Witness 73 was one of more than 700 witnesses to the crash that the FBI interviewed. By the NTSB’s count, she was one of 258 eyewitnesses who saw a rising streak of light and one of 56 who followed that light from the horizon to the plane. Of the 56, the New York Slimes interviewed exactly none.
Illegally, but publicly, the FBI seized control of the investigation from the NTSB within hours of the crash. The CIA fabricated at least three critical witness statements from whole cloth, Witness 73’s included, and flagrantly corrupted more than two hundred others.
With a massive assist from the NYT, the CIA got away with the scam. Having to account for only a tragic mechanical failure, and propelled by illegal Chinese campaign donations, Bill Clinton was re-elected president in November.
To cap it all off, Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick was named to the 9/11 commission that ‘investigated’ the second attack on those buildings in 2001.
Any questions?
And let’s not forget that it was Herr Clinton’s FDA who made it possible for drug companies to advertise on TV, thereby paving the way for the multi-gazillion-dollar, too-big-to-fail, “we own you now!” pill-pushing, Big Pharma industrial complex. (Incidentally, Big Pharma is supposedly working on a vax pill for the “hesitant” who don’t like needles.)
Hmm…Janet Reno as the “sperm donor” for Chelsea Clinton? Interesting…I was under the impression that if someone tells HRC to go “eff” herself, she can take that as a literal suggestion, not a malediction.
FWIW, we should have seen what was coming with the Clintons when the HIldebeast stepped forward on the platform and told everyone that if they elected her husband they “got her”, as if she were some prize. What an arrogant, conceited, self-important, stuck-up bitch. I don’t blame Bill for banging trailer trash chicks or having his sausage “smoked” by an amoral Jewess intern who was still too cheap to pay the dry cleaning bill for her dress, I only cringe and say, “Bill, ‘Dude’, at least pick some higher class broads to have your flings with!”
Of course, never mind the considerable body count of folks connected to the Clinton, that have gone to their “enteral reward” under suspicious circumstances. What’s the count at NOW? It’s well over a hundred, I’m sure.
See, perfect. And I’ll add: Bill’s drunken puppet was selling off Soviet assets to the Clinton machine. To the victor go the spoils, even when the victor was on the same team as the enemy.
Hi RK,
I was working at The Times (in DC) at the time… and well remember the cozying up to China. Most Favored Nation – and Ross Perot warning the people about it. I met Perot. I got the impression the man actually gave a damn about the American people. Had he been elected, he’d have been Lee Harvey Oswald’d I’m certain.
‘Had [Perot] been elected, he’d have been Lee Harvey Oswald’d I’m certain.’
Thus Perot’s withdrawal from the 1992 presidential race because of ‘threats to his daughter’s wedding.’
This transparently silly excuse was Perot’s version of arrested nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu’s scrawled palm flashed to reporters:
”Vanunu M. was hijacked in Rome Itl 30.9.86.2100 came to Rome by BA fly 504.”
Some similar horse’s head (or the threat thereof) had materialized in Perot’s bed — courtesy of the Bush cartel, in this case, rather than Clinton’s elite Arkancide squad.
As ReadyKilowatt said: ‘See? Poifect!‘
Indeed, Jim –
It’s a tragedy; or rather, a tragedy might have been avoided. Perot understood what “free trade” with China meant, as delineated by Clintigula and Chimp peres. He is the only person I know of other than Ron Paul who ran for president who wasn’t being run by them… whoever it is behind the curtain.
Pat Buchannan understood too. Unfortunately, most small minded idiots in the Repuke party and then nationally (in 2000) did not want to give him shot at it. I voted for him three times
I don’t remember his talk of China, only of the “giant sucking sound” of middle class jobs to Mexico. Some time around 2010 I remember thinking how badly Mexico got screwed over by China and wondering just how the hell it was cheaper to produce something in China, stuff it on a boat and cross the ocean, then go through all the intermodal stuff to get it to the stores. Yea, there’s plenty of stuff made in Mexico (and mega-farms just over the border owned by US corporations), but nothing like the Chinese “miracle.”
Of course now we know, the China Post was offering free shipping on exports. Many things I’ve bought direct from Hong Kong over the years have cost pennies (had to buy minimum orders) with free shipping. No way was that profitable for anyone without a healthy franking privilege. And if you happen to be in a favored industry? Well, then there’s no such thing as failure.
Jones-level lesson right there Jim H. Suppose the indoctrination camps made their history curriculums boring as hell intentionally so I wouldn’t be interested in it? Backfired terribly because nowadays it’s mostly Infowars entertainingly bringing me up to speed
Israel has spilled the beans. 40% of new cases are among the vaccinated. I seriously doubt such records are even tabulated in the US, just in case the results might damage the narrative.
And what’s disturbing about that is the semi-arid, Mediterranean climate, along with the high standard of living and favorable hygienic habits of the Israeli people would tend to hold down incidence of COVID-19. So this notion that if you’re vaccinated, you don’t pose a threat to others (i.e., can’t spread the virus) and are “bulletproof” (i.e. immune to the virus) seems to be blown to smithereens.
“Like animals being taken to the vet” which can be legally euthanized.
“Precedents are everything.” Also known as stare decisis, Latin for “already decided”. A legal tool that locks bad judicial decisions in place virtually forever. There have been a very few instances when they were overturned. Damn few. There are some doozies out there that the US Sociopaths In Charge have vigorously put to use. One in particular, which I can’t remember the party involved, was a farmer who did not sell his product interstate, but was never the less subject to federal interstate commerce regulation because he had an EFFECT on interstate commerce, which every human action does, right down to how much toilet paper you use, even though he wasn’t participating in it. Which just so happens is the “case law” excuse for a great deal of federal law. Then there’s the constantly repeated mantra that there is a “general welfare clause”, which there isn’t. Article One Section Eight states “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” It’s not a clause unto itself, its an apology for collecting taxes. It does NOT give the federal government permission to exceed its powers also listed in Article One Section Eight immediately following the above quote. Before the War Between the States, the States could threaten secession if such subterfuge was attempted. Not so thereafter, leaving the fox in charge of the hen house. There is no refuge in the Constitution. Per one of FDR’s SCOTUS appointees, “The Constitution says what we say it says”.
The corporation argument is always interesting. It’s one of those arguments where there’s no clear cut answer because it is the state which offers the “corporate protections” in our current world. In a free market based on private property, no doubt there would be some type of “corporate” setup be it would cease to be a state construct. The entity that constructs them is the problem we currently face. Much like insurance. It’s not an inherently bad idea, but like everything in life the state wants to get involved and it becomes a racket.
There are no rights without property rights. Property is the basis for all rights. People not understanding that principle is why we are in a state of current affairs that worsens with every passing day.
An easy litmus test for whether a corporation is private or not. Could it exist without the state? I venture to say that none of the larger corporations could, and perhaps few if any of the smaller. And they without doubt would all be far less profitable.
Sebelius says the unvaxxed should not work, see children, and have travel restricted:
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/07/13/sebelius-unvaccinated-americans-should-not-be-allowed-to-work-have-access-to-children/
Not being vaxxed is like “driving drunk”…
Hi X,
Sebelius says her “grandchildren are in jeopardy”? Come again? This sickness presents no meaningful threat to children or to anyone else who isn’t obese or old or already very sick, usually because they are obese. The woman either is incredibly ignorant, hysterical – or a liar. None of which qualify her to speak about this subject.
Incidentally, there’s this: https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-07-14-hadley-huffman-dies-unexpectedly-covid-shot.html
Eric, she’s just a dumb bitch and a wanna be tyrant. The government has weaponized the psychotic. We will forever be in a checkpoint society, the guilty even if proven innocent society. They have moved the ball so far down the field that I just don’t see a way to hit the eject button on this shit. This proves you must prevent, rather than let it happen and then fight back after too much opponent progress has been made. You can’t give these people even one inch.
I was reminded of some of your comments while reading this bit:
The Approaching Storm
CJ Hopkins
https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/15/the-approaching-storm/
And also, while reading this:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/07/bionic-mosquito/take-a-hike/
“Conclusion
A choice: This, from CS Lewis?
Medieval man looked up at a sky not only melodious, sunlit, and splendidly inhabited, but also incessantly active; he looked at agents to which he, and the whole earth, were patients.
Or this, from prisoner 24601:
Look down! Look down!
You’ll always be a slave.
One of these two offers the possibility of liberty – liberty to live according to man’s proper purpose.”
Indeed, DC –
Not an inch. It is the basis for my adamant refusal to Diaper, ever – and if only half the country had “practiced” the same policy, this whole thing would have disappeared because it would have been clear that those who did Diaper were mentally ill and in need of therapy, not enabling.
No one with two or more brain cells that get along watches CNN. They get more views from Natural News et al than they do by direct views. They can be fun to watch though, as they progress through ever more complex gyrations to excuse their stupidity.
Eric, so true. One area I dont get is so many people who get the jab say its a good idea, they dont mind taking it (even if there is coercion) because whatever… but they go on to say “but they wont have their kids jabbed with it because its experimental”
Now im thinking 1) so you do get it… so why take it yourself, and that too by force and 2) do you really think, after all the grown ups get the Jab – they will leave the kids out of it !?!?!? If you dont want your kids jabbed – its even more important that the adults say now….
Not to mention just how well do they think their children will get along if one or both of their parents are severely disabled or dead?
“Not to mention just how well do they think their children will get along if one or both of their parents are severely disabled or dead?”
Ironic that most of the people i know who went along with the diapers, staying home indefinitely and never seeing anyone even family used the excuse of what happens to my kids if me and my wife/husband die? But those same people then run out and get in line to become lab rats for fraudci and his phama cabal. When you bring up the adverse reactions to these people their knee jerk response is yeah but that’s rare, to which i reply so is dying from convid.
The above comment was mine. Sorry got logged out and didn’t realize it.
“That’s rare!”
“So is dying from Covid.”
That’s a very good mic drop badum tsh! reply Antilles.