Paul Jacob fields comments on last week’s episodes of Common Sense:
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Arthur Latham Perry
By far the most important of all the conditions, under which the production of material commodities goes broadly forward, is liberty of action on the part of the individual; because, wherever such liberty is conceded, association and invention and all other needful conditions follow right along by laws of natural sequence.
Arthur Latham Perry, Principles of Political Economy, 1891.
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George Stigler
On January 17, 1937, Chicago School economist George Stigler was born. Stigler won a Nobel Memorial Prize for his work. His autobiography is entitled Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist.
The folks who demand inclusion sure practice exclusion well!
This Week in Common Sense, the podcast, January 15, 2021.
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Religious Freedom
On January 16, 1786, Virginia enacted the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.
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The Uninvestigated
We have long relied upon journalists in major media to cover actual news. And investigate leads to juicy stories of major import to clear up confusion.
But the mainstream media has become mainly propagandistic: “journalists” today rarely “report,” they propound and pontificate. And help spread disinformation for major political factions.
Is it really that bad?
Well, one way to test how bad is to track juicy news leads that get left unexplored.
In June I commented on Harvard’s Dr. Charles Lieber, arrested and charged with not reporting his activities with the Chinese at the Wuhan labs — which have been associated with SARS-CoV-2. In October, Lieber sued Harvard for not backing him up in his legal troubles with the U.S. Government.
There could be a huge story here. Or maybe a mere bureaucratic snafu.
But it is not “in” the news; I cannot find any decent reporting on it.
From the beginning, the idea that the virus could have been grown in a lab “to help discover new vaccines” (or even as a cultivated bioweapon) has been a real possibility.
A year after its public acknowledgment, there is still disagreement.
While we expect reporters to dig deep, instead we see a plethora of premature declarations — as at egregious “fact-checking” sites — that the matter is settled. “Leading researchers have debunked this notion,” as Snopes confidently stated in February. But since then, the origins of the pandemic have remained murky. And allegations of bioweaponry keep re-appearing.
The World Health Organization is on the ground in Wuhan now, investigating.
Belatedly.
Long past time for American reporters to get on the beat.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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William Cullen Bryant
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
William Cullen Bryant, The Ages, XXXIII.
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant’s unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
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New Connecticut?
On January 15, 1777, New Connecticut declared independence from the crown of Great Britain and the colony of New York.
Delegates first named the independent state New Connecticut and, in June 1777, finally settled on the name Vermaont, an imperfect translation of the French for Green Mountain.
This new “Vermont Republic” minted copper coins (see above), first struck in 1785. The people of Vermont took part in the American Revolution although the Continental Congress did not recognize the jurisdiction, because of vehement objections from New York, which had conflicting property claims.
In 1791, Vermont was admitted to the United States as the 14th state, upon which its minting of coins ceased.
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Our Info War
“Do not close your Facebook or Twitter accounts,” wrote Michael Rectenwald a few days ago.
But I already closed my Twitter!
“Do not give up the geography you have and the connections you’ve made within those spaces. Instead, subvert from within.”
Still, I never liked Twitter. It seems a poisonous atmosphere of too much snark, virtue signaling, mobbing, and worse.
“As of now, there are no alternatives. Parler will be shut down by Amazon within hours. It will also be shut out of Apple and Android vis-a-vis Apple Store and Google Play.”
I hopped on Parler, when it got attacked. With the outages, etc., it is impossible to use.
“Gab is a digital silo or ghetto that contains and isolates deviationism.”
And former leftist professor Rectenwald — author of the books Springtime for Snowflakes, The Google Archipelago, and Beyond Woke, as well as a novel, Thought Criminal — means “deviationism” in an entirely good way.
“MeWe has already succumbed to the oligarchical censors,” he informs.
“Instead, keep the beach heads that we have and spread out. Don’t give up the connections. We must retain the network of thought deviationism . . . . Read this article and you’ll understand why it’s not as simple as you think,” linking to a Daniel Greenfield essay on Frontpage, “Parler and the Problem of Escaping Internet Censorship” (January 8, 2021).
The problem is oligopoly, argues Greenfield, since five big corporations “control the mobile ecosystem and can shut down an app like Parler anytime they please. . . . an increasingly small interconnected network of companies . . . can act in concert to suppress anyone or anything they don’t like.”
And what role does the federal government play? It applies pressure by threats at the top end (Nancy Pelosi, et al.) and who-knows-what at the Deep End (the CIA and other intel agencies, which have working arrangements with all major tech companies, including Apple).
All the more reason for you to (ahem) SUBSCRIBE for email service on ThisIsCommonSense.org, if you haven’t already. Email is harder to control.
And we have a lot of work to do, to fight back.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Michael Rectenwald
[K]eep the beach heads that we have and spread out. Don’t give up the connections. We must retain the network of thought deviationism. . . .
Michael Rectenwald, author of Beyond Woke and the novel Thought Criminal, on Facebook, January 10, 4:26 AM. See also “Our Info War.”