Sep 10, 2021 | Politics
From NBC News (Aug. 22, 2021):
Former President Donald Trump was booed at a rally Saturday in Alabama after he told supporters they should get vaccinated.
“And you know what? I believe totally in your freedoms. I do. You’ve got to do what you have to do,” Trump said. “But I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It’s good. Take the vaccines.”
Some boos rang out from the crowd, who were largely maskless.
“No, that’s OK. That’s all right. You got your freedoms,” Trump said, echoing rhetoric from opponents of mask and vaccination mandates. “But I happened to take the vaccine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know. OK? I’ll call up Alabama, I’ll say, hey, you know what? But [the vaccine] is working. But you do have your freedoms you have to keep. You have to maintain that.”
Such is Trump’s alleged power to control and determine the views of his supporters.
Trump is viewed as a cause (as opposed to an amplifier, or effect) of the rise of populism and nationalism, when he, like most politicians who seek power, is simply responding to concerns of the electorate — legitimate (vaccine mandates) or not (anti-vaccination on principle) — that are out there. Trump being booed is an illustration of this principle of the horse being driven by the alleged cart.
Aug 21, 2021 | Politics
Write Peikoff and Chayes on this issue in Democrats Using Big Tech To Control ‘Misinformation’ Is Totalitarian (The Federalist):
Not so long ago, a “Ministry of Information” was an institution unique to socialist “utopias,” which required rigorous establishment and enforcement of official truth to maintain state power. As absurd as such an institution may have once seemed to us in the West, we are unfortunately seeing signs that it can indeed happen here.
The authors examine how the bill might work — banning open discussion on “settled topics” and replacing it with “the party line”, and concluding:
In times of fear and insecurity, the pull to appeal to authority might feel irresistible. But if we keep our wits about us, we will recall that we in the West have largely resisted this fallacious approach, both in science and politics, since the time the Catholic Church censored Galileo. (As if Socrates being forced to drink hemlock wasn’t enough!)
Are we now ready to feign amnesia once again and to obediently accept a truth proclaimed from the top down? Or is intense debate and controversy — ah, those uncomfortable disagreements that we experience in abundance in a pluralist society — an integral component of the scientific mindset, and approach which has brought us unprecedented wellbeing?
[…]
Government officials telling private companies to censor disfavored viewpoints on vital issues is the stuff of totalitarian regimes, not of a free country built on the homage of reason.
The entire article is required reading.
The recently proposed “Health Misinformation Act” can serve as a stepping stone for a total “Misinformation Act” once the principle is accepted that it is the government’s job to determine the “official truth.”
It must be opposed on principle.
There is no “no-man’s land” between opposite principles, no “middle of the road” which is untouched by either or shaped equally by both. The fact is that man cannot escape the rule of some kind of principles; as a conceptual being, he cannot act without the guidance of some fundamental integrations. And just as, in economics, bad money drives out good, so, in morality, bad principles drive out good. To try to combine a rational principle with its antithesis is to eliminate the rational as your guide and establish the irrational. If, like Faust, you try to make a deal with the devil, then you lose to him completely. “In any compromise between food and poison,” Ayn Rand observes, “it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” [Leonard Peikoff, Why Should One Act on Principle?]
Aug 17, 2021 | Politics
In a tweet commenting on “Sonos Scores Legal Win in Patent Battle With Google“, legal philosopher and intellectual property expert Adam Mossoff noted that Google being “held accountable for its predatory infringement of @Sonos patented technology” is an “important win for innovative startups against the deliberate piracy of their disruptive technology. The [U.S. International Trade Commission] has long been attacked by Google & other predatory infringers (& by their policy activist proxies). With this latest ITC decision, expect another round of attacks in the press & in DC pushing the ‘patent troll’ narrative & calling for so-called ‘reform’ of the ITC.”
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Aug 13, 2021 | Politics
“Never-Trumpers” Amy Peikoff & Benjamin Chayes have an interesting article on the Trump Lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; the application and scope of Section 230 (“while correct in principle, has, according to Justice Clarence Thomas and others, been applied in an overbroad manner”); and the government pressuring private companies to behave as state actors (fascism). Write the pair in Real Clear Politics:
“In its rebuttal to The Social Dilemma, Facebook insisted that, contrary to the documentary, it does work to remove “misinformation” and “hate speech.” In multiple hearings before legislators, Facebook and other platforms were warned that they must remove more such content — or else. And now, after revoking former President Donald Trump’s executive action concerning the legal protections for online platforms in Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, it seems the Biden Administration is calling in the favor by encouraging Facebook and other platforms to remove coronavirus “misinformation.” Yet the removal of some of this content — and the de-platforming of some who posted it — forms the basis for Mr. Trump’s lawsuits. Why? Because much of this content is, however baseless or offensive, nonetheless legal, and therefore protected by the First Amendment against censorship by state actors.”
[…]
Our politicians, unfortunately, seem to approve of this arrangement, so long as they get credit for pressuring the platforms to remove content they and their “base” find undesirable. And the tech companies seem happy to continue the charade, self-identifying as private actors operating in a free market.
Read the rest.
Aug 2, 2021 | Politics
How would Judge Narragansett in Ayn Rand’s best-selling novel “Atlas Shrugged” perfect the U.S. Constitution by removing the “contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction”?
Professor Brian Simpson has some ideas.
According to Simpson, “One clause that I repeal from the Constitution is the Commerce Clause. This clause allows, among other things, Congress to regulate commerce among the several states.”
Quoting his book, A Declaration and Constitution for a Free Society, he writes:
“To have a proper understanding of why this clause must be eliminated, one must understand what it means for the government to regulate. Regulation in this context refers to the government interfering in the market by initiating physical force to change some outcome that government officials do not like. Regulation is not the same as protecting individual rights. When the government protects rights, it bans the initiation of physical force, such as when it protects people from fraud. When the government regulates, it violates individual rights because it initiates physical force. The government regulates for many reasons, including to forcibly change the wages workers can earn in the market (through minimum wage laws), to impose laws based on environmental ideology (through the Environmental Protection Agency), and to impose drug safety and efficacy rules on drug manufacturers (through the Food and Drug Administration).”
You can learn more about the book on his website.
Jul 29, 2021 | Politics
From the WSJ:
“The chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, claimed in his opening remarks Tuesday that “the rioters came dangerously close to succeeding” in their effort to “upend American democracy.” This is in service of Mrs. Pelosi’s political narrative that Mr. Trump conspired with a mob to stage a coup d’état. She wants to run against Mr. Trump again in 2022.
“This gives the mob far too much credit. Rioters believed Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about a stolen election, and some of them apparently thought they might stop Congress’s certification of the electoral votes. But that was an impossible fantasy. The Electoral College had already voted. Vice President Mike Pence had concluded, correctly and bravely, that he had no authority to reject the results. The rioters had no apparent leader and no coherent plan.
“Even if they’d managed to steal or destroy the official Electoral College certificates, do Democrats think some knucklehead in face paint and a fur hat could have simply declared the election void? The public and the courts wouldn’t have stood for a rabble overturning the 2020 result. Mr. Trump didn’t have the military on his side, or even most of his own Administration. The investigations so far have turned up no guiding cabal. Rioters have been arrested and many will go to prison.
“The riot was a disgrace, and it’s a stain on Mr. Trump’s Presidency. The police officers who testified Tuesday are heroes for holding the line and giving Vice President Pence and Congress time to evacuate.” [Two False Narratives About the Capitol Riot, July 28, 2021]
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