RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/progressive-brights-are-pretty-dim-bruce-thornton/

“Brights” is a term that became popular nearly 20 years ago to describe self-proclaimed rationalists who reject religion, practical wisdom, and tradition, and instead rely solely on “science” for understanding and solving social and political problems. Evangelical atheist Richard Dawkins defined “brights” as “Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal.”

The current virus crisis has exposed the dangers of such hubris. Federal and state governments have put in place exorbitantly costly polices such as the extreme lockdown, guided by provisional knowledge about the coronavirus based on incomplete data. In fact, the lockdown policy has cost lives; New York mayor Andrew Cuomo, a proponent of the lockdown, back in early March was “shocked” and “surprised” that people “sheltering at home” had contracted the virus anyway and comprised the majority of those who died. The deep recession that has followed the lockdown has also cost lives, and will cost many thousands more as the effects of lost jobs and isolation take their toll over the coming years.

Once again, the “bright” progressives’ “science-based” policies have collided with the complexity of the human condition.

The “brights’” claim that only the material world is real started to spread over 200 years ago with the Enlightenment. A hundred years later it became the controlling idea behind technocratic progressivism, which holds that the “human sciences” can understand the human world accurately enough to manipulate and improve it as much as the hard sciences’ and the technologies they create did the material world. So we hear from progressives about “science-based policies,” calls to be guided by “science” and to defer to its authority, and dismissal of skeptics and critics of their policies as “deniers,” “flat-earthers” and “young-earthers” who believe cavemen rode dinosaurs.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/05/conservative-guardians-of-the-nation-state/

“As successful as it has been, capitalism doesn’t come with a guarantee of permanency. It has been overthrown in parts of the world in the past. Socialists cum Marxists are forever lurking, feeding off the wishful thinking, naivety and short-term memories of the young; off economic recessions, as they loudly did in 2009; and off the nonsensical hype about income and wealth inequality. Spreading wealth destroys wealth. Which, when you think it about, could fit on a T-shirt. But, of course, whether on a T-shirt or explained at length it would not be understood by the leftist economic illiterates who push the inequality barrow.”

Once the Wuhan coronavirus has been overcome, we’ll no doubt go back to being scared by Greta Thunberg and company. “Deadly” virus replaced by the ongoing scare of impending death by a thousand belching chimneys, interruptible only in the event of the onset of another pestilence.

Be comforted. All is not doom and gloom. The virus has cast welcome doubt on the virtues of globalism. Too much interconnectedness evidently has its drawbacks. For one group with a particular philosophical outlook, to wit, conservatives, its drawbacks were evident long before the virus hit. And it has nothing at all to do with rubbing shoulders with international tourists.

Globalism and nationalism are not mutually exclusive. There is a tension, but nation-states can retain their integrity (wholeness and cohesion) while interacting with one another on a global scale. It’s a question of setting the right balance between porous and impermeable national borders. Perspective on where the balance should lie separates conservatism from the rest of the political spectrum. From this separation different positions and policies flow, along with political allegiances and the future of capitalism.

While libertarians and classical liberals are on the same side of the political and economic fence as conservatives, they are, nevertheless, inclined to favour positions and policies which give rise to more porous borders which, if taken too far, can undermine the integrity of the nation-state. But, to be clear, those of the Left put them in the shade.

Leftists of today appear to have undisguised and profound disdain for the integrity of the nation-state; for what binds it together—sovereign territory, strong borders, a common rule of law, common values and customs, shared history and traditions. While they might be wary of the free movement of goods across borders, they certainly embrace people movements. In the United States, “Bring us your voters” is their subliminal siren call. Giving free health care to illegal migrants drew the support of all Democrat candidates when there were many of them on stage. What a magnet that would be.

Libertarians and classical liberals cannot be put in any category close to those on the Left. That would be insulting to many good people, including people I know. However, they embrace free trade. And, albeit in a measured and nuanced way, they do tend to err on the side of favouring borders open to the international movement of labour.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/27/what_the_obamagate_scandals_mean_and_why_they_matter.html

Amid the flurry of details about spying on Michael Flynn, lying to secret courts about Carter Page, leaking classified documents, and more, it’s easy to get lost in the muck. It’s important to stand back, identify the worst abuses, and explain why they matter for American democracy. These abuses didn’t simply follow each other; their targets, goals, and principal players overlapped. Taken together, they represent some of the gravest violations of constitutional norms and legal protections in American history. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, whether you like Donald Trump or loathe him, these violations matter.

Some call this debacle “Obamagate” since the key officials were his appointees and the White House was directly involved. But they got plenty of help. Some came from the permanent bureaucracy, especially in law enforcement and intelligence. Still more came from the mainstream media, which served as conduits for classified leaks aimed at Trump, his campaign, and then his presidency. For over three years, the media’s top story was “Trump colluded with Russia.” When that imploded after the Mueller Report, they moved on to impeachment.

The entrenched elites behind these scandals are the Swamp at its most sulfurous. They spied illegally on Americans and used powerful tools of government to damage the party-out-of-power, its outsider candidate, and then his new presidency. It’s worse than a single surveillance scandal. It’s three huge ones, intertwined. All were abuses of power. Some were crimes.

Scandal No. 1: Massive, illegal surveillance of American citizens, using the database of the National Security Agency

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/25/the-common-sense-alternative-to-fauciism/

I have recently sought treatment recommendations from three different dentists for a problem I’m having. Two dentists, both well-known and respected by me, gave me diametrically opposed recommendations. My wife urged me to see the dentist who had helped her with a tricky problem for a third opinion. The third opinion contradicted the other two.

I mean no disrespect to any of the three doctors—on the contrary—nor to the dental profession. There really is nothing surprising about this. Three experts examine the same abundant clinical evidence and reach different conclusions. Situation normal. This is in the nature of clinical recommendations, and the nature of clinical recommendations flows from the nature of clinical evidence itself. 

In the end, it is for me to decide, relying on my own common sense to make the best choice I can. But this is not the approach our country is using when it gets treatment recommendations from Dr. Anthony Fauci—and this is a radical departure from common sense in our personal lives and common practice in public matters.

For example, accepting Fauci’s recommendation without a second or even a third opinion is like only allowing the prosecution’s medical expert to testify in a trial. The defense’s medical expert must be allowed to challenge the prosecution’s presentation of the medical evidence. Without the defense’s testimony, the law court becomes a kangaroo court. 

As I wrote in an earlier article, the belief in rule by experts rather than rule by citizens who, if necessary, consult experts and then decide, has been a long time coming. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/the_donald_and_the_dow.html

Sheldon Roth, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is author of recently published Psychologically Sound: The Mind of Donald J. Trump.

The Ouija Board of Stock Market Indices

Trump-supporters felt anxiety as they watched recent White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefings.  In the face of disruption, disease, and death, the president confidently hyped stock market averages as victory.  In an April briefing, Trump was unequivocal: “The market is smart.  The market is actually brilliant…they’re viewing it like we’ve done a good job.  They view it that way.”

This disconnect — from lives ravaged by death, unemployment, zombification of cities and towns, and an unknown future — is hard to bear and set aside.  For loyal supporters, it is especially painful since oppositional media often rebuke Trump’s showcasing the stock market as evidence of his success: “[During his presidency] Mr. Trump has obsessed over the daily gyrations of the stock market like no president before him.  He trumpeted its relentless rise as a validation of his leadership, his financial acumen and his policies.  Disappointing days were the fault of Democrats, the media or the Federal Reserve” (The New York Times).

President Trump’s Basic Motivation

How can we understand Trump’s monocular view?  What drives his steadfast trust in economics?  If you are thinking strictly along familiar lines of money, politics, power, or greed, you miss the central emotional determinant: love.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/05/strange-times/

“Did Nero, Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot or Pinochet ever dream of such power as has been ceded to our various public health officers? The dictators of old would be green with jealousy to see entire populations reduced to meek compliance without the threat of torture and death.”

Does anyone feel like me? More aggrieved and irritated at the behaviour and demeanour of politicians loosening restrictions than when they were imposing them. ‘We in our magnificence deign that you can now congregate in larger groups than two, five, or ten, provided you remain distant from each other, constantly wash your hands, sneeze into your elbows, and don’t stand up in pubs or restaurants or hang about too long. And none of that dangerous singing in church, if we ever allow you again to partake of those primitive rituals.’

Yes, m’lord and m’lady. No, m’lord and m’lady. Three bags full, m’lord, m’lady.

At the same time, I have to say that journalists who know what’s best for us run politicians a close second in the irritating-beyond-words stakes. Best not to speak about the unspeakable – public health officials. Is there any group of people more blinkered, less empathetic? Haven’t come across one.

Just opened my Weekend Australian at the op-ed page.  Gerard Henderson is there, hurrah. Then we have (to me) the insufferable PVO, Katrina Grace Kelly telling us that “home sweet work is the new normal” and Fiona Harari telling us that “keeping our distance is not natural but it’s for our own good.” Yuk!

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Congress is tossing around trillion-dollar relief packages, as we might a car or student loan, or a loan from Aunt Sally. A trillion is a big number, difficult even to conceive. Five thousand round trips to the sun would amount to less than a trillion miles. A trillion hours is greater than 100 million years, which would take one back to the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs roamed the earth. A stack of a trillion one-dollar bills would reach 67,866 miles into the sky. The earth contains seven and a half billion people, a big number but less than one percent of a trillion

Here in the land of make-believe, the Democrat-led House of Representatives just passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act. A month earlier, Congress passed, and the President signed, the $2 trillion CARES Act. Combined, that Five trillion exceeds the 2020 federal budget. It exceeds, in current dollars, what we spent to conduct World War II. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” is an ancient adage. However, do American taxpayers fully comprehend the size of the obligation to which Congress has committed them, their children and grandchildren? Senator Everett Dirksen (1896-1969 – R-Il) is alleged to have said: “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” Here it is, two generations later, and we’ve upped the ante a thousand-fold. In a time of crisis, Americans should not be parsimonious, but we expect our representatives to be prudent and respectful about spending money that is not theirs. To use this money to bail out profligate states and extend already generous benefits to public employees should not be the purpose. America needs to get back to work.

Government generates no income. That is hard to believe, given the lifestyles and the prodigality with which politicians toss money around. Government takes from taxpayers, and it borrows on behalf of those same taxpayers who are legally committed to pay it back. With a median annual household income in the U.S. of $63,000, and assuming a four-person household, the proposed borrowing for COVID-19 and its economic fallout amounts to just under a year’s income for the average household. And, that $5 trillion is on top of total federal debt of $22 trillion, growing at a rate of $1 trillion a year. Unfunded pension and health benefits compound the debt problem for the American taxpayer. Depending on the discount rate one uses, unfunded liabilities approach $50 trillion. Where will the money come from? There are only three answers: one, growth in GDP, which requires free markets, rule of law and limited but sensible regulation; two, higher taxes, which inhibit economic growth, and/or three, a depreciated dollar, which will reduce future living standards.

I woke up this morning and asked myself, “what am I doing arguing about Hydroxychloroquine?”   I had been having a never-ending discussion about HCQ.  Neither of us were influenced by the other.

HCQ is a medical-scientific question.  It either works all of the time, some of the time or none of the time.  It is either dangerous all of the time, some of the time or none of the time.  I cannot have any effect on the question 0f HCQ.  I was able to have an effect on getting the Neo-Nazis and KKKers off AOL.  I was able to have an effect on destroying the Jew-Hating forum of MoveOn.org.  I will turn my efforts to more productive things.

It occurred to me that this widespread battle started because President Trump made a favorable comment about HCQ early in the epidemic.  Trump-Haters cannot stand anything that Trump shows any indication of supporting.  They do not have this reaction to any other medicine in the world and they all have the same question and they all have possible side effects.

An American I know who is living in Paris, France tells me that Americans are not well informed, unsophisticated and believe in propaganda from one source.  While Fox is not specifically mentioned it is alluded to.  After all, all the other prime media, like CNN, are always against Trump.   Never mind that I am not influenced by the news readers but by videos, audios and writings of original participants in interviews and events, people like politicians.  I am also influenced by investigative reporters who have consistently been proven right, by documents obtained under freedom of information requests (FOIA), and by lawyers telling us what the laws are.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/23/rage-and-recriminations-in-the-wake-of-covid-19/

In the middle of my tiny neighborhood on the Connecticut shore, there is a nobbly, plinth-like stone about 2 feet high surrounded by a circle of grass and some simple decorative stonework. On one side of the stone there is a brass plaque to “the eternal memory” of the 26 men from the neighborhood who fought in World War I, “the great conflict between liberty and autocracy.” On the other side, a plaque commemorates the 17 men who fought in World War II “that mankind might live in freedom.”

Every year for the more than two decades we’ve lived here, the neighborhood has marked Memorial Day with a little celebration: some children parade, place flowers by the stone, someone makes a few remarks at the clubhouse across the street. This year, there’s been no talk of getting together for a Memorial Day celebration because getting together is verboten. Our ancestors fought for liberty against the forces of autocracy, “that mankind might live in freedom.” We cower in our homes, constantly told to “practice social distancing,” and not to venture out of doors without a mask. 

In a recent neighborhood survey, 86 percent of the respondents (but not your faithful correspondent) were in favor of people keeping “a minimum 6-foot distance” from one another (my emphasis), 60 percent were in favor of “limiting large group gatherings on common properties.” 

One respondent noted that she (I feel sure it was a “she,” though the posted responses were anonymous) would be “happy to wear a mask in the neighborhood” but wanted “guidelines.” For example, “should I wear one in my front yard?” I would say yes, she should. “What about when running?” Definitely when running. Also when showering or eating. 

http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/4011/What-To-Do-About-the-IC-Big-Lie-That-Russia-Hacked-the-DNC.aspx

Back in October, I abandoned an essay I had begun about Andy McCarthy’s book, Ball of Collusion, especially regarding his statement of faith in the so-called Intelligence Community and Mueller Report finding that “Russia” “hacked” the DNC (see below). As many will recall, the evidence for this finding is a redacted draft report submitted to the FBI by a DNC contractor, Crowdstrike. 

After the recent release of December 2017 testimony by Crowdstrike co-founder (and Mueller protege) Shawn Henry in which he admits that Crowdstrike had no evidence for this foundational charge, I wondered how we might approach the colossal course correction, news correction, history correction, the admission requires, not to mention the questions it raises about this testimony having remained locked away from public sight for two and half desperate years. After all, this charge — that “Russia” “hacked” the DNC — was the basis of the entire Trump-Russia disinformation campaign that served as the Obama administration cover for its anti-Trump conspiracy.

It was all but universally promoted, set in play and driven by the DNC, the “IC,” the Hillary Clinton campaign, the media complex, and “accepted,” as in the case of Andy McCarthy (as he describes below), on faith by almost all Republicans — even including by the Nunes committee in its final report on Russia and the election in March 2018. (This is more than passing strange given Shawn Henry’s testimony in December 2017 before that same committee.)

This same claim was also the basis of the first line of the attack on the legitimacy of President Trump’s electoral victory and his presidency, his own loyalty to this country, and that of his supporters. It was also one of the conspirators’ primary justifications for the Stasi-like surveillance and subversion of the Trump campaign and White House.