Feb 9, 2022 | World
Comments Gren Reynolds in the NY Post:
So we’re finally seeing a genuine, bottom-up, working-class revolution. In Canada, and increasingly in the United States, truckers and others are refusing to follow government orders, telling the powerful that, in a popular lefty formulation, if there’s no justice, there’s no peace.
Naturally, the left hates it.
For more than a century, lefties have talked about such a revolt. But if you really paid attention, the actual role of the working class in their working-class revolution was not to call the shots — it was to do what it was told by the “intellectual vanguard” of the left.
A working-class revolution led by the working class is the left’s worst nightmare because the working class doesn’t want what the left wants. The working class wants jobs, a stable economy, safe streets, low inflation, schools that teach things and a conservative, non-adventurous foreign policy that won’t get a lot of working-class people killed. It’s not excited about gender fluidity, critical race theory, “modern monetary theory,” foreign adventures and defunding police. [“Truckers are starting a working-class revolution — and the left hates it“]
Feb 9, 2022 | World
I am sure everyone saw that Putin was eagerly meeting with Xi at the Olympics. Maybe there was some discussion of economic cooperation, but the real reason was revealed by the Washington Post: they want to make the world safe for dictatorships!
The dictators use double-speak: we are democracies but we have a different definition of democracy. The dictators’ implicit definition includes one-party rule, no free elections. no freedom of speech, no separation of powers, and punishments for “political” crimes. “Consent” in this context means” obedience insured by the gun.
I wonder if the dictators are feeling some moral pressure now? Even the UN was not happy about Russia’s threat to invade the Ukraine (which Russia denied planning). Another aspect of dictators’ double-speak is that attempts by the free world to make defense treaties and arm themselves against aggression are labeled provocations while their own arms buildups and threats are labeled self-defense.
Ayn Rand said that morality was the strongest of all intellectual powers. Maybe the dictators’ are feeling the heat. Let us hope so. – Edwin A. Locke
Feb 2, 2022 | World
Australian Lawyers’ Alliance on Djokovic deportation:
“One of the most dangerous aspects of the Djokovic matter is the preparedness of the federal government to deem someone to be a risk to public order simply on the basis of what it perceives that person’s views might be…This is Orwellian and it is deeply troubling in a society supposedly committed to freedom of speech and freedom of thought.” [Source]
Notes Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns SC on the minister’s powers as “God-like”:
“On the basis of this sort of reasoning, a minister could say: ‘Well, I’m not going to allow you into the country because you’ve got a very high profile and you may express views and become a lightning rod for people opposed to the US-Australian alliance’.”
President of Liberty Victoria Michael Stanton agreed.
“Deportation of a person because of a purported risk as to how others might perceive them can and will be used in the future to justify the suppression of legitimate political expression because others might engage in unrest,” he said in a statement posted online. [Western Advocate]
Feb 2, 2022 | World
According to legal philosopher, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, “Europe is headed towards a tyrannical regime of mass surveillance and control. We are turning into China and if we don’t prevent the introduction of compulsory vaccination in Austria, Europe will no longer be part of ‘The Free West’.”
As Ms. Vlaardingerbroek notes on her blog:
I’ve come to learn that most Americans have no idea how dire the situation in Europe really is. Obviously, America has very heated debates about vaccine mandates too, but they don’t have a digital vaccine passport in place on a federal level. So whenever I talked about QR-codes that grant us access to everyday life, they always looked at me somewhat vaguely. And that’s exactly the issue here. What most people don’t know is the fact that the system we already have in place here in Europe, is a system that can be used for just about anything, not just your vaxx status. And it will be, because the people who rule us are actually very open about their intentions of doing just that.
This is all part of a plan called the ‘European Digital Idenity‘ project. Which basically comes down to every single European citizen having a digital wallet, that contains your medical records, identification information, soon possibly your Central Bank Digital Currencies; and basically anything else there is to know about you. In short: It’s a tracking app. The government, or whoever has access to your information, will know exactly where you are, who you are with and what you spend your money on. What could possibly go wrong there?
Well, a lot. As I said on Tucker Carlson Tonight: “We’re headed towards a new system, a tyrannical regime of mass surveillance and control. Here in Europe, we already have a system in place that reminds us of the early phases of a social credit system. We are literally turning into China”.
And I meant it. Because although in some countries the restrictions are being lifted, what I was afraid of indeed happened: Austria has fallen. Last Thursday, the National Council in Austria (NB: not Australia) passed a law making the Covid vaccines mandatory on a nationwide level; meaning every citizen above the age of 18 will have to pay massive fines up to €15,000 a year, for the ‘crime’ of being unvaccinated. When I say Austria has fallen and Europe is no longer ‘‘part of the Free West”, I’m not saying that to sound dramatic. I deeply believe that once a state no longer honors its citizens’ bodily integrity, freedom is a concept of the past. And there is no reason to think this will be limited to just Austria. On the contrary, actually. Germany has announced it also wants to enforce mandatory vaccination on a nationwide level, most likely starting at the end of February. And we all know that if Germany does something, it’s only a matter of time till the rest of the EU follows. On that note, Germany has also announced this week that they will be barring parliamentary members who are unvaccinated from entering the Bundestag. De facto this comes down to an exclusive entry-ban for members from the Alternative für Deutschland party. Unsurprisingly, this is a right-wing opposition party. And let’s not forget that the German head of the office for the protection of the constitution has stated that people who protest against the Covid restrictions are potential ‘‘enemies of the state’’…
Jan 24, 2022 | World
Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector and human rights activist trying to shine a light on the atrocities still being committed in North Korea by the current Kim regime. She wrote her experiences into a bestseller, ‘In Order to Live.’
Jan 23, 2022 | World
What does it mean for the United Nations to go into “Emergency Mode”?
It means using a crisis as an excuse to implement draconian measures, that have little or nothing to do with resolving the crisis, to expand your power to control people’s lives. As the saying goes politicians should “never let a crisis go to waste.”
Of course, the U.N. does not go right out and say it but speaks in code. Let’s translate that code into plain English as we examine their five action areas:
“Tackle the Pandemic”
“Tackle the Pandemic” means fighting #COVID19 with Covid Vaccination mandates, lockdowns of healthy people, and the prison of the healthy (unvaccinated people who are covid negative). It means creating vaccine passports, which are eventually enlarged to require obedience to mandates which have nothing to do with COVID, as the E.U. is attempting. As Eva Vlaardingerbroek has observed “Europe is headed towards a tyrannical regime of mass surveillance and control. We are turning into China and if we don’t prevent the introduction of compulsory vaccination in Austria, Europe will no longer be part of ‘The Free West’.”
“Transforming the global financial system”
“Transforming the global financial system” means a confiscatory global tax of the productive (#TaxTheRich) to transfer their wealth to socialist politicians and their cronies who believe they know how to better spend the money than those who earned it. Much mention is made for a global tax minimum to force low-tax states to increase their taxes, but when it comes to the advocacy of a global tax maximum they are notoriously silent.
“Taking urgent climate action”
“Taking urgent climate action” means to ban fossil fuels and cripple free countries – especially the United States – while China, “the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide” plans to build over 40 coal-powered energy plants over the next decade.
“Putting people at the center of the digital world”
“Putting people at the center of the digital world” sounds like a Microsoft commercial. What happens if you don’t like Microsoft’s way of putting you at the center of the world? Well, in a free market you can select another company. The U.N. seeks to put an end to this so there is no escape.
When that idea is taken over by the U.N. global monopoly its meaning changes to mean having the state take over the internet so it can impose censorship to battle “misinformation”, i.e., people who disagree with government officials.
Who decides what is “misinformation”? Free people discussing and debating in the free-marker for ideas. Don’t be silly. The U.N. will. “Misinformation” means anything U.N. bureaucrat says is misinformation, or that their proxy in the private sphere (“independent” state-approved “fact-checker”) says is misinformation. The science is “settled”: thinking for yourself is a crime. It’s a brave new world.
“Delivering sustainable peace”
How is “delivering sustainable peace” different from just “delivering peace”? It has “sustainable” in it. Examples of past U.N. “sustainability” include giving moral sanction to communist china’s CCP dictatorship, allowing the Hutus to slaughter millions of Tutus in Rwanda, and condemning free countries like Israel.
Writes Ayn Rand on the expulsion of Taiwan (“Republic of China”) from the United Nations to appease Communist China:
When an institution reaches the degree of corruption, brazen cynicism and dishonor demonstrated by the U.N. in its shameful history, to discuss it at length is to imply that its members and supporters may possibly be making an innocent error about its nature—which is no longer possible. There is no margin for error about a monstrosity that was created for the alleged purpose of preventing wars by uniting the world against any aggressor, but proceeded to unite it against any victim of aggression. The expulsion of a charter member, the Republic of China—an action forbidden by the U.N.’s own Charter—was a “moment of truth,” a naked display of the United Nations’ soul.
What was Red China’s qualification for membership in the U.N.? The fact that her government seized power by force, and has maintained it for twenty-two years by terror. What disqualified Nationalist China? The fact that she was a friend of the United States.
