RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/02/claremont-under-fire/

What is the most important think tank in America circa 2021? I’d say that a good case could be made in support of the Claremont Institute, the California-based organization that is home to the Claremont Review of Books—perhaps our single most incisive quarterly devoted to high politics and the vocation of statesmanship—and a number of world-class scholars. Their statement of purpose says that “The mission of the Claremont Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life.” Through the CRB and the writings of their scholars and fellows, the institute lives up to that high calling. 

What is the single most disgusting and mendacious article published this year? The competition for that title is stiff, I know, but I’d like to propose Daniel Drezner’s mephitic eructation in the Washington Post abusing the Claremont Institute and some of the scholars associated with that organization. Mary McCarthy once noted that every word that Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, including the words “and” and “the.” Hellman had nothing on Drezner, whose hysterical (I do not mean “funny”) effort at demolition is as embarrassing as it is tendentious.  

The one amusing passage (inadvertently amusing, I hasten add) is the bit toward the end where Drezner invokes the late, great Samuel Huntington for support in his vendetta against Claremont. “The connection between democracy and political science has been a close and continuing one,” Huntington said in a late 1980s speech for the American Political Science Association. “Where democracy is strong, political science is strong; where democracy is weak, political science is weak.” Drezner offers this gloss: “Make no mistake, whatever it was in the past, the 2021 version of the Claremont Institute explicitly wants to weaken democracy.” That rumbling sound you hear is Huntington turning over in his grave. The author of The Clash of Civilizations and Who Are We? would not have been amused to be enlisted in this attempted character assassination.

As it happens, abusing the Claremont Institute has become a favorite pastime of our would-be masters. The occasion for Drezner’s flaccid fusillade was the American Political Science Association’s decision to ostracize Claremont from its annual conference, taking place this weekend in Seattle. In July, The Bulwark, Bill Kristol’s current squeaky megaphone, published a fevered attack called “What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?” That piece is a runner-up for my prize of most deceitful article of the year.

What is it about the Claremont Institute that drives the snotty establishment to distraction? In a word, Trump. They hate Donald Trump and they hate anyone who doesn’t share their hatred. They especially hate anyone who questions the legitimacy of the deeply problematic 2020 election or raises questions about the FBI-sponsored protest at the Capitol on January 6. 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/02/heroes-of-the-pandemic/

Many highly accomplished and credentialed medical professionals have put their careers and reputations on the line with their public opposition to the failed COVID strategies of the global biomedical complex. For this, the corporate media has done everything it can to discredit them, and suppress their alternative message.

Over  9,100 medical doctors and scientists have signed a document charging policy-makers with potential “crimes against humanity,” accusing them of preventing physicians from providing life-saving treatments for their patients and suppressing open scientific discussion.

The now-famous “Rome Declaration” wasn’t even the first time a large number of medical experts had gone on the record to reject the tenets of the church of COVID.

A year ago, more than 860,000 infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists signed a declaration expressing their “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.”

The Great Barrington Declaration argued that “the most compassionate” way to reach herd immunity while minimizing mortality and social harm was “to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.”

Unfortunately, because of the work they’ve done over the past year and a half advocating for early treatments, and raising red flags about the experimental vaccines, many brave doctors and scientists have had their voices muzzled and their reputations smeared by the corporate media.

Why? Because no one is allowed to question the official narrative of the global biomedical complex, which is that the vaccines are very safe, effective, and the best way to fight COVID-19.

Among the detractors of this narrative, highlighted below, are medical doctors, infectious-disease researchers, virologists, a former vice president of Pfizer, the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, and even a state surgeon general.

Even as the authoritarian Biden Administration has ratcheted up pressure on unvaccinated Americans to get the jab or lose all of their rights, these bold medical professionals have fought back, arguing that the experimental injections fail a risk-benefit assessment for most people, and are arguably a violation of the Nuremberg Code.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/10/inequality__the_engine_of_prosperity_.html

“The proponents of economic equality fail to recognize the immutable fact — freedom enables people to use their ingenuity to generate wealth, whereas coerced economic equality suppresses the very freedom required to innovate and begets poverty.”

Throughout the history of civilization, people have been dreaming of a perfect world — full employment, full satisfaction of material and intellectual needs, and equal distribution of wealth — only to discover, to their disappointment, that this utopian system does not exist on this side of the grave.            

Nevertheless, the illusory ideas of economic equality transcend time and appeal to people of all colors and races. If the supporters of economic equality, including Marxist graduates of American universities, absorb human history, they may realize that the only historical datum that points to economic equality goes back to the era of primitive communism. Ten thousand years ago, before farming, people were forced to obtain food collectively. Everything that was produced was immediately consumed. This primitive society produced no surplus and created no wealth. Under such arrangement, the private property was limited to personal articles of clothing, hunting tools, etc. resulting in total economic equality — in absolute poverty. Ironically, this is the only way economic equality can be achieved — economic equality and wealth are mutually exclusive.

As people invented agriculture and property ownership, put fences around their properties, produced surplus, engaged in commerce and subsequently built up wealth — inequality was born. The predominant pursuit of wealth creation is the purpose of any society, whether it is slavery, feudalism or capitalism.

Inspired by human’s inherent desire for well-being and passion to extricate himself from misery, wealth creation became the locomotive of economic growth. Capitalism stands out as the greatest wealth generator and distributor that has created more wealth during the last 250 years than all preceding civilizations combined in 7,000 years. 

The source of this enormous wealth is the man’s God-given ability to think and innovate. This intellectual ability is a property of the individual and has not been dispersed equally. Hence, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect equal results from unequal abilities.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/01/the-cult-of-victimhood-will-destroy-western-civilization/

Human beings are complex social animals who evolved the extraordinary ability to empathize with others—especially in their suffering—which further led to the ability to signal suffering to other humans as a strategy to receive help, resources, and social status. This tactic can be morally desirable. For example, people are more willing to donate to causes, such as GoFundMe, when difficult social circumstances are a factor in the request. A just and moral society is concerned with the welfare of those in low positions through no fault of their own. 

Wherever benefits can be obtained from exhibiting hard-to-verify personal information, however, there will always be cynical and morally obtuse people looking to cash in on the generosity of a well-intended populace. This unfortunate reality is exacerbated by our modern proclivity to use victimhood as an identity.

Victim identities, deserved or undeserved, are said to warrant special care and deference, whereas “privileged” identities are devalued. Victimhood confers a special status that today generates tremendous power; it can be used as justification for retributive acts against “oppressors,” provide an exclusive moral legitimacy or position to speak to certain issues, and function as an excuse for one’s personal wrongdoing or failures. The allure of victim status—because of the leverage it seems to impart to people who want to obtain power and sympathy all at once—should not be underestimated. Seeking this anointed status, would-be victims often exaggerate the severity of offenses or create these offenses themselves.

Recent research into victimhood signaling found individuals who exhibit high degrees of narcissism, psychopathy, personal entitlement, and amoral manipulation. The frequency with which these individuals signal victimhood predicts their willingness to engage in ethically questionable behaviors, such as exaggerating claims about being harmed in an organizational context.

The Victim Hoax Game