Critical Thinking in an Age of Feelings

Posted on October 7, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

The COVID Internment, the rise of Mask Empire, and the normalization of Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence have clarified in spades that critical thinking, as opposed to mindless emoting, is more necessary than ever.

It is misleading to suggest that feelings or emotions are of no consequence. The difference between the critical thinking and feeling is that whatever feelings a person experiences at any given moment are no substitute for clear, honest, and authentic thinking.

Feelings in and of themselves, divorced from reason and the sensitivity to contextual considerations, undermine the God-endowed dignity of the human person by diverting the mind away from truth.

Just because a person feels this or that most definitely does not mean, as the feelers among us assume, that their feelings are infallible. Feelings can be based upon a warped understanding of reality.

It is critical thinking that is a selfless activity, for the engagement of critical thinking is a mode of self-transcendence. If human beings possess an inviolable dignity, it is because they are made in the image of the God Who created them. And if they are made in God’s image, then this is because humans, unlike plants and animals, possess two faculties that distinguish them from the rest of living things on Earth: reason and will. Yet even if one is put off by talk of God, one will still grant that, fundamentally, humans are persons because of their ability to think, to reason.https://lockerdome.com/lad/9371484590420070?pubid=ld-8832-1542&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com&rid=www.americanthinker.com&width=692

Intrinsic to thinking are canons of logic and rationality that are of no one’s choosing and that aren’t in the least impacted by one’s subjective emotions. The critical thinker seeks to trade in a universally human currency. Moreover, because critical thinking, like the language in which it occurs, is always, inescapably, interpersonal, the critical thinker seeks to make of others joint enterprisers in the search for truth.

The feelers, on the other hand, can’t get beyond themselves. Far from welcoming discourse with others, they are conversation-killers; they render intellectual intercourse with other human beings impossible.

In the Age of the Great UnReason, critical thinking is as necessary as it has ever been. But it is hard. The costs — lost relationships, being on the outs with the herd — are considerable. Most will not rise to the occasion. But the rewards are great: by engaging higher capacities, critical thinkers emancipate themselves from their animal nature; affirm their dignity and that of those with whom they enter into dialogue; and acquire such virtues as good faith, analytical prowess, humility, honesty, civility, and courage.

Hannah Arendt famously noted that it wasn’t the stupidity of Adolph Eichmann that led to his monstrous actions. Eichmann wasn’t stupid. Rather, the architect of the Holocaust suffered from “a curious, but quite authentic, inability to think.”

This phenomenon, she made a point of arguing, was hardly limited to Eichmann, the Nazis, and their sympathizers. It is endemic. It is also connected to moral character in that those who can’t think beyond memes, bumper stickers, clichés, and the conventional wisdom are that much more susceptible than the critical thinker to conform, to go along to get along.

They are that much more prone to become complicit in all manner of evil.

If Arendt were alive today, in 2020, in the Age of the Great UnReason and the COVID Scare, she would undoubtedly regard her thesis as having been vindicated in spades.

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We Do Not Need the State for Education: Refuting the Proposition of the State

Posted on October 7, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

This is an excerpt from “The Case Against the State,” by Tanner Cook.

“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on – because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.” ~ Noam Chomsky

Proposition: The original intended purpose of our current “educational” system was designed to train children in obedience and for nationalist indoctrination, not education. Furthermore, as evidenced by the data and the cost of education, the State has proven to be most inefficient in its alleged attempt at public education.

Reasoning: Most of us received our history lessons from the public education system, so it’s safe to assume that most don’t know the history of this system. In order to understand the current education sysdeliberate art for fashioning in man a stable and infallible good will.

That is its first characteristic. …The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence and certainty.”[3] It was made explicitly clear that the primary purpose of this new method of compulsory schooling was to shape the “will” of the child, not to educate.

By the 1830s, the Prussian educational system was fully operational, and other governments began to take notice. Martin Brimmer, a Boston city government official, displayed the prevailing sentiment and general theme of the virtue of moral instruction and State servitude in the following passage: “Happy the people whose sons and daughters may be well instructed at the public charge; and happy, thrice happy that community, all of whose children shall receive a physical, moral, and religious education, to the glory of God, and the service of the state.”[4]

Horace Mann, a politician from Massachusetts, spent six weeks in Europe evaluating the various school systems, and upon visiting Prussia, endorsed his support for their compulsory education.[5] Mann was highly instrumental in the establishment of public schools and is often referred to as the “Father of American Education.”[6] Mann admitted a desire for social engineering and wished to bend the will of others. In a letter published by his wife, Horace Mann confesses: “I have abandoned jurisprudence, and have betaken myself to a larger sphere of mind and morals. Having found the present generation composed of materials almost unmalleable, I am about transferring my efforts to the next. Men are cast-iron, but children are wax. Strength expended upon the latter may be effectual, which would make no impression upon the former.”[7] precisely what the Prussians were searching for when implementing their educational reforms.

Johann Fichte, a German philosopher who took a leading role in the German nationalist movement, said this in his Addresses to the German Nation about the new educational system: “The education proposed by me, therefore, is to be a reliable and with Horace Mann leading the charge, in 1852, the State of Massachusetts adopted the Prussian Education System and compulsory attendance laws.[8] The rest of the country quickly followed suit. Mann’s sales pitch to legislatures was that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation’s unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens.[9] The passion for implementing compulsory schools seemed much more focused on social engineering and control rather than actual education. The origins of compulsory public education are not very inspiring, but how do schools fare in modern practice? Turns out, not well at all.

As a report in U.S. News explains, “Since World War II, inflation-adjusted spending per student in American public schools has increased by 663 percent. Where did all of that money go? One place it went was to hire more personnel. Between 1950 and 2009, American public schools experienced a 90 percent increase in student population. During that time, public schools increased their staff by 386 percent – four times the increase in students. The number of teachers increased by 252 percent, over 2.5 times the increase in students. The number of administrators and other staff increased by over seven times the increase in students. …This staffing surge still exists today. From 1992 to 2014 – the most recent year of available data – American public schools saw a 19 percent increase in their student population and a staffing increase of 36 percent.

This decades-long staffing surge in American public schools has been tremendously expensive for the taxpayers, yet it has not led to significant changes in student achievement. For example, public school national math scores have been flat (and national reading scores declined slightly) for 17-year-olds since 1992. In addition, public high school graduation rates experienced a long and slow decline between 1970 and 2000. Today, graduation rates are slightly above where they were in 1970.”[10] It’s clear that the State’s attempt to forcefully educate children has been a complete failure at its foundation, yet, the importance of educating future generations is still just as strong; the market demand for this type of service is unrelenting. Without the State assuming this role, could the private sector satisfy this need?

A report examining the effectiveness of private schools to public schools from the Journal of Development Economics sheds some light on the issue: “Controlling for observable personal characteristics and school selection, we find that graduates of private secondary schools perform better in the labor market. This is contrary to the widely held belief, in Indonesia, that public secondary schools are superior. Our findings, coupled with the existing literature on private school cognitive and cost advantages, suggest the need for greater private participation in the education sector.”[11] An article from the Journal of Economic Perspectives also states that, “Private ownership should generally be preferred to public ownership when the incentives to innovate and to contain costs must be strong.

In essence, this is the case for capitalism over socialism, explaining the ‘dynamic vitality’ of free enterprise. The great economists of the 1930s and 1940s failed to see the dangers of socialism in part because they focused on the role of prices under socialism and capitalism and ignored the enormous importance of ownership as the source of capitalist incentives to innovate. Moreover, the concern that private firms fail to address ‘social goals’ can be addressed through government contracting and regulation, without resorting to government ownership. The case for private provision only becomes stronger when competition between suppliers, reputational mechanisms, the possibility of provision by private not-for-profit firms, as well as political patronage and corruption, are brought into play.”[12]

When the facts are brought to light, as important as education is, the system of indoctrination implemented by the State, at significant already exist, and they outperform public schools. The State’s compulsory educational system does not appeal to reason and evidence. It is nothing but a tool for control.

As Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping the people dependent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army; and a more refined, the school.”

Dems: Greatest Threat to Our Liberty since WW II

Posted on October 6, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

Far be it from me to advance a conspiracy theory. But I do seek to understand the objective medical explanation for how COVID, after all these months, suddenly strikes the White House all in one concentrated period of a few days. I do know one thing for certain: Democratic Party operatives are totally amoral, and capable of literally ANYTHING in their quest for unlimited power over individuals. Proof of my assertion has been on display ALL of 2020. And just imagine all the things we may never know; and that are yet to come. I deeply hope a large majority of Americans will start to grasp, before Election Day, that today’s Democratic Party and its elite supporters are the greatest threat to American freedom since World War II.

Michael J. Hurd

How Much does the Government Really Know about You ?

Posted on October 6, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

If you think instances of government surveillance are isolated, you need to think again. It’s not a matter of if your online and offline activities are being tracked, it’s just a matter of when. And while you only have so much control over this fact, educating yourself can help you make wiser and more informed decisions.

American Concerns Over Privacy

If you feel like Big Brother is watching, you aren’t alone. It’s no longer just crazy old guys in tinfoil hats that are convinced the government is tracking and analyzing their every move. Thanks to recent developments and discoveries over the past few years — including the Edward Snowden whistleblower incident — millions of Americans have been forced to confront their past naivety and embrace the reality before them.

According to a recent Pew Research survey, a majority of Americans now believe their online and offline activities are being monitored by a variety of companies and organizations — including some within the government. Interesting takeaways include:

63 percent of Americans say it’s impossible to go through daily life without having the government collect their data.
84 percent of Americans feel they have very little/no control over the data that the government chooses to collect.
66 percent of Americans say the risks of collecting data about them outweigh the benefits.
64 percent of Americans are somewhat/very concerned about how their data is used.
78 percent of Americans have very little/no understanding of what the government does with the data that’s collected on them.

“There is also a collective sentiment that data security is more elusive today than in the past,” Pew Research explains. “When asked whether they think their personal data is less secure, more secure or about the same as it was five years ago, 70% of adults say their personal data is less secure. Only 6% report that they believe their data is more secure today than it was in the past.”

In other words, things are getting worse, not better. As technology advances and more of our lives are conducted online, data collection will continue to balloon. Whether that’s good or bad… we’ll let you be the judge of that.

What the Government Knows About You

Though we’ll never truly know how much the government knows about us as Americans, it’s clear that they know plenty. And that’s coming straight from the horse’s mouth.

Just check out this page from the NSA and notice quotes like:

“…IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.”

And…

“WHAT IF WE COULD BUILD A NATIONAL DATA WAREHOUSE CONTAINING INFORMATION ABOUT EVERY PERSON IN THE UNITED STATES? THANKS TO SECRET INTERPRETATIONS OF THE PATRIOT ACT, TOP-SECRET FOURTH AMENDMENT EXCEPTIONS ALLOWED BY THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT, AND BROAD COOPERATION AT THE LOCAL, STATE, AND FEDERAL LEVEL, WE CAN!”

According to the NSA, they’re already tracking/plan to track information like internet searches, emails sent and received, websites visited, blogging activity (including posts you read and comment on), social media activity, photos viewed online, videos watched, phone call records, video calls, online purchases, legal documents, financial information, travel documents, educational records, DNA, facial recognition, cable TV shows watched and recorded, health records, and more.

Their reasoning for collecting all of this data?

“THERE IS NO WAY TO PREDICT IN ADVANCE WHICH CRUCIAL PIECE OF DATA WILL BE THE KEY TO REVEALING A POTENTIAL PLOT.”

Sounds reasonable, but also quite auspicious. The NSA is basically admitting that they collect a ton of information without much purpose or direction in the hopes that they can connect the dots in situations where a crime is about to occur/has occurred.

The NSA claims it treasures the U.S. Constitution and the rights of all people. It does so by keeping private data secured in a custom database software known as Cloudbase. This system has detailed security and control access all the way down to each individual cell.

While we’re talking about the United States, the truth is that government data collection is not a uniquely American issue. It’s something that crosses borders and languages. And it’s possible for one individual to have his or her information collected by multiple nations around the world.

Any time a global citizen enters into a new country, that nation takes the personal information from the application and puts it in a “data warehouse.” This information can then be used, shared, or accessed by the government and related entities in whatever way they see fit.

Staying Private and Safe

Let’s be clear about one thing up front: It’s nearly impossible for you to prevent the government from learning what they want to know about you. Unless you go off the grid and disappear from modern society, the government has the ability to keep tabs on you. (Whether or not they do anything with the information they collect is another matter.)

Having said that, it’s always wise to be thinking about how you can stay private and safe. Whether from government entities or companies that you do business with, here are some simple tactics you can use to keep your personal information more secure:

Always read private policies whenever you visit a website, download a piece of software, create an account, etc. It’s easy to skip over the fine print, but there may be valuable information inside.
When on public WiFi, always use a VPN to encrypt the data you’re sending over the network. (This probably won’t stop the government from collecting your information, but it will make it exponentially more difficult for hackers and other organizations to gather your data.)
Don’t overshare information on social media. While the government has plenty of powerful tools for collecting your data, social networking sites are among their favorite sources of information. The less you share, the less they know.

It’s not a matter of whether or not the government is collecting your information. It’s a matter of how much data they’re pulling and how it’s being used. Keep this in mind and try to be more intentional about your privacy moving forward.

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Self-censorship is Greatest Threat to Free Speech

Posted on October 6, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.

Many people in the West have a poor understanding of the concept of free speech. Whenever I mute or block someone on social media, a cacophony of fools will accuse me of being a free speech hypocrite for

“silencing their voice.” They do not understand that I have the right to walk away from their online taunts, insults, and idiocy. To do so is not “restricting” their speech but expressing my right to avoid listening to them. This is an obvious point, and yet many people are confused by it. A second mistake is the mindlessly aped line: “Social media companies are not the government. They have the right to choose which content will be carried on their platforms.” In a sane world, this would a laughable position to hold, and yet it is endlessly repeated without any reflection on its nefarious implications. Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have more global control over us than all other companies combined. It is not hyperbole to say that they have more collective power, in terms of the information they control, than all the rulers, priests, and politicians of history. If knowledge is power, then these social media giants are nearly all-powerful when they decide which information we can have and whether we can be allowed a social media platform. Big tech companies routinely ban right-leaning commentators, but of course this is all an unfortunate “algorithmic coincidence.” What could be more sinister?

Another tool that online companies use to repress free speech is going after your wallet. Of the 1,000+ clips on my YouTube channel, roughly one-third have been demonetized (albeit some are monetized again once I file a request for a manual review). Many of my clips are demonetized prior to my even posting them publicly. In other words, an algorithm automatically demonetizes my clips as a default setting. In other instances, money exchange portals such as Patreon and PayPal, which are used by online content creators to solicit financial support, have banned individuals whom they feel have violated one of their tenets of acceptable speech. Carl Benjamin (a.k.a. Sargon of Akkad), an influential

YouTuber on whose show I have appeared on two occasions, was booted from Patreon. The company had uncovered a clip where he used the “N-word” as a means of mocking racists. Despite this context and the fact that the clip had not been produced on the Patreon platform, a key feature of their terms of use (and hence not supported by his patrons), they deleted his account. This caused a gigantic backlash against Patreon. My good friends Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin left the platform in protest, and many people pledged to boycott the company. But the boycott indirectly punished many other content creators who lost a huge amount of revenue (it cost me more than two-thirds of my financial support). As a libertarian, I am a fervent proponent of small government. I despise the never-ending and ever-increasing governmental encroachments into our daily lives. But it seems obvious that these online companies must be regulated as utilities. Just as your electricity or phone line is not shut off if the electric company or phone company doesn’t like what you say, social media platforms should not be in the business of monitoring and punishing speech.

As a result of my public engagement, I have become a global confessor for students and academics suffering under the political correctness that dominates our universities. A common theme in these first-person testimonies is the necessity of self-censorship lest one be punished for violating progressive orthodoxy. The fear is so great that professors thanking me for my defense of classical liberal values often request that I not share their identities (which I never do without their permission). Imagine for a moment how chilling this is. Below I share excerpts of a few representative emails sent to me:

“I’m a 47-year-old white male who because of an injury made a choice to return to school. . . . In the first year, to maintain full-time status, I was forced to take another social justice-Black Lives Matter course. Students are not allowed to challenge or question the course content because that’s considered disrespectful and may disrupt someone’s safe space. I believe I’m a respectful student with good attendance and whose marks are in the mid-eighties. That said, after a few weeks of the one-sided syllabus, I’m considering dropping out of the program and leaving school entirely. This leftist academic world is a little too much for me.

“The reason I am contacting you is because, as an honors cognitive student, part of my requirement is to complete 12 credits of research. However, because of purely political reasons (I am apparently a violent, misogynist, racist Trump supporter), I have not only lost my job at a very prestigious behavioural neuroscience laboratory at [redacted], but my name has been removed from a publication on research I personally conducted, and the lead researcher has told me he would never work with me ever again.

“I very much appreciate your courage to fight the cancer that is taking over American academia. People like me feel cheated at their attempt to pursue a tenure track career. It only takes a glimpse at the job offerings that the Modern Languages Association publishes each year, to understand that what is expected from recent graduates like me is political activism, and I refuse to mix that with my academic interests.

“I will save you my long stories of dealing and suffering career-wise from politically correct nonsense from the directions of feminism, gender ideology, trans-extremism, and Islamophilia. I am trying to keep a lid on things for now, as my wife is a very promising academic but hasn’t secured a position yet. I know if I started voicing my thoughts and arguments on social media, she’d be completely shut out of the academy.

“As a fellow professor who has been frustrated by the discourse within academia on issues such as political correctness, moral relativism, and social justice, I’d like to thank you for speaking up the way you have been from within academia. . . . I have nevertheless been frustrated by the conformism and group think I see and hear around me. I see otherwise very reasonable and capable people abandoning reason and cowing to the narrative of the regressive left on many social issues.”

When I told this professor to engage and debate these issues openly, the professor replied:

“These are all things which I would like to get involved in once the tenure decision is behind me (about one year to go). As upsetting as it is, one fears expressing unpopular social ideas prior to tenure. In the meantime, please keep fighting the good fight for freedom of speech and against thought policing and orthodoxy.”

These are not emails sent to me from dissidents in North Korea, Yemen, or the former Soviet Union. Ideological Stalinism is the daily reality on North American college campuses. Any freedom-loving person should be appalled by this, and yet most academics yawn in complicit apathy and cowardly inaction. They are too worried about their selfish, careerist considerations to weigh in on these matters. They are happy to tell me privately that they support my efforts but “please, Dr. Saad, don’t share my name. I don’t want people to know that I share your views.” Why should people in a free country be afraid of saying what they believe? Think about that, and you will know the direction that the “progressives” want to take us.

Deep States Have Conspiracies; President Trump Does Not

Posted on October 6, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

To those who say President Trump’s COVID illness was a made-up conspiracy: HE COULDN’T PULL IT OFF IF HE WANTED. Unlike a Joe Biden, he doesn’t have the entire media, school system, bought-and-paid corporate elites, academia, corrupt judges, tyrannical governors and legislators, Hollywood, sports, musical celebrities and gullible Democratic voters on his side.

All he has are himself and millions of Americans who still love their country and their freedom. THAT’S IT. They don’t want a conspiracy; and they do not need one.

Michael J. Hurd

Learning About the State

Posted on October 5, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

What we’ve seen in the last week is the state at work — and by the state, I do not mean a particular set of leaders. If we watch carefully, we can gain insight into what the state is and why our fundamental problem extends far above and below the political party system.

The moment is complicated by the upcoming election, so some people are distracted by the circus of McCain vs. Obama and all the characters associated with that silly little battle. What they are looking at is really the veneer. It is a covering designed to prevent you from seeing what the state is and why it matters.

The party system and the elections lead us to believe that we live under conditions that Martin Van Creveld calls the personal state. (I’m relying here on his important book The Rise and Decline of the State.) This is the ancient form of the state under which all the resources the state owns are the personal property of the king or ruler. The ruler is the state. If he dies, the state dies with him.

It is very much in the interest of democracy to perpetuate this idea that we are living in a personal state. This way all credit for the well-being of the nation falls to one person or persons. They are elected. If things go badly, people are encouraged to blame these elected officials and vote them out of office. New people are given a new chance to do better.

But the truth is that the personal state is long gone from history in the developed world. In the 17th century, we begin to see the emergence of the impersonal state. Under this approach, the ruler does not use his own resources. He is a manager. If he dies, nothing changes. The state itself takes on a permanent form. It is not elected. It is hired and lives on regardless of the changes at the top.

The United States has never hosted a personal state. The president was always to be the manager and overseer of a tiny state that ruled with the permission of the people and the lower orders of government: the people and government are one, and this would serve as a check on power. Of course this was a mistake, a reflection of the naïveté of the classical-liberal position.

In time, the United States took on all the features of an impersonal nation-state. It developed a permanent bureaucracy, especially after the tragic end of the “spoils system.” It developed a money machine and monopolized and created its own currency. It began to host its own unelected military that was a “professional” fighting force and not a citizen militia. It became home to a million hangers-on who made the state their careers and their source of economic security.

Today, the state embodies all the worst features of the unaccountable, impersonal leviathan that had been the goal of every bad-guy political dreamer in world history. We can see this in operation during the financial meltdown. The people making the decisions and conducting policy were not elected by anyone. They report to no one. They are the Secretary of the Treasury and the head of the Fed, and each represents certain private-sector interests among the financial elite. They conduct their policies based on their private assessment of what is good for those they represent, and they do it in cooperation with the permanently entrenched bureaucracy and financial managers who rule the country.

Only after the plans were in place and announced did the impersonal state approach the personal part of the state for codification and confirmation, which the personal state was glad to grant with conditions. We can also see this at work in the political parties. McCain and Obama were quick to endorse the entire bailout [following the 2008 financial crisis] on the grounds that it is a national emergency, so, of course, they must set aside their partisan differences.

They always set aside their partisan differences! This is the way the impersonal state works. It is not the people we elect who are in charge. They are only the human face on the machine. If they don’t know this before the election, they quickly discover it after the election. They find themselves on a conveyor belt of tasks and photo-ops and duties. These consume them completely. They are in awe of the operation of the state and feel immediately powerless to do anything about it.

The same goes for those whom the new president hires to run his cabinet departments. So far as the permanent bureaucracy is concerned, they don’t even need to know the name of the new secretary, except to make up silly jingles and use his or her name in jokes. The new hires might start silly new programs or make perfunctory changes, but the permanent class that runs the department knows that it only needs — if it disagrees — to wait out their tenure until things get back to normal. They know that they are the gears of the engine and that the supposed driver is just the temporary front man.

In this sense, who wins or who doesn’t win the election doesn’t matter nearly as much as we are led to believe. It’s true that Bush started a war when he didn’t have to. Someone else might have done better. It is also true that Obama could fire up a range of new regulations and programs and that McCain could start ever more wars.

It is also true that even without a sitting president and without a Congress, the state would function pretty much as it does today. That’s a frightening-but-true statement.

And yet there is no reason to despair. In some ways, impersonal states are just as vulnerable as personal ones, sometimes even more so, since they rule without ideological conviction. The state always and everywhere constitutes a tiny minority of the population, Murray Rothbard argues. It is outnumbered by the people many times over. For this reason, it must rely on a false consciousness to sustain its rule.

This is why Mises writes that

In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant’s feet. Then the oppressed many will rise in rebellion and overthrow their masters.

Van Creveld himself says that the state can ultimately be done in by both ideological and technological forces that race past the state and its ossified ways. The impersonal state relies most strongly on a changeless setting in which to manage its affairs. We live in times of incredible change. And state crises like the Wall Street meltdown can open up cracks in the official climate of opinion.

There is another point we learn from these observations: working within the machinery of a political party is a futile path for serious change. Real change comes from working in the world of enterprise and ideas.Author:

Contact Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and editor of LewRockwell.com.

Pope Francis Goes Full Communist

Posted on October 5, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

In an encyclical published on Sunday, Pope Francis announced that he’d had an epiphany thanks to the Wuhan virus: It’s time to ditch capitalism. But that’s not all. He believes, too, that in a time of a serious infectious disease, we should focus even harder on open borders. And he blithely upended almost two millennia of Church doctrine by doing away with St. Augustine’s “just war” theory.

These actions reflect Francis’s Catholic upbringing within the communist “liberation theology” of the Latin American church. They may also show the effects of his ongoing alliance with Chinese communists and with Muslims.

Fox Business sums up the gist of Francis’s communist dreams (emphasis mine):

“Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,” Francis wrote. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”

He cited the grave loss of millions of jobs as a result of the virus as evidence of the need for politicians to listen to popular movements, unions and marginalized groups and to craft more just social and economic policies.

“The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he wrote. “It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.”’

[snip]

As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the “social purpose” and common good that must come from sharing the Earth’s resources. He repeated his criticism of the “perverse” global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few — an argument he made most fully in his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be).

I know from experience that, when people read what Francis wrote, many will say that the church has always been socialist in orientation. That’s untrue. Jesus distinguished the realm of faith from the political realm. When he spoke of giving up property, he was speaking to individuals, not calling for communism.

Francis also fails to recognize that our current economic problems aren’t because the free market failed. They’re because leftists slammed the brakes on the free market.

The Pope used this encyclical to reiterate his endless push to erase borders:

Much of the new encyclical repeats Francis’ well-known preaching about the need to welcome and value migrants and his rejection of the nationalistic, isolationist policies of many of today’s political leaders.

Lastly, the Pope seeks something he calls a greater “human fraternity.” In doing so, he relies upon a document he composed with the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar.

The Pope is perhaps too naïve to recognize that, in Islam, the house of fraternity and peace (Dar al-Islam) is a world in which everyone is Islamic. Outside of the Islamic world is the world of war (Dar al-Harb), and every faithful Muslim must wage jihad to achieve that “peaceful,” fraternal world. Or, as Tacitus wrote when quoting Calgacus, a Caledonian who fought Rome’s imperial reach, “they [the Romans] make a desert and call it peace.”

Pope Francis, bathed in ahistorical ignorance, also concluded that there can be no “just wars”:

“It is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war,’” Francis wrote in the most controversial new element of the encyclical.

Both the Chinese and the Islamists must be delighted to read those words. Hitler would have liked them too. Had Frances been in the Papacy during WWII, all of Europe would have been enslaved to Germany, and all Jews, not just six million, would have been slaughtered. Homosexuals, gypsies, people with mental and physical disabilities, and anyone else that the Germans dehumanized would have also found their way to the gas chambers.

As with everything he’s done since attaining the papal throne, Frances intends to undo all of the good work that the great John Paul II did in pursuit of human freedom and dignity.

Pope Francis Goes Full Communist

Posted on October 5, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

By Andrea Widburg

Fox Business sums up the gist of Francis’s communist dreams (emphasis mine):

“Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,” Francis wrote. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”
He cited the grave loss of millions of jobs as a result of the virus as evidence of the need for politicians to listen to popular movements, unions and marginalized groups and to craft more just social and economic policies.
“The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he wrote. “It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.”’
[snip]
As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the “social purpose” and common good that must come from sharing the Earth’s resources. He repeated his criticism of the “perverse” global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few — an argument he made most fully in his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be).

Francis also fails to recognize that our current economic problems aren’t because the free market failed. They’re because leftists slammed the brakes on the free market.

The Pope used this encyclical to reiterate his endless push to erase borders:

Much of the new encyclical repeats Francis’ well-known preaching about the need to welcome and value migrants and his rejection of the nationalistic, isolationist policies of many of today’s political leaders.

Lastly, the Pope seeks something he calls a greater “human fraternity.” In doing so, he relies upon a document he composed with the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar.

Pope Francis, bathed in ahistorical ignorance, also concluded that there can be no “just wars”:

“It is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war,’” Francis wrote in the most controversial new element of the encyclical.

As with everything he’s done since attaining the papal throne, Frances intends to undo all of the good work that the great John Paul II did in pursuit of human freedom and dignity.

Image: Pope Francis. YouTube screengrab.null

Fox Business sums up the gist of Francis’s communist dreams (emphasis mine):

The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he wrote. “It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.”’
[snip]
As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the “social purpose” and common good that must come from sharing the Earth’s resources. He repeated his criticism of the “perverse” global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few — an argument he made most fully in his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be).

Francis also fails to recognize that our current economic problems aren’t because the free market failed. They’re because leftists slammed the brakes on the free market.

The Pope used this encyclical to reiterate his endless push to erase borders:

Much of the new encyclical repeats Francis’ well-known preaching about the need to welcome and value migrants and his rejection of the nationalistic, isolationist policies of many of today’s political leaders.

Lastly, the Pope seeks something he calls a greater “human fraternity.” In doing so, he relies upon a document he composed with the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar.

Pope Francis, bathed in ahistorical ignorance, also concluded that there can be no “just wars”:

“It is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war,’” Francis wrote in the most controversial new element of the encyclical.

As with everything he’s done since attaining the papal throne, Frances intends to undo all of the good work that the great John Paul II did in pursuit of human freedom and dignity.

The Real Reason Leftists Can’t or Won’t Wish President Trump a Speedy Recovery

Posted on October 5, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

When the news broke that President Trump had contracted the coronavirus, many of his supporters immediately began to pray for his recovery, while many Democrats were thrilled. Some, including former Hillary Clinton staffer Zara Rahim, even expressed the hope that he would die. The sharply divergent reactions revealed yet again the growing divide in American society, as they demonstrate that the left and the right today are operating from two vastly different and irreconcilable worldviews.null

Leftists celebrating Trump’s illness were many, and they made no effort to hide their sentiments. Chris Rock yukked it up on Saturday Night Live, saying: “President Trump is in the hospital from COVID and I just wanna say my heart goes out to COVID.” Film critic Simon Abrams tweeted: “For once, I’m rooting for the virus.” Daniel Golson, staff editor at Car and Driver, chimed in with “I don’t feel bad about hoping he dies because I’ve been hoping that since 2015.”

Many conservatives have been appalled at these reactions, and have pointed to them to illustrate how deranged the left has become in its hatred for the president. They’ve noted that the right reacted to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with condolences and expressions of regret, without regard for the fact that Ginsburg was the embodiment of a leftist activist judge with no interest in respecting constitutional restraints. Many have asked why leftists can’t react with similar charity when someone among the dissidents from their agenda falls ill, even their primary bête noire, President Trump.

The answer is in this as in so many other areas, the left and the right are working from premises that are more or less polar opposites. Jesus says “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). This has long been interpreted as meaning that one should treat everyone, even one’s political opponents, with respect, and have compassion for them when they suffer. This remained a cultural ideal long after many Americans began to discard their Christian faith and is still taken for granted among many people, albeit in the United States increasingly only among conservatives of all faiths.https://b78349d464f65618208c3cceeae7a15e.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

That former Hillary staffer, Zara Rahim, in contrast, is a Muslim. The Qur’an doesn’t say that believers should love their enemies. Instead, it says “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are ruthless to unbelievers, merciful to one another” (48:29). What flows from this is that one should not have respect for one’s political foes, but rather, remain intent on destroying them.

Of course, most of the Leftists who have been cheering Trump’s coronavirus and passionately hoping (if not praying) for his death are not Muslim and never will be. But the leftist/Islamic alliance is manifest in numerous ways these days, including the fact that Zara Rahim is a top-level Democratic Party operative, and that Joe Biden has repeatedly engaged in the most shameless Islamopandering, and the power and influence of first-term Muslim Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Gaza) among congressional leadership, and the collaboration of Black Lives Matter with Palestinian jihadis, and much more.

This is an alliance of convenience based upon a shared goal—the destruction of the United States of America as a free republic—but it is more as well. The secular Left agrees with the idea that one should be ruthless to one’s enemies and merciful only to one’s friends. Leftists share with Islamic supremacists the idea that one’s enemies should not be loved, or prayed for, but only treated ruthlessly and destroyed by any means possible.null

This scorched-earth world view has not been a constant in American politics. As Rating America’s Presidents shows, it wasn’t all that long ago that Democrats as well as Republicans shared the world view that was derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Politicians of both parties took for granted that one should treat one’s political opposition with decency and respect, and could expect the same in return.

But no more. The left is increasingly not just post-Christian, but anti-Christian, and not just American liberal, but Marxist and anti-American. Leftists have a completely different understanding of how the world works from the one that still prevails among most conservatives. The sooner the right wakes up to this fact and begins to prepare for more ruthlessness and hatred from the Left, the safer every patriotic American (which is not by any stretch of the imagination all of them) will be.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

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