RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-the-experiment-in-political-freedom-end-in-failure/

Napoleon supposedly said that from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step. This truth applies to great nations as well as great men like Napoleon. The decay of a nation often manifests itself in the trivial and inane, as well as the tragic and existential.

Our current political, cultural, and social dysfunctions have clearly taken that step over the last few decades, and now is putting at risk our country’s successful 247 years of achieving political freedom and equality for all.

Clearly, we Americans are living through attacks on that success no one could have predicted even 20 years ago. And this civilizational failure of nerve and moral exhaustion is leaving us vulnerable to our global enemies. If and when we go, the long great political experiment––freedom and equality and self-rule for all regardless of birth, wealth, or education–– will finally end in failure and despotism.

The bad omens abound. Faith is moribund, banished to the realm of subjective preferences. Love of country and one’s fellow countrymen has been displaced by a specious, “citizen-of-the-world” globalism devoted to power and money. Government, always vulnerable to corruption, is now completely debauched, and justice is sacrificed to political expediency. We are so selfish and short-sighted that we continue to ignore the looming bankruptcy brought on by feckless debt, deficits, and profligate entitlement spending that is morally, as well as fiscally, bankrupting us. And our political factions, especially the “woke,” are conducting our most important policy debates with temper tantrums, violence, censorship, and socio-political “cancellation,” our modern equivalent of Orwell’s “memory hole.”

Indeed, we’ve become so juvenile and surreally silly that even the most obvious facts of science like biological sex are reduced to subjective options, when not promoted as mandatory. More immediately dangerous for many citizens, a “war on cops” as well as “catch and release” prosecutors have turned our largest urban landscapes into dystopian nightmares of violence and squalor.

Most fundamentally, purpose and meaning in our lives come not from faith, country, and family, but from preposterous cults like “transgenderism,” “systemic racism,” and apocalyptic “climate change,” which are preached with myopic hysteria and intolerant fervor.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/04/11/university-of-florida-students-chant-f-desantis-during-inject-in-protest-n1686471

On Friday, the University of Florida was the scene of a trans protest. I know, at this point, a day without a protest is a like a day without gravity. But this particular demonstration took a new tack. At issue were recent moves by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the legislature that could curtail or place regulations on gender treatments  Of course, there was the usual marching, and the crowd of demonstrators participating in the “Inject-In @ SHCC” yelled “F*** DeSantis” as they passed the University’s Chick-fil-A.

Nothing particularly unusual about that. Although someone could have shouted, “Trans chickens are chickens!” Which would have at least put an interesting accent on the day and would have been a nice change of pace. The College Fix provided an account of the affair along with a link, which propriety dictates I not post here. Yes, the “F” word again. Forget surgery, somebody needs to get these people some dictionaries so they can expand their vocabularies. Although to be fair, the decline and fall of civilization may be tied to the use of the “F” word. I have to admit that there are those on the right who could not recite the Preamble to the Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance or The Lord’s Prayer without dropping the “F-bomb.”  So that may be a systemic problem.

When the crowd reached its destination, everyone fell silent as people began to inject the hormone of their choice. Once that was complete, the crowd broke into cheers.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19553/central-bank-digital-currencies

[E]ven when you have followed every law to the letter and paid every fee to the cent, there is still no guarantee that government agents will not later invoke eminent domain laws to swipe what you own because they believe they can use your private property more fruitfully for the “public good” – and, since Kelo v. New London, even for someone else’s private good. So much for private ownership.

Competition, in theory, forces markets to naturally discard bad and expensive products, while keeping the prices of the best products low…. In practice, however, mature students of capitalism understand that entrepreneurs are never in search of markets for competition but rather conditions for maintaining monopoly.

The end result is that capitalists are always in pursuit of ways in which they may take advantage of laws and regulations, specialized knowledge, government contracts, or other exclusionary mechanisms to restrict potential competitors from ever entering the market.

The usefulness of money over traditional bartering for goods and services comes from its three chief functions providing (1) a unit of account, (2) a store of value, and (3) a medium of exchange.

[O]ver the last century and a half, the important steps have all been the same: First, some form of paper money is introduced and backed by the government’s promise to pay the holder of each note a fixed sum in gold or silver. Next, the introduction of a private central bank comes into existence holding a de facto monopoly power to print paper money according to its best judgment for maintaining a healthy national economy. Finally, the gold or silver backing of those paper money currencies is revoked.

[G]overnments… spend money like drunken sailors precisely because central banks right across the street will buy up their debt and facilitate the printing of more money. How could politicians object to an arrangement that allows them to spend recklessly without any normal free market consequences?

Now with the central banks printing money and reckless government spending pushing Western economic systems to the brink, a new kind of financial hocus-pocus has been proposed: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

If governments and central banks control the creation, distribution, and exchange of virtual money, whatever remains of free markets will disappear. If governments and central banks monitor every transaction between consumers and producers, then all industries will be subjugated to the centralized command of the State. If governments and central banks assert the legal power to determine who may store value, how much value may be personally stored, and how long that value will be permitted to last, then whatever remains of private property will cease to exist. If governments and central banks maintain a digital monopoly over the only legalized forms of money, then they may redistribute wealth or penalize personal behavior without regard for individual rights or limits to their control.

No doubt propaganda campaigns will cloak this oppressive monitoring in the West’s own “politically correct” language of fighting “hate” or “racism” or “climate change” or the next COVID-like scare, but the West’s system of control over its citizens will be no different from the Chinese communist version: Individuals will have their digital wealth confiscated or replenished according to whether their behavior conforms to the strictures of the State.

[A]n overhaul of the financial system and a transition to mandated CBDCs threaten what remains of Westerners’ personal liberties.

[T]hose who value liberty know that personal ownership and the unfettered exchange of goods, services, and ideas remain the bedrock of those free nations that refuse to be enslaved.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/one-pivot-republicans-make-winning

Republicans have an abortion problem, and there is only one Party leader who can fix it: Donald Trump.

Let me explain. Like the proverbial dog chasing the bus, the GOP spent years campaigning on the promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would repeal Roe v. Wade but when finally successful, had no idea how to navigate the resulting political landscape. Democrats have used the reversal of Roe and Republicans’ subsequent anti-abortion initiatives to paint the party as extreme, thereby winning over women and younger voters.

The overturning of Roe handed abortion policy back to the states, where it will stay for the foreseeable future. Our country is so divided on the issue that Congress is unlikely to pass a nationwide law any time soon.

Given that power, some red states like Texas have enacted draconian laws banning all or nearly all abortions, a position that is unpopular with the majority of Americans. Other states have had long-standing restrictions on the books that were not enforceable because of Roe; now, some of those are in play.

Wisconsin, for instance, has a statute from 1849 that banned most abortions. That law is under review by the state’s Supreme Court. Just recently, Badger State residents voted to fill a seat on that court; a Democrat who favors abortion rights won that race by a shockingly wide margin after the contest became the most expensive such match-up in Wisconsin’s history. Because of that win, liberals now hold a majority on the state court, for the first time in decades. 

Remember that Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016, and then lost it in 2020 to Joe Biden, both by narrow margins; it is truly a “swing state”. In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans actually gained seats in Wisconsin’s state legislature. So, the recent loss of the court seat, driven by the dispute over abortion, should be a wake-up call to Republicans.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/04/12/say-hello-to-the-epa-motor-company-say-goodbye-to-freedom/

How can a regulatory agency force carmakers to sell electric cars?

History may someday record today as the beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine – and of individual liberty in the U.S.

According to news reports, the EPA is scheduled to release proposed auto emissions standards today on new car sales so stringent that the only way for automakers to meet them would be to shift two-thirds of their fleet to electric.

But wait. How can a regulatory agency do that? Consumers aren’t demanding electric cars. Lawmakers didn’t vote to force them on the public. The Environmental Protection Agency knows better, though, and, unless it’s neutered, plans to force EVs on you – for your own good.

As the Washington Post helpfully explains, “while the rule changes wouldn’t order or require auto companies to sell a certain number of electric vehicles, it would set emissions limits so tightly the only way to comply would be to sell large percentages of EVs.”

To be clear, we are not talking about air pollution. We are talking about emissions of carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant but which the EPA has assumed the power to regulate.

The stated goal is to have up to 67% of new cars sold by 2032 be fully electric. (Today, EVs make up a tiny 6% of auto sales.)