Category: general freedom

Categories
general freedom government transparency too much government

The Allure of the Mask

Covid, masks

Early on in the pandemic, I promoted mask-wearing as something we could do to protect ourselves, loved ones, and our communities.

But as the pandemic progressed, we learned some things.

Over time, I became more skeptical of much good coming from mask-wearing.

Now that the panic portion of the pandemic is mostly over — and what a long panic it was! — we should be able to more calmly review.

Two months ago, Vinay Prasad, an actual epidemiologist, looked carefully at the CDC’s study allegedly showing a high medical efficacy in universal mask-wearing during a major contagion. The study, he argued, was plagued with “very poor quality data, insufficient to support community masking, particularly for years on end. Cloth masks had especially bad data. Data to support masking kids was absolutely absent.” And the CDC’s own reporting of what its study actually found was unreliable and . . . well, dishonest.

Take the case of Dr. Anthony Fauci. “Pre-pandemic, community masking was discouraged because the pre-existing evidence was negative,” explained Prasad. “This is why Fauci was critical of it in early March 2020 on 60 minutes.” 

But many of us were perhaps unduly pro-mask because Fauci appeared to be protecting the supply of masks used by medical professionals, thus, lying for a strategic reason. It was hard not to learn a . . . dubious . . . lesson: Fauci lied to protect professional mask use, so masks for the masses likely worked well.

Then he changed tune. And went off the deep end, ignoring his previous statements and advocating double- and triple-masking!

Still, the most ominous issue about mask mandates is how it became “a marker of politics. Good liberals wear them and bad conservatives don’t.”

Prasad does not go where Matthias Desmet and others have: showing how mask mandates became a means to induce panic and the politicization of medicine.

Voluntary masking without mandates — as has been commonly the case in Japan, for example — provides important signals about infection rates, and allows people to negotiate their own physical distancing. Universal mask mandates spoil the informative aspect and instead serve tyrants and mass hysteria.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
defense & war general freedom public opinion

Fight-or-Flight Fact Check

Democrats, war, invasion, defense

“Majority of Americans Would Stay and Fight if Russia Invaded U.S.,” read Newsweek’s headline for its report earlier this month about a Quinnipiac University poll.

Overall, “55 percent said they would stay and fight,” the article informed, “while 38 percent said they would flee the country, like the over 1.5 million people who have fled Ukraine as Russia continues its attack on Ukrainian cities and villages.”

The Quinnipiac survey asked, “If you were in the same position as Ukrainians are now, do you think that you would stay and fight or leave the country?”

“Looking at political affiliation,” Newsweek noted, “Republicans were more likely to say they would stay and fight, with 68 percent saying they would do so, as opposed to 40 percent of Democrats.”

Yet, weeks later, Newsweek delivered a fact check to readers concerning a claim made in a social media post: “60% of Democrats say they wouldn’t fight if America was invaded.”

Their fact-checker rated it false, because only 52 percent of Democrats said they would “leave,” with 8 percent not sure. Case-closed.

Yet, the fact-checker kept the case open, suggesting that perhaps folks had also misunderstood the question. “Indirect evidence” of this “can be surmised” by the response to another question: “If Russian President Vladimir Putin goes beyond Ukraine and attacks a NATO country, would you support or oppose a military response from the United States?

“In this hypothetical, 88 percent of Democrats were supportive of a military response,” the fact-checker noted, “more than both Independents (77 percent) and Republicans (82 percent).”

But hold on . . . supporting a military response by others, thousands of miles away, is not the same thing as deciding to personally fight an invading army.

It’s a fact. Check it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture

What Is and Is Not Censorship

CRT, critical race theory, censorship

For days on end, outside of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, antifa protesters hounded book buyers and bookstore workers. These activists were on a mission: to get the store to expunge Andy Ngo’s book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, from its website offerings.

“We have to show up every day until they stop selling that f—king book,” one activist said, comparing her effort to “stopping the historical publication of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”

As the story in FEE makes clear, the store had already banished it from the block-sized building itself. But management has so far refused to de-list it from its website. 

Meanwhile, Democrats (or at least the leftists at Salon) have been dubbing attempts by legislators and school boards to get rid of Critical Race Theory and similar woke nonsense from their curricula as “censorship.”

Here’s the muddle: as mobs play censor to a privately owned book company, leftists pretend that public input into the revision of curricula in taxpayer-funded, government-run schools is worse.

There are Jewish, Christian and Muslim schools near where I live. I have absolutely no say about what they teach their students; if I demanded that they conform to my standards, my demand would (depending on threat level) constitute censorship. 

But if I’m taxed to support a school, and the school is constitutionally run as democratically controlled, my “voice” on the matter of curriculum is not in any way censorship — even if educators “professionally” disagree with my position.

Forcing someone else’s reading decisions is censorship; determining your own (or your children’s) is not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom international affairs media and media people

It’s Complicated

China, Taiwan, war

“You are living proof of this nation’s democracy,” former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently told his hosts in Taipei, Taiwan, accepting an award honoring his work to strengthen relations between our two countries. He was referring to a small group of protesters outside his hotel. 

“And,” Pompeo added, “you remind me of home.”

The Republican was making a simple but pertinent point. In a world of growing authoritarianism, genocide and war, Taiwan and America share very essential political values: Freedom, democracy, respect for human rights.

The visit irked China, of course, which claims Taiwan as a province and doesn’t like Americans stopping by, especially meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen . . . whom the Butchers of Beijing refuse to refer to as “president.” 

Totalitarians often seem especially displeased with the words people utter. Upon his arrival, Pompeo spoke of the beautiful island nation as — get this! — a “great nation,” further traumatizing the Chinese. 

In bigger news, however, Pompeo urged the United States to recognize Taiwan as a free and independent nation. It is, indeed. And I applaud the Trump Administration for opening up all manner of nation-to-nation dialogue and cooperation, and the Biden Administration for continuing that policy.

But it’s complicated.

The Chinese have long threatened to launch a bloody invasion in order to “reunite” Taiwan’s territory with the repressive People’s Republic of China (PRC) against the will of the Taiwanese. The PRC claims that any official announcement of “independence” by Taiwan or similar recognition by the U.S. is provocation for war.

Rather than fretting about the “independence” label, let’s concern ourselves with the strategic and tactical military means for Taiwan to resist the embrace the Chinazis have already clamped upon Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom international affairs national politics & policies

How to Avoid World War III

Taiwan, China

Last week, when I heard about a power outage across Taiwan, my first thought was the possibility of a Chinese cyberattack which might precede a military attack.

It was not that. Thank goodness.

But what if it had been? Many have speculated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine might distract the U.S. and thereby encourage Xi Jinping and his People’s Liberation Army to launch an assault against Taiwan. 

How should the U.S. react to a Chinese invasion? Even with our silly policy of “strategic ambiguity,” most in Asia expect the U.S. to defend the island nation. The Washington Post and others argue the U.S. has committed to fight with Taiwan.* 

That’s not the case with Ukraine.

Like Ukraine, Taiwan will defend itself, but is over-matched. Geographically important as part of the first island chain, Taiwan is, as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo points out, “right in the middle of our defensive parameters, from Japan to Korea to the Philippines in the South China Sea.”

And the island is economically nearly essential. “Ninety percent of the most advanced [computer] chips are made in Taiwan,” reports The New York Times. 

The United States should not be the world’s policeman, which dilutes our strength, needed not only for our own defense and the defense of navigable trade routes but also the defense of hundreds of millions of currently free people with whom we are allied — especially in Asia. 

Most urgently in Taiwan.

As a country, it’s time to start doing some homework, and push-ups. Economically. Militarily. Being weak doesn’t help anyone. Being strong is our best chance to avoid World War III.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The USA has pledged military assistance to 67 countries in all, including the Republic of China (Taiwan), but not Ukraine. It’s a list the American people have every right to re-configure. But until then, one Pentagon planners should get busy with.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom international affairs

A Naïve Victory

gold medal, Olympics, China

The warning was loud and clear. It came from China’s government and was echoed by Nancy Pelosi: during the Beijing Olympics, don’t dare protest the brutal policies of China’s government lest it come down upon you like a ton of bricks.

An Olympic athlete has found a way to both heed and spurn this counsel.

In what the New York Times calls a “rare rebuke,” Swedish speedskater Nils van der Poel has given one of his gold medals to the daughter of a Chinese-born Swedish publisher being imprisoned by the Chinese government.

Last November, Nils saw a production by Civil Rights Defenders that told of how Gui Minhai, a publisher of works criticizing the Chinazi regime, is now incarcerated in China. He had been abducted by Chinese operatives while vacationing in Thailand.

The skater felt obliged to do something in protest “since I had the opportunity that very few people have.”

Gui’s daughter, Angela, shrugs off any suggestion that the skater’s gesture, lacking immediate power to free her father, must be naïve.

“A little bit of naïveté is important to try to effect change,” she says. “I think it’s very important that Nils giving me his medal to honor my father is understood as honoring political prisoners like him, many of whom are increasingly Hong Kongers and Uyghurs.”

What about it, fellow Olympic winners? If you follow Nils’s example, you’ll no longer have your medal. But you’ll still have your victory. 

And a little more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom nannyism national politics & policies paternalism

Self-Inflicted Death — by Vax?

vaccine, depression, suicide

It’s been disheartening how little alarm has been raised about the rise of suicide (along with drug use, obesity, and other markers for despair) in reaction to the lockdowns and de-humanizing mask mandates — especially among the young.

But there’s another way suicide has become an issue with the pandemic. It’s a little roundabout.

Adverse effects of the vaccines have been severely under-reported. A number of maladies are associated with the various vaccines, including micro-clotting and myocarditis — that latter up especially in younger people who have been vaccinated.* 

But some adverse reactions are fatal — those up 40 percent in the adult population, says the CEO of one life insurance company. 

Our leaders and vaccine promoters don’t talk about this: if they admitted fatal side-effects, the push for universal, mandatory vaccination might be generally considered inhumane,even monstrous. But insurance companies have a more pressing concern.

Last month, a Frenchman with a large life insurance policy died of the jab. His family cannot sue the drug company — legal immunity having been granted during the emergency — so his heirs and assigns sued to collect on the insurance. The court denied the claim. 

“The side effects of the experimental vaccine are published and the deceased could not claim to have known nothing about it when he voluntarily took the vaccine,” the court’s logic runs. “There is no law or mandate in France that compelled him to be vaccinated. Hence his death is essentially suicide.” 

And suicide is not covered in most term life insurance policies. 

The message: you take your chances with the vaxxes. 

If more such cases come to light, this may be the issue that fatally undermines the Vaccine Mandate Narrative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

Voters Beware

Colorado, Initiative 55

The ballot title of Colorado’s Initiative 55 should refer to an amendment “to prevent you from using statewide initiatives to reduce property taxes.”

Instead, it talks about an amendment requiring any citizen-initiated measure “that affects the property tax revenue of a local government by modifying the property tax assessment rate or mill levy rate to be decided only in a local election.”

The politicians hope that this somniferous wording will hide the true nature of the measure.

“Don’t be bamboozled by Initiative 55’s sly wording,” warns Natalie Menton, an anti-tax, pro-petition-rights activist.

Proponents of Initiative No. 55 say they want citizen-initiated changes in property taxes to be decided “only in a local election” without making clear that “under the current law, this is not possible for more than 90% of local situations.”

Menton gives examples of initiatives that would become impossible if Initiative 55 eludes voter skepticism.

One is any statewide measure to provide relief for owners of agricultural land, which “has a far higher tax assessment rate (300%-plus) than single-family homes.” If 55 reaches ballot and passes, it would become unconstitutional for citizens to place a question on the statewide ballot to reduce this burden.

What we see here is an ancient strategy of politicians. In seeking to expand their power, they pretend that increased power isn’t the agenda at all! 

They engage in cover-up. 

Don’t let it succeed here, Coloradoans. Don’t sign a petition to put 55 on the November ballot. If it gets there, vote No.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom ideological culture Regulating Protest

Sources of Trudeau 2022

Justin Trudeau, authoritarian

The willingness of Canada’s thug-in-chief to so obnoxiously penalize protest — for one, “de-banking” trucker-protesters and supporters alike without even fake court orders — has shocked many of civilized sensibility.

Shouldn’t be surprising, though. It’s nothing new either in Justin Trudeau’s conduct or in that of Western governments. (The Canadian parliament has now endorsed the crackdown.)

David Solway reports that Trudeau’s reign has long been blighted by tyrannical policies as well as by overt sympathy for terrorists, dictators, and dictatorship.

And Glenn Greenwald observes that it has become standard in the West for many “who most flamboyantly proclaim that they are fighting fascists [to] wield the defining weapons of despotism” — weapons like squelching dissent (directly or indirectly by enlisting private firms to function as agents of repression) and punishing dissenters without trial.

Greenwald relates the example of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. When the U.S. government found no way to criminally charge him, it pressured firms to terminate his financial accounts and kick WikiLeaks off private servers.

Such tactics as pressuring, or ordering, companies to censor and financially ostracize political opponents “without a whiff of due process” are now part of the standard governmental toolkit.

The scale on which Trudeau has been doing this, and the flagrancy of it, may seem new in North America. But he is relying on well-established precedent. Pre-pandemic precedent.

But the framework for opposing this new authoritarianism has more precedent. Alberta’s premier, Jason Kenney, has rightly sued Trudeau and the Canadian government for abuse of authority in resorting to emergency powers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom ideological culture Popular

Noble Traitors

Sophie Scholl, White Rose, Nazis, Germany, Third Reich

Today marks a solemn anniversary. Seventy-nine years ago — on Feb. 22, 1943 — three German students at the University of Munich were tried for treason by the Nazis, convicted and then executed, all in one day.

The method of execution: guillotine.

Days earlier, Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie had been caught distributing a leaflet at the university. It was damning — of the Nazi regime; and, from the perspective of that Nazi regime, of the Scholls: “In the name of German youth, we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler’s state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.”

Hans had in his pocket a draft of another leaflet, in Christoph Probst’s handwriting. That seventh leaflet, never distributed, led to the arrest and execution of Christoph, along with Hans and Sophie.

The three were part of a cadre of students who wrote and distributed leaflets under the name The White Rose — a symbol of purity standing against the monstrous evil of the Third Reich. The leaflets decried the crimes of National Socialism, including the mass murder of Jews. And they urged Germans to rise up.

Three more members were later executed: Willi Graf, Alex Schmorell and Professor Kurt Huber. Another eleven were imprisoned.

Their resistance was ultimately futile, unsuccessful . . . but not pointless. 

They would not remain cogs in the killing machine that had taken the most advanced society in the world to the depths of depravity. They took a stand against what George Orwell later characterized as “a boot stamping on a human face, forever.”

We often say, with earnest piety, “Never again.” But our dedication should be inspired by the White Rose. When we encounter tyranny, think of the Scholls and say “Again for Freedom.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Further reading: For an excellent account of The White Rose, consult the aptly titled A Noble Treason, by Richard Hanser. See also Jacob Hornberger’s The White Rose — A Lesson in Dissent. The Orwell quotation is from the dystopian novel 1984. You can read the six pamphlets on this website.

This article is reprinted from 2019. A previous appreciation was published on Townhall in 2010.

PDF for printing

Sophie Scholl, White Rose, Nazis, Germany, Third Reich

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts