What America Is: The Moral Logic of the American Revolution and Other Essays by C. Bradley Thompson

Jun 21, 2023 | Books

"The book is a collection of my (mostly) unpublished essays and op-eds on the nature and meaning of America. The audience for this monograph is thoughtful and patriotic Americans who are looking for some inspiration and motivation to continue the never-ending fight to defend the United States of America from its critics on the postmodern Left and Right."

• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One:  What America Is
• Chapter 1  The Moral Logic of the American Revolution
• Chapter 2  What America Is
• Part Two:  What America Ought to Be
• Chapter 3  Equality and the American Dream
• Chapter 4  Independence Forever!
• Chapter 5  America Seen from the Eyes of a Child
• Chapter 6  Americanism, or America’s Last Best Hope
• Chapter 7  Restoring the Vital Center
• Appendices
• Appendix 1  Self-Made Men
• Appendix 2  The Declaration of Independence
• Appendix 3  The Constitution of the United States of America
• Appendix 4  Bill of Rights
• Appendix 5 The Gettysburg Address
• Suggested Reading
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author

We live in an exciting new age of technological innovation and intellectual entrepreneurship. Writer platforms such as Substack and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) have democratized publishing in exciting new ways. This means of course that a lot of second- and third-rate material is published (which, by the way, is little different from much of what is published by some prestigious academic presses), but it also means that the old publishing monopoly held by elite magazine, journal, and book publishers is slowly coming to an end. This also means that aspiring, non-credentialed, new writers (both young and old) can go around the establishment press and publish their own books and articles, and sometimes even get paid rather handsomely for their efforts.The new publishing landscape does not represent a Gutenberg Revolution in publishing, at least not quite yet, but it is signaling a radically new publishing environment in which certain ideas—particularly ideas that challenge the current cultural hegemony—can be shared with ever more people. This book is therefore a small experiment to test whether certain old ideas—ideas once considered to be self-evidently true—can be communicated to large audiences outside the extant publishing and educational monopoly of ideas.Fortunately, I’m at that point in my career (i.e., as a tenured full professor) where I don’t really need to publish more academic books (though I have several more in the pipeline). I now have the luxury of experimenting and seeking news platforms to publish my thoughts on the things I care about or on matters important to the general public.My goal here is not to write for an academic audience. Instead, I am using my new venture, Loco-Foco Press, to publish books for ordinary Americans who care about the future of their country.I had no plan to do anything like this until my friend Mark Da Cunha insisted that I collect some of my (mostly) unpublished essays on America and publish them to celebrate July 4th. Well, one thing led to another, and I realized that not only did I have one book’s worth of material based on unpublished essays and speeches but several books. Readers should know that I write regularly at Substack under the nom de plume, The Redneck Intellectual. I currently have enough of my Substack essays to publish three or four books. It then occurred to me that I should start a “press,” or at least an imprint, to publish my “overflow” essays or those more appropriate for a general audience. And thus was born Loco-Foco Press.Some of you might be curious to know the origin of the word Loco-Foco. The term refers to a rump faction of radical Democrats in the 1830s and 1840s, who broke from the main party and formed a small, splinter party in 1835 known as the Equal Rights Party. The self-designated Loco-Focos took their name from a brand of friction matches that they used to illuminate the darkened hall of their first meeting. The Loco-Focos were the most principled and dedicated proponents of a free society of any political party in American history. Loco-Foco Press hopes to carry on the principles and politics of the Loco-Focos into the twenty-first century.

Yeonmi Park: With All Its Imperfections, Why I Love America

Jun 14, 2023 | Books

COVID-19 Lockdowns: A Costly Failure

Jun 14, 2023 | Books

"lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society"

• The Herby-Jonung-Hanke meta-analysis found that lockdowns, as reported in studies based on stringency indices in the spring of 2020, reduced mortality by 3.2 per cent when compared to less strict lockdown policies adopted by the likes of Sweden
• This means lockdowns prevented 1,700 deaths in England and Wales, 6,000 deaths across Europe, and 4,000 deaths in the United States.
• Lockdowns prevented relatively few deaths compared to a typical flu season – in England and Wales, 18,500–24,800 flu deaths occur, in Europe 72,000 flu deaths occur, and in the United States 38,000 flu deaths occur in a typical flu season
• These results pale in comparison to the Imperial College of London’s modelling exercises (March 2020), which predicted that lockdowns would save over 400,000 lives in the United Kingdom and over 2 million lives in the United States
• Herby, Jonung, and Hanke conclude that voluntary changes in behaviour, such as social distancing, played a significant role in mitigating the pandemic – but harsher restrictions, like stay-at-home rules and school closures, generated very high costs but produced only negligible health benefits

• Shelter-in-place (stay at home) orders in Europe and the United States reduced COVID mortality by between 1.4 and 4.1 per cent;
• Business closures reduced mortality by 7.5 per cent;
• Gathering limits likely increased COVID mortality by almost six per cent;
• Mask mandates, which most countries avoided in Spring 2020, reduced mortality by 18.7 per cent, particularly mandates in workplaces; and
• School closures resulted in a between 2.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent mortality reduction.

• stunted economic growth;
• large increases in public debt;
• rising inequality;
• damage to children’s education and health;
• reduced health-related quality of life;
• damage to mental health;
• increased crime; and
• threats to democracy and loss of freedom.

“Numerous misleading studies, driven by subjective models and overlooking significant factors like voluntary behaviour changes, heavily influenced the initial perception of lockdowns as highly effective measures. Our meta-analysis suggests that when researchers account for additional variables, such as voluntary behaviour, the impact of lockdowns becomes negligible.”

“When it comes to COVID, epidemiological models have many things in common: dubious assumptions, hair-raising predictions of disaster that miss the mark, and few lessons learned. The science of lockdowns is clear; the data are in: the lives saved were a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering collateral costs imposed.”