Note: I would be very glad to have experienced health-care workers jump into comments with any additions, corrections (however savage), reality checks, bright ideas, personal insights, or other forms of enlightenment. —– One thing about the hardest systems to route around: Being HARD, lacking flexibility, they develop a lot of cracks. Take a look at any heavily institutionalized or subsidized medical system. I’ll use the U.S. system because the U.S. is home-not-so-sweet-home. But despite the claims that various socialized systems (e.g. Canada’s and the UK’s) are inherently better, many of the same or equally awful drawbacks apply to them. We…
21 CommentsCategory: Government
Government evils — but I repeat myself
Politics is downstream from culture. — Andrew Breitbart Culture is downstream from character. — Me —– Last week I wrote that an important job ahead of us is to build parallel systems, and even parallel societies. We need these to sustain ourselves and sustain freedom as utterly corrupted, immoral, self-serving government and corporatist systems crumble. I promised a series on that. Here it begins. As with my earlier series, “In Praise of Men” (which ended up running to seven segments), it seems best to lay some groundwork. My premises for everything that follows … follow. —– 1. Alternate systems are…
25 CommentsThis will be brief. I have company this week. Though my guest and I have brainstormed through a world of perils and generated vast amounts of blog fodder, I planned to wait until next week, then begin a new multi-part series on bringing down totalitarianism. A moment has come up this afternoon, so here’s a beginning. First, please take a cruise though these links that I’ve been collecting in preparation for the upcoming series, most especially the last in the list. Adaptive Curmudgeon sums up everything that needs saying about the obnoxious, unconscionable, cruel, inciting, totalitarian, and exceedingly dangerous speech…
25 CommentsThere’s a strange paradox at the heart of our unique and growing totalitarianism. On one hand, our ruling classes are as putrescent as any powdered princeling from France’s ancien regime. They have been for a very long time. Marie Antoinette may never have said, “Let them eat cake” when informed the deplorable masses had no bread. But today public and “private” figures like “let them eat ice cream” Pelosi, “take your jabs and pay no attention to my depopulation dreams” Gates, and “fighting climate change by blasting hydrocarbons from my private jet” Kerry are an undeniable fact of our lives.…
Continue readingDealing with our new totalitarian reality, part II</br>(We have just two jobs to do)
28 Comments There’s one thing you can say for totalitarianism: the coolest people will all be Outlaws. They’ll import and export goods without government controls. They’ll provide free-market services. They’ll operate free communication networks. They’ll make unregulated products and sell them in unregulated ways. They’ll barter, use cash, use gold or silver, develop and use new forms of cryptocurrencies. It’ll be just like Libertopia. Except, you know, with the ever-present threat of death or long, harsh imprisonment. But that’s what Outlaws are about. Since totalitarianism is the direction we’re going, hey we might as well enjoy a few silver linings. —– I…
28 CommentsAll right, children. It’s pop-quiz time! But don’t worry; I’m sure you’re all well prepared. Here goes. 1. The FDA gave full approval to the Pfizer COVID shot today (brand name Comorbidity Comirnaty). Does that mean the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots must immediately halt, since emergency use authorizations are only valid if no approved treatment exists? A. Yes. B. No. C. Who the &^%$# knows what the law says? Does anybody even care any more? D. The government is always right; you should be reported for asking this question. E. Kill all the unvaxxed! — 2. The FDA…
87 CommentsIf you’re going through hell, keep going. –Winston Churchill —– We hardly need Arnold Schwartzenegger to tell us our freedom is screwed. As determined as we freedomistas may be to uphold our mental and philosophical freedoms, our political freedoms and economic freedoms are gone-gone-gone. They’ve been going for decades of course. But we now live under a regime that in eight months has ruled via a combination of ever-shifting whim, diktat, incompetence, and a complete disregard for reason, principle, or constitutional law. When you’re ruled by capricious madmen, your external freedoms are moot. Here today, gone tomorrow, partially restored for…
55 CommentsOver the years, when people have asked me, “Is it time yet, Claire?” my response has always been something like this: It may be moral to ‘shoot the bastards’ who kill freedom, but this isn’t the time. It doesn’t make tactical or strategic sense. Violence now will only make things much, much worse. That’s still my strong conviction. To any members of the Deep State trolling the ‘Net desperately searching for those elusive “domestic terrorists” they’re so determined to locate invent: I’m a useless target for you. I don’t advocate violence except in self-defense and I dread seeing anybody, especially…
39 CommentsI’m suffering the sudden onset of optimism. Don’t worry, the condition probably won’t be fatal or chronic. I’ll be back to my normal, healthy, pessimistic self in a week or two. But meanwhile I can’t get rid of this feeling that everything may turn out okay out there in the world. Well, not everything. But outcomes of the current madness may be better than we expect. I feel this way precisely because everything’s falling apart. And all kinds of people are recognizing that everything’s falling apart or has already fallen and can’t be raised back up. That’s the part that…
31 CommentsAKA “A Monday Ramble.” —– Things I wonder about 1. When will we stop saying “Google” when we mean “search online”? I don’t want to think that such an evil organization will be immortalized in the language. But saying, “I DuckDuckGoed it” or “I StartPaged it” doesn’t have that same ring. And you certainly can’t say, “I Ducked it.” “I Binged it” might do — if you want to immortalize another slightly less evil company and you don’t mind your online searches being confused with drinking until you pass out. Yes, I know we could just go back to saying…
15 Comments