The entire justification for the U.S. government is its willingness to uphold individual rights, specifically the Bill of Rights.
It’s the whole moral justification for any proper government: to UPHOLD the inalienable rights of the individuals within a society. Government exists for the sake of the people; NOT the other way around. That was the exact premise of America’s original Constitution and Bill of Rights. That is the polar opposite of today’s governing regime in Washington, DC, and in most of our states.
When a U.S. President and Congress use executive orders to replace legislation; openly threaten peaceful citizens with the full force of the military, including nuclear weapons, should they resist forthcoming gun confiscation (as Biden has done); openly spy on the social media posts of private citizens and order the companies who sponsor those posts to censor them; shut down virtually all human activity (with the exception of large corporations) whenever the flu breaks out, or whenever they feel like declaring an “emergency”; pass laws nationalizing all procedures in state and local elections to favor only one party; and force people to subsidize government schools and universities that actively teach in favor of tyranny and overthrowing the whole concept of the Bill of Rights … this is way, way more than enough to conclude that government has lost any claim of its legitimacy.
Somebody has to say it. We can’t go on like this, and it’s really the Patriots, the conservatives, the (authentic) Republicans, the individualists, the liberty-lovers and the libertarians who must face the truth. The left is getting everything it wants, and need not face any consequences of any kind — other than the evil and irrationality of their own depraved views, something most of them will never do.
Most of the good guys, for now, put their hopes in the next two election cycles, restoring Donald Trump to the Presidency in 2025, to the promise of God, faith, country, the flag and all the rest. I sincerely wish everyone well with these goals. But at least in the back of your minds, you have to accept what will happen if none of this works, and if the bad guys keep winning every single cultural and political battle — as they have, to date.
The illegitimate Occupant of the Oval Office Continues to Spread Disinformation Designed to Cause People to Damage their Health and perhaps Terminate their Lives by having the Covid shots. The claim that doctors and nurses are all vaccinated is a lie. A survey conducted by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons found that 60% of doctors are not vaccinated: https://www.globalresearch.ca/majority-us-physicians-decline-covid-shots-according-survey/5748266
There have been many news reports of US medical personnel resisting mandated vaccination by employers and resigning to avoid it. The same in Europe. Here is a report of a French hospital going on INDEFINITE strike to protest a Covid-19 vaccination mandate. The strike against forced vaccination was announced on Thursday by the CGT-GHPP trade union, and affects some 200 doctors and 1,500 nurses in the southeastern French city of Montelimar: https://www.rt.com/news/530095-hospital-strike-france-mandatory-vaccine/
The High Number of Covid Cases Is a Fabrication Obtained by Intentionally Conducting the PCR Test at High Cycles that Invalidate the Test. This was not a mere mistake. It was an intentional act in order to spread fear to create an eager market for an untested and unapproved experimental technology. The World Health Organization is now having afterthoughts as this headline indicates—The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis: https://www.globalresearch.ca/nucleic-acid-testing-technologies-use-polymerase-chain-reaction-pcr-detection-sars-cov-2/5739959
The Covid mortality reports are also faked as this court ruling in Lisbon, Portugal revealed. Ruling on the evidence, the court found that the actual number of verified deaths due to Covid alone during the period from January 2020 to April 2021 was 152, not 17,000 as government ministries claimed. The other deaths were for other reasons but were labeled Covid because of the PCR test that WHO now admits gave false positives.
As AndreDias.net says, “We live in a fraud of unprecedented dimensions.”
Efforts are underway to cut through the fraud and to get at the truth. A federal district court has ordered NIH to release the Moderna safety data from Moderna’s Covid vaccine trials that Tony Fauci has been hiding.
The entire justification for the U.S. government is its willingness to uphold individual rights, specifically the Bill of Rights.
It’s the whole moral justification for any proper government: to UPHOLD the inalienable rights of the individuals within a society. Government exists for the sake of the people; NOT the other way around. That was the exact premise of America’s original Constitution and Bill of Rights. That is the polar opposite of today’s governing regime in Washington, DC, and in most of our states.
When a U.S. President and Congress use executive orders to replace legislation; openly threaten peaceful citizens with the full force of the military, including nuclear weapons, should they resist forthcoming gun confiscation (as Biden has done); openly spy on the social media posts of private citizens and order the companies who sponsor those posts to censor them; shut down virtually all human activity (with the exception of large corporations) whenever the flu breaks out, or whenever they feel like declaring an “emergency”; pass laws nationalizing all procedures in state and local elections to favor only one party; and force people to subsidize government schools and universities that actively teach in favor of tyranny and overthrowing the whole concept of the Bill of Rights … this is way, way more than enough to conclude that government has lost any claim of its legitimacy.
Somebody has to say it. We can’t go on like this, and it’s really the Patriots, the conservatives, the (authentic) Republicans, the individualists, the liberty-lovers and the libertarians who must face the truth. The left is getting everything it wants, and need not face any consequences of any kind — other than the evil and irrationality of their own depraved views, something most of them will never do.
Most of the good guys, for now, put their hopes in the next two election cycles, restoring Donald Trump to the Presidency in 2025, to the promise of God, faith, country, the flag and all the rest. I sincerely wish everyone well with these goals. But at least in the back of your minds, you have to accept what will happen if none of this works, and if the bad guys keep winning every single cultural and political battle — as they have, to date.
Do you remember what happened on May 7th of this year? The Colonial Pipeline, which originates in Houston, Texas, and carries gasoline to the Southeastern United States and the Eastern Seaboard, suffered a ransomware cyberattack by a cyberattacker known to operate in Russia. The cyberattack, which impacted computerized equipment that manages the pipeline, is believed to have been at least tacitly approved by the Russian government.
Soon afterward, demented Joe Biden warned gas station owners against price gouging. He said, “I also want to say something to the gas stations: do not, I repeat, do not try to take advantage of consumers during this time. I’m going to work with governors of the affected states to put a stop to price gouging wherever it arises… Nobody should be using this situation for financial gain.”
Okay, we’ve been put on notice by Demented Joe to not price gouge because it takes advantage of consumers. So it’s worth our time and effort to study what it is. And to see how Joe ignores his own warning.
Price gouging occurs when a seller increases the prices of goods (and/or services) to a level much higher than what is considered fair. ThoughtCo.com offers this: “Price gouging is loosely defined as charging a price that is higher than normal or fair, usually in times of natural disaster or other crisis… Price gouging is typically thought of as immoral, and, as such, price gouging is explicitly illegal in many jurisdictions.”
The important thing to remember is that everyone gets as much as they want at the original price is not an option.
Higher prices will allocate the supply of goods to the people who value them most. When the supply of goods is fixed and prices are used to allocate goods, rich people will buy all the supply and leave less wealthy people with none. This isn’t a concern for luxury items, but it presents a philosophical dilemma (something liberal politicians never pass up) when considering necessity items. This opens the door for politicians to define the terms ‘luxury’ and ‘necessity.’ Here’s where the argument leaves economics and enters the realm of politics. For example, if a beer shortage occurred, politicians would say beer is a luxury, but I personally consider it a necessity.
The price of all goods operates in response to supply and demand. As supply and/or demand change, the price changes in response. A free-to-respond price leads to higher prices where the good is needed most, encourages suppliers to more urgently sell their goods, thus more quickly resolving the problem. However, when price gouging is prevented (by limiting free price change), the result is always shortages. Supplies of goods in the short run are often limited to whatever inventory is on hand (like with gas stations for days after the pipeline was attacked), so short-run supply is perfectly inelastic (unresponsive to price change). If the goods’ owner causes the unavailability, then price gouging is possible. But if not, from a supply/price/demand perspective, price gouging is not possible. I’ve found nothing to suggest Colonial Pipeline caused the unavailability.
There are several state laws as well as a federal law to ‘prevent’ price gouging. But they actually do more harm than good. Ludwig von Mises, in Human Action, said, “…[Economics] says that [government interference] produces results contrary to its purpose, that it makes conditions worse, not better, from the point of view of the government and those backing its interference.”
Further, there are problems in specifying a legally permissible increase in prices for goods caused by rising demand and/or limited supply. That’s because there is no single definition of price gouging, the term has no fixed meaning. Alabama, Florida, and Maine forbid selling at an ‘unconscionable’ price. Idaho and Texas prohibit sales at an ‘exorbitant or excessive price.’ New York outlaws ‘unconscionably excessive price’ increases during an emergency. New York’s Senator Brad Hoylman would “establish that an ‘unconscionable excessive price’ is a price greater than 10% higher than before an emergency began.” Here’s my favorite: Asked when rising prices become price gouging, New York Attorney General Letitia James said, “there’s no definitive answer to that question, but you know it when you see it.” Yeah, right. Laws to prevent price gouging are written to make politicians look good. But what they ultimately do is make them appear foolish.
Let’s examine the current situation in this country in terms of Demented Joe’s policies, that of filling jobs, higher unemployment benefits, and price gouging.
Filling Jobs: This doesn’t directly have anything to do with price gouging, but it provides a perfect backdrop for illustrating the concept. About 10 million people are unemployed despite employers struggling to find employees. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) conducted in March a survey of its members and discovered that 42% of business owners had job openings they couldn’t fill. Many business owners said higher unemployment benefits as one of the main reasons why people weren’t returning to work. This poll illustrates why there is a problem from the worker’s perspective. About 1.8 million people actively collecting unemployment benefits said they turned down jobs specifically because of the generosity of the benefits.
Higher Unemployment Benefits: For many low-wage workers, enhanced unemployment benefits exceed what they could make by working. The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (passed under Trump, expanded, extended under Biden) offers all workers an additional $600 per week on top of the state aid which ranges from $144 to $515 per week. An unemployed low-wage worker can receive from $744 to $1115 per week in benefits to remain unemployed. That’s between $18.60 (256% of minimum wage) and $27.88 (384%) per hour (assuming a 40-hour week) to do nothing.
Price Gouging: Here’s where Demented Joe’s mendacity shows through. Higher unemployment benefits exceed the predominant hourly minimum ($7.25) wage by 156% to 284%. Are these amounts above minimum wage that are caused by higher unemployment benefits ‘unconscionable?’ Are they an ‘exorbitant or excessive [labor] price’ increase? Is this, the labor price increase, ‘price gouging?’ Is an employer willing to pay more than $20.46 ($18.60 + 10%), or up to more than $30.67 ($27.88 + 10%) to get employees and pass the cost increase on to customers guilty of price gouging those customers?
Laws (especially Senator Hoylman’s proposed law) say ‘yes.’ Yet I can find no protests, no identification, no documentation of this type of price gouging.
Price gouging is, in a free market economy, impossible. But we don’t have a ‘free’ free market economy. Politicians, trying to make themselves look good, intervene by passing anti-price gouging laws. Politicians ‘talk the talk’ but don’t do their homework. That, coupled with the majority of the unthinking, uneducated U.S. population, makes price gouging appear possible.
When the next cyberattack occurs (it will, thanks to Biden’s bumbling), get ready for politicians (of every stripe) to decry price gouging. There is political capital to be had. You can bet Demented Joe will make a statement designed to harvest some.
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In a society less far gone than ours, this dimwitted second hander (even pre-dementia) would be incapable of doing much of lasting damage. Unfortunately, the widespread combination of lazy thinking, massive ignorance and also willful evasion have put us in a position where this perverted sycophant occupies the seat of men like Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Lincoln and, yes, Reagan and Trump too. Unthinkable, but it’s happening.
It’s not that he matters. It’s the fact that we, the rational and the good people who still exist, have to live among (and increasingly at the mercy of) people who willingly put him into high office. It’s like a sick, cosmic joke. But, as we continue to live with the consequences, we all must know it’s no joke.
President Joe Biden has now declared that the United States is facing an existential crisis comparable to what it experienced during the Civil War, a struggle that will produce a truly democratic form of government with universal franchise or which will result in the denial of basic rights to many citizens. And he is quite willing to address the issue employing a maximum of emotion and fear mongering unmitigated by a minimum of reasonable suasion, saying “We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War — the Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on January the 6th. I’m not saying this to alarm you. I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.”
Of course, what may have occurred on January 6th has nothing to do with the issue currently in play, which is voting rights, though it is only one aspect of what is essentially a revolution sponsored by the Democratic Party to reorder the American political system in such a fashion as to guarantee its dominance for decades to come. Other steps will include greatly increased immigration, a war on so-called domestic terrorists and decriminalizing or choosing not to prosecute many felonies committed by party constituencies.
The voting rights legislation currently before Congress includes the interestingly named For the People Act and its successor the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, both of which would seek to restore certain unconstitutional aspects of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Most important, they would eliminate the ability of the states to pass legislation that creates conditions on registering and voting. The text of the John Lewis Act now before Congress refers to these steps as “discriminatory laws, needless barriers, and partisan dirty tricks.”
At the heart of the push by the Democrats is the creation of a uniform national electoral system which will essentially make it much easier for people to vote, permitting block voting, ballot harvesting and both registration and voting itself by mail. If passed, the new legislation will compel each state to adopt “automatic and same-day voter registration, voting rights for felons, no-excuse absentee balloting, mandatory early voting, and taxpayer funding for political campaigns.”
The key objections to the new voting procedure being promoted by Biden are several, largely related to its lack of any requirement for potential voters to provide information or show documentation confirming citizenship and residency or even one’s identity. The Democrats are denouncing their Republican opponents who are raising these issues as guilty of “voter suppression.” If the Democrats win the debate, it will be possible for anyone to vote in elections without having any human contact whatsoever using the mail-in ballots which are potentially susceptible to large scale fraud.
Another problem with the Biden program to nationalize voting procedures is that the there are four amendments to the United States Constitution that make it clear that it is left to the states to determine the modalities of voting. That means that even if the new voting act passes through Congress and is signed by the president there still would certainly be challenges based on its unconstitutionality. While Blue states will presumably go along with the guidance from Washington, those states still leaning Red will undoubtedly resist any nationalization of voting procedures.
It is not as if the current voting system is fraud-resistant. All too often it is not, which is why state legislatures in Georgia, Texas and several other Republican controlled states have passed new voting laws that actually require in many cases one’s physical presence to vote as well as production of documentation or information confirming citizenship and residency. They also include the purging of electoral rolls of voters who have died or moved. The new laws come as close as is reasonably possible to creating a system where voting security and integrity will be greatly enhanced, but the fact is that the Democrats are not at all interested in reducing criminal voting. They are interested in creating a permissive environment where all their presumed supporters will be able to vote without having to make any effort to do so or even be compelled to demonstrate who they really are and that they are citizens.
Prior to the recent national election, I examined the procedures to register and vote in my home state of Virginia and determined that one could both register and vote without any human contact at all. The registration process can be accomplished by filling out an online form, which is linked here. Note particularly the following: the form requires one to check the box indicating US citizenship. It then asks for name and address as well as social security number, date of birth and whether one has a criminal record or is otherwise disqualified to vote. You then have to sign and date the document and mail it off. Within ten days, you should receive a voter’s registration card for Virginia which you can present if you vote in person, though even that is not required.
It is important to realize that no documents have to actually be presented to support the application, which means that all the information can be false. You can even opt out of providing a social security number by checking the box indicating that you have never been issued one, even though the form indicates that you must have one to be registered, and you can also submit a temporary address by claiming you are “homeless.” Even date of birth information is useless as the form does not ask where you were born, which is how birth records are filed by state and local governments. Ultimately, it is only the social security number that validates the document and that is what also appears on the Voter’s ID Card, but even that can be false or completely fabricated, as many illegal immigrant workers in the US have discovered.
Prior to the November election my wife and I received unsolicited four mail-in ballots, all of which were sent to us anonymously. I examined the ballots carefully and noted that they bore no serial numbers or other forms of validation that could conceivably be used to limit the potential for fraud. In a state like Virginia, the actual mail-in ballot only requires your signature and that of a witness, who can be anyone. That is also true in six other states. Thirty-one states require only your own signature on the ballot while just three states require that the document be notarized, a good safeguard since it requires the voter to actually produce some documentation and identification. Seven states require your additional signature on the ballot envelope and two states require that a photocopy of the voter ID accompany the ballot. Some of these procedures may have been changed since the November allegation but it appears that only the handful of Republican states that are in the process of passing new voting laws are taking the problem seriously. In other words, the safeguards in the system continue at this time to vary from state to state but in most cases, fraud would be relatively easy if one is using mail-in voting. In fact, former President Jimmy Carter’s headed a bipartisan commission in 2005 that concluded that mail-in ballots constitute the “largest source of potential voter fraud” of any voting system.
Joe Biden is of course right about a crisis developing comparable to the Civil War, but what he is choosing to ignore is that his White House is carelessly feeding into what has become a growing chorus of dissent. He and his colleagues in Congress are deliberately and with malice pushing an agenda that, if successful, will lead to something like one party rule in the United States. Combine that with impending legislation and executive action to pursue “domestic extremists,” whom the Administration has also defined as “white supremacists,” it is not hard to imagine what kind of trouble is brewing.
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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.orgaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
One of the most important principles of economics is that people respond to incentives. You get more of whatever you incentivize. You get less of whatever you disincentivize. This is irrefutable. The supplemental unemployment payment does both—it incentivizes people not to work, and simultaneously disincentivizes them from working.
The number of people who have dropped out of the labor force in Colorado, those who are not actively seeking employment, remains near record highs even as open jobs go begging. Employers cannot find sufficient workers to restart their businesses, or to expand existing operations back to full capacity. They face higher costs by having to entice people out of unemployment. After a full year of partial economic lockdown in Colorado, this is holding back our recovery.
According to U.S. government data, total employment in Colorado has yet to return to pre-lockdown levels. Personal income in Colorado has yet to return to pre-lockdown levels. Real GDP in Colorado has yet to return to pre-lockdown levels. Furthermore, employment and income losses are concentrated among the poor and minorities. The last thing they need is an increased incentive not to work.
Another important economic principle is that income is created by production. When fewer people work and fewer businesses operate at capacity, it is axiomatic that less income is produced. Government payments in lieu of earned income may help some individuals in the short run, but it harms the economy as a whole in the long run. One dollar of supplemental unemployment does not have the same economic impact as one dollar of production-based earned income.
Progressives imagine that they can ignore the laws of economics. But they cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring the laws of economics. They imagine that their policies, that pay people not to work, do not result in fewer people working. They are shocked, shocked, at the very suggestion.
With supplemental benefits, many people receive more in unemployment than they earned in their previous job. And, although even more people receive less in unemployment that at their previous job, the differential at the margin is frequently not enough to incentivize a return to work. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal makes my point, “Unemployment Rolls Shrink Faster in States Cutting Aid.” Businesses see an increase in job applications as jobless aid is reduced. That is based on data—what used to be called “science.”
Even for those who receive more in unemployment than by working, the short-term money cannot make up for the long-term loss of moving up the employment ladder, achieving seniority, and earning raises. At a sociological level, the loss of earned self-esteem that comes from gainful employment is incalculable. Generational damage will occur from children not observing the social benefits of employed parents.
The unintended economic consequences to Colorado of paying people not to work go far beyond the immediate impact of reduced employment. From where will the money come? Taxes on job creators? That harms all Coloradans as fewer jobs will be created. The government printing press? That harms all Coloradans through increased inflation. From Communist China buying more U.S. Treasury debt? That harms all Coloradans by making us more beholden to a country that has shown itself to be a global enemy of freedom.
I am reminded of a saying by one of my favorite economists, Murray Rothbard, “It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”
Two men in a Los Angeles suburb were seen on camera brazenly leaving a TJ Maxx store with their arms full of shoplifted items.
“They didn’t even run out, they walked out,” Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz told CBS LA of the incident. “And so, that’s sending a message that we, the criminals, are winning.” [Fox News]
It’s the death of civilization. Not only is criminal behavior tolerated. Not only are police instructed to enforce the law selectively, based on the political affiliation of the criminals. Theft is now openly celebrated by the looters in D.C. who enable the looters on the streets of Los Angeles and elsewhere. Theft isn’t merely cool; it’s a sign of moral virtue.
For now, it’s a looters’ paradise and a long cherished leftist dream: Communism in America, at last. That’s why looters walk, don’t run. For now, they’re winning.
The only thing they failed to consider: What happens when the people who make all the loot stop making it? What happens when there’s nothing left to loot?
