We are in a literally Orwellian world now. Until a couple of days ago the headline on this Washington Post story from February 2020 read:

Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.

Now it reads:

Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed.

Democracy dies in darkness, but stealth editing thrives there. That’s Orwell 101 – although one assumes whichever of Bezos’s woeful hacks was ordered to do it was unaware of his literary antecedents, or self-respect would have required him to seek alternative, less pitiful employment. Nevertheless, as you’ll know if you heard my serialization of Nineteen Eighty-Four, that was literally Winston Smith’s job – to go into the archives and rewrite past editions of the newspapers to conform to the needs of the present. And to ensure that versions of the past less helpful to the regime get, in one of Orwell’s many brilliant coinages, “memory-holed”.

Our chaps haven’t been memory-holing quite as long, so they’re not as smooth and assured about it as Winston Smith’s Ministry of Truth. Commissar Zuckerberg’s Facebook will now permit you to suggest that the ChiCom-19 may have “escaped” from a lab – in contrast to the rules a week or so back, when so much as raising the possibility got your account vaporized. Wikipedia isn’t quite so quick on the uptake: as I write, the lab-leak origin of the WuFlu still comes under “Covid-19 misinformation” as a theory used “to stoke anti-China sentiments”. But presumably the lads are modifying even as I speak.

Gee, it’s almost like they all got the same fax from head office. So what was a fortnight back a conspiracy theory that could not be mentioned is now acceptable in polite Zuck-policed society. Not because any new proof has emerged one way or the other: there has always been more evidence for a Covid lab leak than for the bat theory, not least because the relevant bats live a thousand miles from the Wuhan wet market.

When you boil it right down, the fledermaus theory of the WuFlu rests mainly on “scientist” Peter Daszak. Mr Daszak is this season’s omnipresent British subject: He is to bats what Christopher Steele is to Russians; his job is to maintain them as the McGuffin.

So, on the one hand, Peter Daszak is the US government’s principal middle-man (via the “non-profit” EcoHealth Alliance, which he heads) for funneling American tax dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. His principal research activity for the last decade has been coronavirus gain-of-function projects with Shi Zhengli, the lady who heads said institute in Wuhan.

On the other hand, Peter Daszak was also the only “American” member of the team the WHO sent to China to “investigate” the source of the virus. He was the organizer of the letter from twenty-seven virologists to The Lancet saying ChiCom-19 was of natural origin. And he was the “expert” relied on by Zuckerberg to ban lab-leak chit-chat on Facebook.

In none of these activities did he disclose his conflict of interest – that the institution he was absolving was his principal business partner, and run by his closest professional colleague, who has denied, risibly, that any of her employees ever got sick from the WuFlu, and certainly not in the fall of 2019.

So, if you’re one of those who appealed to Zuckerberg to let you have your Facebook page back, well, good luck with that: That’s like appealing your alimony to a judge who’s dating your ex-wife.

As with “former” MI6 man Steele, one is impressed at how plugged in Daszak is at the highest levels. Here he is on April 18th 2020 emailing Fauci direct:

I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“On behalf of our staff and collaborators”: The latter Daszak intends, one presumes, in the business-associate sense not the Occupied France sense. That said, the easiest way to make sense of anything is to consider whether the latest surprising development serves the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.

No western government agency should be experimenting with lethal viruses in a facility documented to be as slapdash about safety protocols as the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But let us say the leak was accidental. Occam’s Razor suggests that it’s entirely obvious Chairman Xi would use it to rid himself of the US-China “trade war” (remember that?) and the one American politician serious about arresting and reversing the rise of Beijing. Furthermore, Xi knew he could rely on America’s media-corporate-showbiz nexus to “collaborate” on that. What may have surprised him, if only in the totality of its fetal posture, is the west’s willingness to tank its economy, wall up its citizenry for a year, and howl down anyone who wanted to blame the perp as “racist”.

So maybe it’s time to take it to the next level. Right now, the global Covid death toll is closing in on four million. To many among the Covid scoffers, that’s chump change relative to the world’s population, and anyway a lot of them were getting up there – in their nineties, late eighties, early sixties… But once upon a time killing four million people used to be regarded as a big deal in and of itself. And, as I said on Thursday’s Clubland Q&A, as of today the preponderance of the evidence is that they were killed by a virus that escaped from a lab funded by the Government of the United States.

You don’t think Xi can’t make that work for him? Is Trump still talking about reparations? “Okay, you first,” says Beijing. How do you think India and Brazil feel about Fauci’s games of function at the virological equivalent of the CIA’s overseas rendition sites? Or the European Union, which semi-crippled its economy in semi-perpetuity? France closed its restaurants and told them to do (dread word) “take-out”: wouldn’t you like to stick it to the Yanks for that?

Consider the prevailing political realities: If you blame Covid on Chairman Xi, he kiboshes you with sanctions (Australia) or forces you out of the Five Eyes (New Zealand). Whereas, if you blame Covid on Washington, what are they gonna do?

Furthermore, look at the key players closer to home. Powerline’s John Hinderaker writes:

The anxiety of the entire American establishment to protect the Chinese Communist Party is remarkable. Prominent Americans from Joe Biden to Mark Zuckerberg to Lebron James apparently prioritize loyalty to China over pretty much everything else. We normal Americans need a much better understanding of why this should be true.

To which Roger L Simon provides the obvious answer. These guys figure the Chinese have already won – and therefore, unlike Kraut-chummy Parisian trollopes in 1945, there will be no price to be paid for “collaboration“:

A perfect example is giant Apple whose most recent quarterly China revenue came in at a record-breaking $21 billion+. At the same time we got all sorts of ‘social justicey’ talk from CEO Tim Cook.

What Cook is doing, cashing in big on one side while mouthing ‘liberal’ pieties on the other, suits the Chinese communists perfectly well, essentially enabling them. Apple then becomes a linchpin of American communism much in the way Huawei is a linchpin of Chinese communism. (Not inconsequentially, Apple’s top five executives, including Cook, earned a total of almost exactly $120 million in 2020, up 13 percent during the pandemic.)

Almost our entire corporate world is trotting eagerly behind.

What will Zuckerberg, the Weirdbeard and the other commissars permit us to talk about? Over the weekend, I was asked to weigh in on the latest big Twitter fever – the vital question of whether or not Donald Trump had his trousers on backwards when he addressed the North Carolina Republican convention. The entirely predictable answer? No.

Yet, if Chairman Xi were to express a preference for wearing pants backwards, one has the strange feeling the WHO and CDC would recommend it and Zuckerberg, and The Washington Post would dismiss dissenters as conspiracy theorists, and Lebron James and John Cena would apologize for accidentally wearing their zippers at the front.

While we twitter, the entire western world has been debagged.

~We had a very busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with the latest episode of Mark Steyn’s Passing Parade, which featured two tales of operatic proportions featuring servants of dark and ugly regimes. Rick McGinnis’ Saturday movie date looked at the grimly gritty Mike Leigh in non-grim mode. Our Sunday musical selection marked the centenary of Nelson Riddle with a song that started the whole rockers-sing-standards phenomenon. Our marquee presentation was our latest Tale for Our Time, the aforementioned George Orwell’s Animal Farm: Part One can be heard here, Part Two airs tonight. If you were too busy counting your gain-of-function grant, we hope you’ll want to catch up with one or three of the foregoing as a shortened week staggers to its conclusion.

Mark also hosted the very first radio edition of Steyn’s Song of the Week, telling the story of “Stardust”. If you missed it, he’ll be back with another song this Sunday at 5.30pm UK time on Serenade Radio, where you can listen to the show from anywhere in the world by clicking the button at top right here.

Mark Steyn’s Passing Parade and Tales for Our Time are special productions for members of The Mark Steyn Club. You can find more details about our Club here – and we also have a great gift membership.

“I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavors to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent.”

– Benjamin Franklin

God went to the Arabs and said, ‘I have Commandments for you that will make your lives better.’ The Arabs asked, ‘What are Commandments?’ And the Lord said, ‘They are rules for living.’ ‘Can you give us an example?’ ‘Thou shall not kill.’ ‘Not kill? We’re not interested..’

So He went to the Africans and said, ‘I have Commandments.’ Africans wanted an example, and the Lord said, ‘Honour thy Father and Mother.’ ‘Father? We don’t know who our fathers are. We’re not interested.’

Then He went to the Mexicans and said, ‘I have Commandments.’ The Mexicans also wanted an example, and the Lord said, ‘Thou shall not steal.’ ‘Not steal? We’re not interested.’

Then He went to the French and said, ‘I have Commandments.’ The French too wanted an example and the Lord said, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery.’ ‘Sacre bleu!!! Not commit adultery. We’re not interested.’

Finally, He went to the Jews and said,’ I have Commandments.’ ‘Commandments?’ They said, ‘How much are they?’ ‘They’re free.’ ‘We’ll take 10.’

Anonymous

Virtue-signaling, posturing, posing … these actions all scream, “Look at me. I am a GOOD person.” That’s what all these corporations and people making sure others believe they’re “woke” are basically implying. What they’re really saying is, “Please like me. I get my sense of self-worth from other people liking me. I know that if I adopt the woke and correct positions on things, that I’ll be part of the pack — that you’ll like me. That’s all that matters. It’s the only way I can survive.”

This is why woke-ism cannot win. It’s built on a foundation of cotton candy for character; and mashed potatoes for brains. It relies upon the very worst, the least mature in people — the absolute weakest within a person’s soul — in order to conquer. That’s a glaring contradiction. It can’t work. A strong, confident and actually worthwhile person is incapable of virtue-signaling, or posing, or any of the things we’re seeing on a truly pathological scale today. Virtue-signaling and conforming are, in fact, the polar OPPOSITE of character. It’s for precisely these situations — where objective value, actual justice, and rational truth all conflict with the growls of the pack — that character was designed! You either have character, or you don’t.

That’s one of the better attributes of these times. You can often quickly tell who has character; and who does not. Think of the people still walking around with masks. THEY are your conquerors? Remember that. If you’re a rational and freedom-loving person, your adversaries are so, so weak and pitiful, at the core. Even if they win, their victory will never mean anything — not even to them. And in the end, they can never win.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

As the end of the pandemic finally seems to be in sight in many parts of the world, governments are starting to shift their focus from “stopping the virus” to recovering the economy that their lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions were strangulating.

In the United States and Canada in particular, the federal governments are seeing the aftermath of the pandemic as an opportunity to “build back better.” In their language, “better” means a society where income inequities will be erased.

The governments both in the U.S. and Canada are planning to spend their way to economic recovery and a more equitable society while at the same time increasing the cost of energy (by banning fossil fuels to avert a climate “catastrophe” that is predicted by the same modelers who claimed that millions would die of COVID-19 in the U.S. alone). That spending will be funded, not only by debt and deficits but also by proposed steep tax hikes, particularly to the wealthy and to corporations.

In the United States, the Biden Administration has proposed trillions of dollars worth of new taxes, including raising the top marginal tax rate and hiking the corporate tax rate by 33% (to 28%). This is in addition to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that was already approved.

In Canada, the federal government has ratcheted up its borrowing and has shied away from announcing big tax increases until after the next election, expected in the fall. However, as Jack Mintz observes in a recent Financial Post editorial, total taxes and fees collected in Canada have increased by a fifth (from $800 billion to $1 trillion) since the Liberal government took power in 2015.

Many take the government handouts (such as the pandemic relief checks) for granted and see taxes merely as a necessary payment for the “benefits” that the government provides, during, and outside of, pandemics. Few question whether the government should be providing benefits such as social security, infrastructure, health care, or education.

Perhaps more people should question taxes. As Mintz points out:

“…taxation is a form of servitude. A good chunk of our working time goes toward paying our income, payroll, property, and sales taxes. And when taxes rise, that means we spend more time working for the government.”

Mintz makes a case against tax increases based on pragmatism: We are already “pretty heavily” taxed; trying to squeeze out more money from taxpayers by making them work even more time for the government is impractical.

But his observation of taxation as a form of forced labor contains the crux of the argument against using taxes to try to make the economy recover (although Mintz does not make it explicit). Taxes are a form of coercion, and coercion is not conducive to productivity—which is needed for economic growth, prosperity, and human flourishing.

Coercion (including coercive taxation) is evil because it severely limits, or makes impossible, our ability to survive and flourish.

What productivity and its beneficent consequences require is freedom: protection of the rights to liberty and property.

The historical record on this is clear. The freest countries have also been the most productive and prosperous, such as America in the past, and the countries that top the various freedom indices today: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Switzerland. Even partial increases in freedom, such as Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the 1980s in China, have raised prosperity (although not overall flourishing because China has otherwise remained an oppressive totalitarian regime).

The connection between freedom and prosperity becomes even clearer when we compare the freest countries to the least free—those where the rights to liberty and property don’t exist, such as the Soviet Union in the past, and Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela today.

The rights to liberty and property lay the foundation for productivity. When they are not violated through coercion but protected by the government, people are incentivized to think, innovate, create businesses, and produce and trade material values, for their own benefit, which also benefits others.

If the governments want the economy to recover and grow, they should drastically scale back (and over time, give up entirely) their economic interference and focus solely on the protection of the rights to liberty and property and other individual rights of their citizens. That would be the only sustainable way to ensure economic growth, higher prosperity for all, and innovative solutions to problems, from reliable energy to accessible health care and education that develops independent thinkers.

Jaana Woiceshyn teaches business ethics and competitive strategy at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada. How to Be Profitable and Moral” is her first solo-authored book. Visit her website at profitableandmoral.com.

The single worst thing about today is the dishonesty. You can’t think rationally, because you have no way of knowing what’s true. The media is overwhelmingly biased and appallingly dishonest. Consequently, as we have seen, we only get facts (or falsehoods) that suit their preconceived narratives and ideologies. Social media platforms only permit us to see or read what fits their narratives. Top officials in the government are brazen liars, even sociopaths. As with all liars, you never know when they’re being truthful, or when they’re not.

If you cannot know what’s true, you’re unable to proceed rationally, productively and with serenity. In my mental health practice, I am encountering more people with panic disorder than ever before, in 33 years of being a therapist. People don’t know how to plan their lives, their futures or anything, because they can’t trust anyone, other than their loved ones (if they’re fortunate). Individuals are said to have “nervous breakdowns” when they reach the last straw, or the tipping point. I sense that as very close at hand for this once eminently sane, innovative, creative and even fearless society. I am so sad to see this happen to America.

It need not stay this way. We have free will, and we can change at any time. Shed the corrupt and toxic media, and it will be an amazing opportunity to begin anew. Stop listening to the liars and the corrupt. Resist, question, challenge, think and disobey: that’s what they fear the most. If millions stood up for themselves, and stopped worrying about offending others, the transformation could be truly inspiring.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason