Author Archives: theartfuldilettante

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About theartfuldilettante

The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.

So Now Rights are Not an Absolute?

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“No amendment, no amendment to the Constitution is absolute.” Arguments in defense of the Second Amendment are “phony”.

Yes, he actually said so this morning. This is YOUR occupation ruler, Biden voters. I do not recognize the moral legitimacy of this decrepit, dangerous tyrant. This is NOT my dictatorship.

He’s also calling gun violence a “public health crisis”, which means government has unlimited, unchecked power to do whatever it wishes about guns, just as it has already exhibited unlimited, unchecked power to do whatever the hell it feels about a virus. He wants Congress to back him, but he made it clear he will NOT wait for Congress.

Yes, they’re coming for your guns. And I told you so.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The Fed vs. The Real World

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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has made some interesting statements in recent weeks about the Fed’s view of inflation. In summary, Chairman Powell has stated that overall inflation remains below the Fed’s 2% long-term objective, and that while reopening of the economy could produce price increases later in the year, inflationary pressures from rising prices are likely to be neither large nor persistent. Given the transient nature of these effects, and a long history of deflationary pressures in the U.S. and around the world, Chairman Powell believes that inflation isn’t something to worry about. And in any event, Chairman Powell reassures us that the Fed “has the tools to deal with that [inflation]” should it rise above long-term target levels.

These statements stand in increasingly sharp contrast to the real world in which ordinary Americans live. The phrase popularized by Mark Twain that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” seems well-suited to the Fed’s use of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the primary yardstick for inflation. The index has seen many changes to its basket over the years, which some believe has the effect of reducing measured inflation. The index is also targeted at urban consumers, and thereby tends to underestimate the actual cost of living as experienced by the majority of American suburban and rural consumers. A good example of this is housing costs, which were flat or declining in 2020 in large urban areas like New York and San Francisco and rising rapidly everywhere else. This past year saw urban dwellers flee densely populated areas that had more aggressive lockdowns and other restrictions related to the pandemic, and what felt like an increasingly unsafe public space within many of our cities. There is a disconnect between what the Fed is portraying and the reality of life on the ground.

Indeed, most Americans are seeing substantial increases in their actual cost of living that belie both Powell’s statements and the Fed’s data. To illustrate this, it’s useful to look at a few specific products. Gas and diesel, for example, were up 13% and 15% on an annual basis in February, with overall energy costs up 6%. Wholesale grains and meats were also up over 6% and 5% each. In 2020, at-home food prices rose 3.5%, nearly 75% higher than the 20-year average annual increase, while the cost of meats increased by 6% to 10% depending on the category. This puts a particular burden on lower-income families, which spend an average of 35% of their income on groceries, and forces substitution into lower quality (and lower protein) products.

Housing costs are also rising. U.S. home prices have increased over 11%, the fastest pace since the bubble that led to the global financial crisis, making it more difficult for first-time buyers and others with steady but flat income. On a related note, the cost of softwood lumber, the essential commodity for homebuilding, has doubled over the past year.

Rising commodity and other prices would matter less if American incomes were growing apace. But unfortunately, this is not the case, other than at the very top. While household incomes were rising robustly across the board in 2018 and 2019, the shutdown of the economy in 2020 put the brakes on further gains (excluding one-off COVID-19 relief disbursements) and exacerbated the existing trends of rising income inequality. Those who gained the most in 2020 are the wealthy, who by and large are benefitting from financial asset bubbles rather than increased productivity from (or reward for) their labor. They are also the ones least likely to feel the impact of rising prices at the pump and at grocery store. But for most working- and middle-class Americans, not feeling enriched by Bitcoin and Tesla, the pressure is beginning to build.

Rising commodity and other prices would matter less if American incomes were growing apace. But unfortunately, this is not the case, other than at the very top. While household incomes were rising robustly across the board in 2018 and 2019, the shutdown of the economy in 2020 put the brakes on further gains (excluding one-off COVID-19 relief disbursements) and exacerbated the existing trends of rising income inequality. Those who gained the most in 2020 are the wealthy, who by and large are benefitting from financial asset bubbles rather than increased productivity from (or reward for) their labor. They are also the ones least likely to feel the impact of rising prices at the pump and at grocery store. But for most working- and middle-class Americans, not feeling enriched by Bitcoin and Tesla, the pressure is beginning to build.Rising commodity and other prices would matter less if American incomes were growing apace. But unfortunately, this is not the case, other than at the very top. While household incomes were rising robustly across the board in 2018 and 2019, the shutdown of the economy in 2020 put the brakes on further gains (excluding one-off COVID-19 relief disbursements) and exacerbated the existing trends of rising income inequality. Those who gained the most in 2020 are the wealthy, who by and large are benefitting from financial asset bubbles rather than increased productivity from (or reward for) their labor. They are also the ones least likely to feel the impact of rising prices at the pump and at grocery store. But for most working- and middle-class Americans, not feeling enriched by Bitcoin and Tesla, the pressure is beginning to build.

Financial asset prices are already reflecting rising inflation expectations well above what the Fed’s data or long-term targets would suggest. Pricing pressures are likely to continue to accelerate throughout 2021 as the economy reopens and consumer demand increases for both products and services such as travel, entertainment, and hospitality, those sectors most impacted by the restrictions. This is likely to continue to provide bullish momentum for food, energy, and other commodities. To the extent that inflation expectations “embed” in the mind of Americans, we can expect to see velocity of money increase, and the shift into real estate and other hard assets continue, to the detriment of bonds and cash.

At the same time, the massive and unprecedented fiscal stimulus being put forward by the Biden administration will clearly be pro-inflationary in ways that we cannot easily predict, other than to confirm that it will hit the middle-class hard. As unemployment falls and growth in demand starts to pressure wages, we can expect to see greater inflationary forces take hold. Already by February, over half of the states had unemployment rates below 5.5%, with 20% of states below 4%. These rates are highly correlated to the state’s policies on lockdowns and reopening. As the larger, more restrictive states such as New York and California eventually reopen, inflationary pressure will likely increase from demand stimulus.

Lower unemployment, accompanied by rising wages and income, would be welcomed over the short term. I am, however, much less convinced than Chairman Powell seems to be of inflation’s transitory nature, or of the Fed’s ability to control the inflation genie once it’s out of its bottle.

Michael Wilkerson is executive vice chairman of Helios Fairfax Partners, an African-focused investment firm and author of Stormwall: Observations on America in Peril.

“Equity” is not the Same as Equality

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We no longer talk about “equality” in America. We only speak of “equity”.

That’s no accident. Because there’s a huge difference. Our tyrants know it.

Equality means we stand the same under the law. It means we all have the same individual rights to property, free speech, to bear arms, to keep what we earn and to live under freedom, entirely as we see fit. No more and no less. That’s the ideal, and that’s the standard of the government. Government exists to ensure equal rights. Beyond that: hands off!

Equity is different. Equity means that equality under the law is not enough. Equity says that when outcomes are different, there must be systemic problems. Those systemic problems must be addressed, and until they are, there is no justice. Who will address them? Our betters — in D.C., Brussels, Beijing … wherever. Who defines the problems, who comes up with the solutions and votes on them? That’s none of our concern.

The problem is that individuals are different. Some are more motivated than others; some are more talented than others; some are mediocre; some are breathtakingly competent; some are sweet, but inept; others are simply lazy. The point is: We are all different. None of that alters our equality. But such differences do get in the way of equity. Under a regime of equity, we must all be the same — THAT becomes the standard.

So all you young socialist voters out there who want to become billionaires, or rock/rap stars, or celebrities of tomorrow — remember, those days are over, at least if you keep getting your way. The billionaire socialists you love got wealthy under a regime still based on equality rather than equity. Under that system, Mark Zuckerberg was free to create Facebook and earn billions for it, if it succeeded. Amazon took root back in the 1990s, a still capitalist period, an era decried even at the time by Bernie Sanders as way too capitalist. You won’t ever be able to do what Bill Gates did in the 1980s and others did later. Even if you do come up with something just as innovative. Because under the new regime, everyone must be equal in stature, not under the law. None of today’s billionaire socialists would be billionaires if the Communist policies they now want were in place back THEN.

The difference between equality and equity? Under equality, if you make it — it’s yours. It’s your creation. It’s your merit. Whether you create a garden or a trillion-dollar business empire, the achievement is yours. Nobody can take that away from you. Not legally, and not morally. You’re entitled to keep your millions and spend it (even give it away) as you see fit; and you’re entitled to feel pride. You earned it. It used to be called merit.

Under equity, it’s NOT yours. It belongs to everyone. There is no merit. There is only systemic injustice. If you DO achieve something, it’s because of injustice. Nobody is more or less capable, intelligent or responsible than anyone else. We’re all the same. Whether you work in a difficult job trying to better yourself, or whether you stay home for years on end waiting for the next “stimulus” deposit — you’re exactly the same. According to the apostles of equity.

How can there NOT be consequences for this shift in attitude? It’s monumental. Civilizations literally rise or fall on such shifts. Honest economists rightly make a big deal out of the hyperinflation and unsustainable debt creation caused by the trillions and trillions in unprecedented spending for which COVID became the excuse. They’re right.

But the deeper significance is moral: The character of the people.

Pretending that everyone is the same is a dreary, unjust, inaccurate, uninspiring and utterly immoral way to look at life. It’s the utter, polar opposite of whatever used to define “American.” There used to be a saying, “It takes all kinds.” It was a way of suggesting that not everyone is the same and that’s even OK: it makes the world go around. Now it’s a deep social and political offense to suggest anything of the kind. In fact, it will soon be a crime to say nothing at all. You had better go woke — or else.

Replacing equality with “equity” will be the death knell of America. Just remember, if the worst happens: It’s ideas that killed us. Not politicians. Without wrong ideas, we never would have tolerated the rulers inflicted upon us. A decrepit, worthless charlatan like Joe Biden never had the power to kill the greatest civilization in human history. Our own ignorance, evasion and moral cowardice did.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

No One Cares About the National Debt, Right?

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Writing an article about the national debt is ridiculous. Nobody will read it, fewer will understand it. And those who do will have a knee-jerk reaction to it. It matters or it doesn’t matter.

For going on 40 years, doomsaying fiscal hawks have warned that piling up the national debt will lead to runaway inflation — Venezuela on steroids. But so far, the warnings have not become reality. And after running up a national debt that exceeds the gross domestic product for the first time since World War II, and routinely running trillion-dollar government deficits, all the doom and gloom predicted for overspending has failed to come to pass.

But John Cochrane, an economist at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, makes the point that the debt doves must be right 100 percent of the time while the hawks fear being right only once.

Reason:

As a fiscal hawk, Cochrane acknowledges that his doomsaying has been wrong for the past decade, but he says that doesn’t mean he’s wrong now.

“I live in California. We live on earthquake faults.” Cochrane says. “We haven’t had a major earthquake, a magnitude nine, for about a hundred years.” It would be foolish to consider someone a doomsayer for preparing for an earthquake in California, he says, despite the fact that major earthquakes aren’t a common occurrence.

“That’s the nature of the danger that faces us. It’s not a slow predictable thing,” says Cochrane. “It is the danger of a crisis breaking out. So I’m happy to be wrong for a while, but that doesn’t mean that the earthquake fault is not under us and growing bigger as we speak.”

The libertarian economist Murray Rothbard once wrote that when economists started telling politicians that it was the “government’s moral and scientific duty to spend, spend, and spend,” they went from being the “grouches at the picnic” to in-house yes-men.

[Jason Furman, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama] says that unlike advocates of Modern Monetary Theory, which posits that near-unlimited government money creation and spending are possible without dire consequences, he recognizes that there are limits. But he believes we are using the wrong metric to gauge the magnitude of the problem.

Indeed, Furman believes that rather than actual numbers — $22 trillion in debt climbing to 202 percent of GDP by 2050 — we should be looking at “stabilizing” the debt.

“The question is where do you want to stabilize the debt,” says Furman. “People used to think it should be 30 percent of GDP. Is that what we need to do in order to be safe? I think if you’re asking that question without looking at interest rates, then you’re in danger of a very incomplete answer.”

“Most people acknowledge that there are limits but they envision slow, steady warnings. That you’ll see the problem coming and you’ll have plenty of time to fix things,” says Cochrane. “And I looked through history and I noticed that when things go wrong, they go wrong in a big crisis.”

What kind of “crisis”? We had a credit meltdown in 2007-2008 that nearly crashed the entire world economy. Now we’re dealing with the pandemic recession that is also worldwide and may be the tipping point for some countries. Just what would it take to set off a round of hyperinflation in the U.S.?

It should make us all uneasy that our current fiscal situation is totally dependent on much of the world staying relatively stable. History shows us that’s folly. With the entire planet connected, we’re even more vulnerable to disruptions than in the past.

For now, wishful thinking rules in Washington.

Rick Moran, PJMedia

Washington is Misreading Russia at the World’s Peril

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On August 31, 2018, I wrote:

“So, the questions for Andrei Martyanov, The Saker, and for Putin and the Russian government is: How long does turning your other cheek work? Do you turn your other cheek so long as to allow your opponent to neutralize your advantage in a confrontation? Do you turn your other cheek so long that you lose the support of the patriotic population for your failure to defend the country’s honor? Do you turn your other cheek so long that you are eventually forced into war or submission? Do you turn your other cheek so long that the result is nuclear war?

“I think that Martyanov and The Saker agree that my question is a valid one. Both emphazise in their highly informative writings that the court historians misrepresent wars in the interest of victors. Let’s give this a moment’s thought. Both Napoleon and Hitler stood at their apogee, their success unmitigated by any military defeat. Then they marched into Russia and were utterly destroyed. Why did they do this? They did it because their success had given them massive arrogance and belief in their “exceptionalism,” the dangerous word that encapsulates Washington’s belief in its hegemony.

“The zionist neoconsevatives who rule in Washington are capable of the same mistake that Napoleon and Hitler made. They believe in “the end of history,” that the Soviet collapse means history has chosen America as the model for the future. Their hubris actually exceeds that of Napoleon and Hitler.

“When confronted with such deluded and ideological force, does turning the other cheek work or does it encourage more provocation?

“This is the question before the Russian government.” https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/08/31/can-war-be-avoided-and-the-planet-saved/

Andrei Martyanov answered on September 4, 2018: https://www.unz.com/article/russia-as-a-cat/ He argued that Washington is aware that its military power is limited and will not risk nuclear annihilation.

On April 5, 2021, the Saker has reached agreement with my point: “Russia cannot and will not retreat further, she won’t meekly declare that the Donbass or Crimea belong to the Nazi regime in Kiev. Russia is ready, capable and willing to fight US/NATO forces if needed, including by using tactical and even strategic nukes.” https://thesaker.is/what-will-the-empire-do-to-support-the-ukronazis-open-thread-4/

Like myself the Saker concludes that Washington’s hubris means that “The biggest danger right now is that western politicians are completely misreading not only Putin, but all of Russia.”

Martyanov believes that Washington’s guarantee to Ukraine is a tempest in a teacup as Washington will not really risk confronting Russia militarily. https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com

I wonder if Martyanov is giving Washington too much credit for awareness. If Washington were reading the situation correctly, would the US Secretary of Defense have given Ukraine a guarantee against Russian intervention if Ukraine, now better armed by Washington, renews its assault on Donbass? Washington wants conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the purpose of giving the guarantee is to produce conflict.

Martyanov might be correct that Ukraine is too wary to trust the guarantee, and that Washington would not stand behind it. But escalation can have momentum of its own. The publicized guarantee could result in extreme elements pushing the Ukrainian president into foolhardy action. Neocons and liberal interventionists could insist Washington’s word and reputation are at stake and demand that Biden go to Ukraine’s aid. I agree with Martyanov that it would be a war based on stupid nonsense, but these things do happen.

I only raise questions. Saker and Martyanov are better informed on these matters than I. Nevertheless, I think the risk is high that the American people are going to be very regretful that they permitted the military/security complex to use the dumbshit Democrats to prevent President Trump from normalizing relations with Russia.

Buttigieg’s “Infrastructure”: It’s Howdy Doody Time

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You ALMOST have to feel sorry for the socialists of the old days (except for the fact they were brutal murderers). The poor Russian Communists had very little to work with when taking over from the autocratic Czars. The Cubans and Venezuelans didn’t have much more to work with, although the pre-Communist days seem like paradise when contrasted with the starvation and despair that came under Communism.

Then there are America’s Communists. People like Pete Buttigieg, the Howdy Doody like figure suddenly — with no experience other than as a failed mayor — in charge of trillions of dollars in “infrastructure” spending. America still appears to be a thriving economy. So Buttigieg can spend unlimited amounts on anything he wants, and all he has to do is call it “infrastructure.” People hear “infrastructure” and they think updated roads, airports, broadband and highways. If anyone took the time to read the bill, they would find mostly different things, like subsidies to unmarketable green energy companies, payoffs to Joe Biden’s buddies in Communist China, and endless welfare programs for people the government plans to keep unemployed for as long as possible.

Buttigieg loves to point out that America hasn’t updated its “infrastructure” since the 1950s. Let’s take his word for that. If the government has been that remiss, then why should we trust the government to get it right now? Since the 1950s, we have had at least as many Democratic, big spending administrations as relatively fiscally conservative ones. Other than a brief period of semi-fiscal restraint by Congress in the 1990s, Congress has never stopped with the big spending since the 1950s. The LBJ and Obama years saw some of the biggest spending ever. So if the government couldn’t launch such an “infrastructure” program over the past 75 years, then why should we expect it to do so now?

Buttigieg promises the deficit will go away thanks to the “infrastructure” spending paying for itself within 10 years. Promises, promises. Communists used to have 5 year plans. Now they have 10 and 15 year plans. They know that nobody’s listening.

I don’t relish seeing the widespread devastation that occurs when the socialists run out of other people’s money. I shudder to think of the despair and crisis that hyperinflation might create, to name one very real risk. But if nothing else, we can at least see the look on Pete Buttigieg’s face when it all happens. Of course, he probably won’t worry about a thing. He’s part of the elite team now.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Would Israel Blackmail a U.S. Congressman ?

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Israel has been involved in several stories currently making their way through the US media. The most fascinating tale concerns Republican Party Congressman from Florida Matt Gaetz. Gaetz is a Donald Trump loyalist who has up until recently been touted as the party’s future. Young, photogenic and a “firebrand” defender of GOP priorities, he has been much in the news lately.

Per the New York Times coverage of the current story involving him “The Justice Department is investigating whether Gaetz… a close ally of former President Donald Trump, broke federal sex trafficking laws. The inquiry focuses on his relationships with young women who had been recruited online, and whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. Investigators believe that he paid for sex with a number of women he met through Joel Greenberg — a former Florida tax collector who was indicted last year on a federal sex trafficking charge, among other offenses… Gaetz has denied paying for sex or sleeping with anyone underage, but it’s clear that the story is far from over. And he’s increasingly isolated: Few Republicans have spoken up in support of him, and today [April 2nd] his own communications director, Luke Ball, resigned.”

There have also been claims that Gaetz, who is engaged but not married, paid for transporting the young woman with whom he had sex across state lines, a federal offense. Reportedly, Gaetz is not well liked by his peers due to his impulsive and even erratic behavior “including a fondness for illicit drugs and younger women” with many considering him to be the proverbial “loose cannon on deck.” CNN reports that “Gaetz had a history of showing off nude photos and videos of women that he said he’d slept with to colleagues on the House floor.”

The Gaetz story also has spawned back stories to the investigation. The Daily Beast is reporting that in April 2018 Matt was involved in a secret midnight visit to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s rooms accompanied by Greenberg, who worked in the office during the day. The two men were recorded on surveillance cameras and they forgot to reset the office alarm, which led to inquiries on the following day that produced a series of text messages in which Greenberg admitted that they had been in the office so he could show the congressman how everything was being done there. They apparently had been going through expired drivers’ licenses, which were stored for disposal in the office.

Greenberg has since lost his job and is being investigated in a “…case has now vastly expanded to a 33-count indictment that includes a diverse list of crimes that range from wire fraud to sex trafficking. Investigators say Greenberg recruited at least one teenager between 14 and 17 years old to engage in a ‘commercial sex act’ between May and November 2017 in Central Florida and elsewhere. Investigators also say that Greenberg used his privileged access to Florida’s drivers’ license database to look up private information on ‘individuals’ with whom he ‘was engaged in “sugar-daddy” relationships.’ Additionally, Greenberg is also accused of making fake IDs—potentially explaining why the 2018 surveillance footage raised concerns that led to that text message conversation handed to investigators.”

What a naughty Gaetz was allegedly up to fits in nicely with what Greenberg was also doing but the fun involving Israel really starts with an apparent extortion scheme linked to the investigation that has involved Gaetz’s father Don, a wealthy former president of the Florida State Senate. Following up on the Gaetz story, the Washington Examiner discovered that Don had been approached by a Florida lawyer named Don McGee who promised that a payment of $25 million would make Matt’s “future legal and political problems go away.” Don Gaetz subsequently contacted the FBI and wore a wire that recorded a second visit made by a former Air Force officer named Bob Kent, who explained that the money would be a loan for “Project Homecoming,” a plan to arrange the liberation of ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson, who is generally believed to be either dead or in prison after an ill-advised somewhat mysterious visit to Iran where he disappeared fourteen years ago.

And then the tale really takes off. The American Conservative magazine has obtained a series of “authenticated” text messages between Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, and Israeli New York Consulate General’s media officer, Jake Novak, which suggest that the Israeli government was associated with both Kent and McGee and might have been behind the extortion. Presumably Israel was prepared to use its political clout with congress and the media to make Matt’s problems go away in return for the funding of a commando raid that would free Levinson and deliver both a blow to Iran and a major propaganda victory for Jerusalem.

Cartoonist Adams’ alleged connection with the Israeli Consulate is not at this point completely clear, though the texts would suggest that he is a trusted contact. An angry Novak, referring to the Times article on the investigation, wrote to him complaining that “The backstory is that this is screwing up my efforts to free Bob Levinson. Gaetz’s dad was secretly f[u]nding us. So I’m very much wanting this to be untrue. I’ve got a commando team leader friend of mine nervously waiting for the wire transfers to clear.” He then goes on to claim that it was not extortion in a legal sense, “The real documents do not extort. And we only asked for $25 million as an estimate at first. We came way down.”

The two men also exchanged their view of the case against Matt Gaetz. Novak wrote “Scoop I can’t report: Rep. Gaetz is the subject of a secret Grand Jury probe of sex with minors and possibly murder conspiracy. I trust the source. Charges/accusations are apparently ‘very credible.’” Adams responds that “The allegations against him do not sound credible” with Novak answering “I don’t want to believe them but my source says it looks bad from closer in.” Adams then texts “I’m betting against it but the extortion counter claim sounds credible. Has witnesses apparently.” Novak concludes that “Now the Gaetz’s have burned Kent AND Levinson.”

If the American Conservative documents are not part of some elaborate hoax, the evidence of how Israel systematically interferes in American politics is yet again clearly visible. One of the most remarkable aspects of the story is the impression that Israeli consulate employee Jake Novak, who sounds somewhat like an intelligence officer, appears to believe that the exposure of the game he was involved in is annoying but no big deal, confident that Israel is never punished by Washington no matter what it does. He also appeared to have inside information on a confidential Justice Department investigation. Beyond that, the possible extortion scheme itself may be based on a possible set-up “honey trap” followed by what amounts to the blackmailing of an American Congressman.

What exactly did the Israeli Consulate’s proxies McGee and Kent have on Matt Gaetz that might have impelled his wealthy father to fund an implausible rescue operation directed against Iran which could easily escalate into a major international incident, possibly even a war? There are clearly documents, recordings and transcripts…will we the public ever see or hear them? If this all begins to smell like the Jeffrey Epstein saga it should and it is just one more good reason not to trust the Israelis on any issue. One wonders if anyone in the FBI or the Joe Biden Administration has the courage to follow this investigation through to wherever it might lead.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org

Whistleblower at Smith College Resigns Over Racism

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Jodi Shaw made less in a year than the cost of tuition. She was offered a settlement, but turned it down. Here’s why.

“We all know that something morally grotesque is swallowing liberal America. Almost no one wants to risk talking about it out loud.

Every day I get phone calls from anxious Americans complaining about an ideology that wants to pull all of us into the past.

I get calls from parents telling me about the damaging things being taught in schools: so-called antiracist programs that urge children to obsess on the color of their skin.

I get calls from people working in corporate America forced to go to trainings in which they learn that they carry collective, race-based guilt — or benefit from collective, race-based virtue.

I get calls from young people just launching their careers telling me that they feel they have no choice but to profess fealty to this ideology in order to keep their jobs.

Almost no one who calls me is willing to go public. And I understand why. To go public with what’s happening is to risk their jobs and their reputations.

But the hour is very late. It calls for courage. And courage has come in the form of a woman named Jodi Shaw.

Jodi Shaw was, until this afternoon, a staffer at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She made $45,000 a year — less than the yearly tuition at the school.

She is a divorced mother of two children. She is a lifelong liberal and an alumna of the college. And she has had a front-row seat to the illiberal, neo-racist ideology masquerading as progress.

In October 2020, after Shaw felt that she had exhausted all her internal options, she posted a video on YouTube, blowing the whistle on, what she says, is an atmosphere of racial discrimination at the school.

“I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself,” she said. “Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color.””

Watch the full video and read the full article/story HERE.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The Left’s War on Free Speech

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The Claremont Institute’s DC Center for the American Way of Life is a new initiative for actively counteracting the Left’s ceaseless attacks on America. Founded earlier this year with Arthur Milikh at the helm, the DC center is focused on taking legal and cultural steps to fight the full onset of the woke regime. This series of articles puts into perspective what the Left is doing and intends to do to traditional American mores and customs.

The Left wants to ban “hate speech” using the powerful national institutions they now govern. They do not hide this intention but say so openly. Powerful tools—like Big Tech, a nearly unified press, and the national security state—give speech restrictionists the impression that this goal can and should be pursued. But exactly what kind of speech do they want to ban, and exactly how would this ban transform America?

“Hate speech,” on the surface, seems to mean racial epithets, slurs, or Holocaust denial. But such speech has already disappeared from America’s public square. There is no “hate speech” in any recognizable form anywhere in America outside of the bowels of the Internet or in rap music. If anything, America’s public square is governed by exactly the opposite tendency: corporate, media, educational, and social powers fiercely punish such utterances. The N-word is the only word in the English language which is forbidden from being uttered. And yet, calls to ban “hate speech” only increase.

The American Left is not interested in or concerned about racial epithets. In reality, “hate speech” is the words, thoughts, and judgments of the oppressor group, which marginalized groups claim harms their self-respect. The oppressor group, in virtually every case, is whites—especially white males, though white women also are carriers of “whiteness,” the original sin.

Banning or criminalizing hate speech means silencing the speech of oppressor groups, while amplifying the speech of marginalized groups. The marginalized must be to speak against, calumniate and malign the alleged oppressors and their institutions, for their self-respect comes to depend entirely on this. It is not only permissible, but required to state that the “greatest terrorist threat in this country is white men.” Every single sector of society amplifies such sentiments in varying degrees.

You Can’t Handle the Truth

Protecting the self-respect of the marginalized requires banning certain facts. As explained by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, professors of law at the University of Alabama Law School and leading advocates of speech criminalization, factual speech that calls into question a marginalized group’s self-respect is “deplorable” and constitutes “hate speech.”

For instance, all statistically supported analysis of how inadequately the recipients of affirmative action are prepared for higher education relative to their peers should be banned—no matter how true. This extends to any number of issues that threaten the self-respect of the marginalized, like speaking of factual disparities in crime rates. Other leading advocates of speech criminalization, like Mari Matsuda of the University of Hawaii Law School, maintain that “racist” scientific findings, even if true, may well fall within “the doctrinal space for regulation.” One sees this conflict already underway between medical doctors and transgender activists.

Furthermore, since the marginalized have been denied an identity, this theory goes, they must create one. This means that they must mythologize themselves—for their own sake, and for the sake of the oppressors’ respect for them. Thus emerge claims that all of history was male patriarchal oppression over women; or that America was founded on the principle of the preservation of slavery as described in the New York Times 1619 Project; or that most of America’s scientific and economic progress was made by people of color. These myths cannot be convincingly perpetuated without silencing the oppressor group’s judgements, questions, and doubts, no matter how sensible or factual.

Banning criticism, of course, does not produce self-respect. In a pluralist society, the prospect of criticism establishes certain civilizational standards. Yet preventing the defense or enforcement of such standards has become a major goal of restrictionists. A striking recent example was provided by the Smithsonian’s taxpayer-funded African American History Museum. Its website featured an infographic, now deleted, that identified tools of white supremacy such as “objective, rational linear thinking,” “following rigid time schedules,” “plan[ning] for the future,” “be[ing] polite,” working hard, and the nuclear family. In other words, criticizing fatherlessness, rudeness, irrational thinking, sloth and/or incompetence would be “hate speech.”

All healthy societies maintain moral and behavioral standards. But undermining such standards in oppressor minds, so that the marginalized are not held to them, is the goal. Since scientific discoveries, bridge building, flying planes, commercial success, and enforcing the rule of law all depend on competence and “objective, rational linear thinking,” one wonders how quickly these American achievements will stall once allegedly “white supremacist” standards are viewed as hateful and legally or informally banned.

The Narrative Regime

To further lionize marginalized groups, dominant cultural images must be reshaped. According to Delgado and Stefancic, during the civil rights era, the marginalized were spoken of “respectfully,” portrayed as “unfortunate victims” and “brave warriors.” Today, society must regain these images—both for the self-respect of the marginalized and as a form of psychological warfare against the oppressor. The latter must be made to view the former as “decent,” “good,” “nice,” “precious,” and “worthy of respect.” All of society’s images should depict the marginalized as heroic, while portraying the oppressors as either irrelevant or outright harmful. Every Disney movie, comic book, sitcom, commercial, textbook should follow this model—and basically already does. At bottom, the oppressors’ mind must belong to the marginalized.

Free speech is essential for a republican people’s political deliberation about the issues that concern it. “Hate speech” regulation makes self-rule impossible. Essential political discussions are removed from the political sphere. Public debate about immigration, the nature of biological sex, defense of traditional family structures, or the black crime rate must end, because they all harm the self-respect of the marginalized. Even serious discussions of apparently race-neutral subjects like budgets, taxes, and zoning policy—standard governmental functions—would be stopped. Academics write that seemingly “race-neutral [political] campaign themes” like welfare policy “carry demonstrably racially loaded undertones.”

The project of limiting the range of permissible speech and thought requires several preconditions, some of which are already halfway in place. The nation’s main press and educational organs are already largely unified behind the premises, while attacking and harming any objectors. Yet people can still form independent judgements when they have access to alternative information. Thus, the next step requires elimination of those sources. Just under 90% of the world’s Internet searches go through Google; a recently leaked document revealed that Google is interested in manipulating its search so that the results reflect the restrictionists’ moral worldview. “Imagine that a Google image query for CEOs shows predominantly men,” muses an internal memo. “Even if it were a factually accurate representation of the world, it would still be algorithmic unfairness.”

America’s security state is becoming the most powerful element of this vast censorship apparatus. The FBI, National Counter Terrorism Center, and the Department of Homeland Security recently declared as a new goal plans to “detect, prevent, preempt” the thoughts and actions of U.S. citizens engaged in “conspiracy theories” about, among other things, “corrupt ‘global elites’ and ‘deep state.’” U.S. citizens engaged in such speech may now be labeled “Domestic Violent Extremists.” Moreover, former commander of force in Afghanistan, and now president of the Brookings Institution, John Allen, stated that “we must fight violent, hateful ideologies at home.” This includes what he calls “white-nationalist ideologies and organizations”—for it is their “disinformation” that causes “polarization.” A government which prevents criticisms of itself and polices speech is either already a tyranny or is becoming one.

Your Mind is Not Your Own

Lest Americans think that the courts will save them, there are at least two ways the Left can use current law to ban “hate speech.” The first is rooted in civil rights law. As has been elaborated by authors like Christopher Caldwell and Thomas Powers, federal interference on the grounds of discrimination has and will continue to expand into the sphere of speech—for once discrimination no longer exists in public accommodations, housing, or employment, the last frontier is oppressors’ minds.

The second avenue originates in the Supreme Court’s definition of “dignity.” If “dignity,” as former Justice Anthony Kennedy argued in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), means the capacity to choose one’s own identity coupled with the corresponding demand that others recognize this identity, then speaking (even indirectly) against a protected identity could constitute “hate speech.” Both avenues will likely be pursued in the coming years.

The attempt to ban “hate speech” will destroy what remains of political liberty in America. Attempts will be made to replace it with a caste-based ideological tyranny whose actual purpose is vengeance against the oppressor group. Its goal will be entering the inner recesses of the mind to root out and punish impurity, which will deploy the powers of Big Tech, anti-discrimination laws, and the security state to do so. This will mark the decline of America’s economic prosperity, scientific progress, and political liberty.

Freedom of speech plays a central role in forming the habits of character necessary for republican government. Through it, citizens develop the habit of speaking and thinking freely about all matters of public concern. In doing so, they are trained in forming sound judgements. As such, citizens are capable of skepticism about romantic, revolutionary, and impossible undertakings to which democracies are often vulnerable.

Perhaps most importantly, freedom of speech cultivates in citizens the mental habit of persuading fellow citizens through reason. This habit, correspondingly, cultivates an openness to being persuaded by reason. The opposite of persuasion is force. Persuading one’s fellow citizens rather than compelling them becomes the primary mode of political interaction. As such, the strong, natural passions of pride and anger are moderated by the demand to speak rationally, to persuade others, and to defend one’s views, rather than act on violent impulse. The end of freedom of speech is the beginning of barbarism.

is the Executive Director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life.

How Much Longer Can the United States Exist ?

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As a geographical location, the US, not necessarily under that name, can exist for a long time. But as a nation the US no longer exists. A nation requires a homogeneous population, which the US does not have, and far more unity than exists today in the US. Once past the colonial era when the immigration gates were opened, the English population was diluted with Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, and a variety of other European peoples. With sensible immigration policies and requirements, the US was able to assimilate diverse European ethnicities into an English rule of law, English civil liberties, and the English language. These successful efforts of assimilation were abandoned decades ago and supplanted by “multiculturalism” and “diversity.” Today the US is a Tower of Babel.

Today the US is too diverse to live under the same laws. For example,Democrats have stated their intention of destroying the Second Amendment. Moreover, some of them are prepared to do so not by legislative action but by presidential fiat, a power that the US Constitution does not permit. For example, anti-constitutionalists US Representatives Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Val Demings (D-Fla.), and Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) have asked election thief Joe Biden to “take executive action” against “assault weapons.” https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/house-democrats-ask-biden-to-take-executive-action-on-concealable-assault-style-firearms_3758815.html

To request a president to exercise a power he does not have is how tyranny begins, but the Democrat Representatives are so lacking in American enculturation that they ask Biden to pull non-existent powers out of the air and use them against the US Constitution. This alone proves my point that there is no American nation. The United States is the Constitution. Devoid of the Constitution it is some other country.

Aware that the anti-American and illegitimate Biden regime intends to remove Americans’ constitutional right to defend their lives and property against criminals and their liberty against Washington’s tyranny, the Arkansas State Senate has passed in advance of federal action a bill banning the enforcement of Federal gun laws in Arkansas. https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/arkansas-state-senate-passes-bill-banning-enforcement-federal-gun-control-laws_3759960.html

In other words, Arkansas is not prepared to live under federal laws passed to please the effete and submissive Democrat voters who populate the northeast and West coasts. This is not a white/black difference as this black American makes clear— https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/04/02/a-brilliant-defense-of-the-2nd-amendment-brilliant-telling-off-of-dumbshit-white-liberals/ . This is a sectional difference akin to the sectional difference that resulted in secession and Union invasion of the Confederate States of America. Tariffs suited the North but not the South which was being setup to pay for Northern industrialization.

Today in the US there are many more sectional disagreements than existed in 1860.

In the US today traditional white Americans—not the woke Democrats—see themselves under threat. The officials of the ruling party and the media presstitutes have declared traditional white Americans to be “domestic extremists,” “domestic enemies,” “white supremacists,” and “Trump deplorables.” The FBI is searching for and prosecuting those who exercised their First Amendment right to free speech and association by attending the Trump rally in Washington and are falsely accusing those who exercised Constitutional rights of attempting a “Trump insurrection.” The crazed anti-American House Democrats actually tried to impeach former President Trump for a non-existent “insurrection against the US government.”

This shows that the US politically has degenerated into a backwoods third world country where the incoming regime arrests or executes the previous president.

Trump supporters are the patriots who historically have formed the backbone of the country’s armed forces. It is these people in the armed forces who the Pentagon is presently purging.

While the idiot appointed Secretary of Defense eliminates the fighting capability of the US military, the illegimate president in the White House calls the presidents of Russia and China names and issues threats. Simultaneously, the idiot playing Secretary of Defense issues an American guarantee to Ukraine against Russia, while the Defense department announces a lipsticked, painted fingernail, ponytailed, transgendered army in the interest of diversity.

The kinds of men who made the US Marines and paratroopers a fighting force are not going to join such an army or accept such creatures as officers. The US military is history. Ukraine should take this into account before they get themselves destroyed. The American guarantee is worth zero, and this worthless guarantee can start a world conflagration just like the worthless guarantee the idiot British government gave to Poland in March 1939.

Paul Craig Roberts, UNZ Review