Tag: authoritarianism

Categories
ideological culture partisanship

Authoritarian Ardor

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald calls it a “mountain of data.” 

On his Rumble account, “System Update,” the journalist shows “how authoritarian self-identified followers of the Democratic Party have become.”

While admitting that “authoritarian tendencies” are in every group, Greenwald insists that “when you examine this data . . . and really compile it, and look all at once at it, it is extraordinary — no matter how low your expectations are of Democrats — how authoritarian they have become, particularly in the wake of the Trump years.”

Citing Pew Research from August, the well-known reporter begins by showing how opinions on free speech have diverged over the last three years: while Republicans wanting the federal government to “take steps to restrict false info online” declined from 37 percent to 28 percent, Democratic support rose from 40 percent to 65 percent. 

And the itch to have tech companies do the dirty work for the federal government “even if it limits freedom of info” shows the same spread: R’s went down 9 points and D’s went up a whopping sixteen!

Greenwald also explores Democrats’ enduring affection for corporate media news, how enthusiastic Democratic politicians are for curbing the basic rights of their political opponents, and how much ardor Democrats show the CIA and the FBI.

All the data, Greenwald insists, shows Democrats getting “more authoritarian by the minute.”

Why?

It might best be looked at in an insider/outsider context. Democrats are becoming more authoritarian because it is their hold on power that they are defending, and Republicans are reacting against that stranglehold. An old principle may be at work: outside of power, people tend to demand freedom; inside, they demand more power.

Authoritarianism is more appealing to insiders, viewing themselves as “authorities.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Greenwald

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
media and media people

Prognosis: Negative

wolf, authoritarianism, totalitarianism

Ah, the Law of Unintended Consequences!

It doesn’t apply just to government programs. It also applies to journalistic crusades.

What am I talking about?

Well, by now, it is pretty clear that the mask mandates, social distancing efforts, and lockdown policies have not worked very well, if at all. But that hasn’t stopped corporate newsmedia.

From what? 

From inducing panic by playing up the negative aspects of the COVID epidemic, and downplaying — even suppressing — information that would mitigate . . . their propagation of panic.

And policies of an extreme nature.

Jacob Sullum, writing at Reason, calls our attention to recent research: “Based on an analysis of news stories about COVID-19 that appeared from January 1 through July 31, Dartmouth economist Bruce Sacerdote and two other researchers found that 91 percent of the coverage by major U.S. media outlets was ‘negative in tone.’ The rate was substantially lower in leading scientific journals (65 percent) and foreign news sources (54 percent).” 

It has consequences: “This unrelenting, indiscriminate negativity fosters suspicion and resistance. Journalists and politicians who repeatedly cry wolf should not be surprised at the lack of cooperation when the beast actually appears.”

Which suggests that corporate media’s approach to the disease and our responses to it has had effects quite the opposite of what leftist Yellow Journalists aim: total government control of the populace in the cause of fighting a disease.

By overstating their case, and even flagrantly fibbing, they may be inoculating us from the very disease they promote.

That disease being not COVID, of course, but Therapeutic Totalitarianism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
international affairs

Disgraced, Enraged, Belligerent

China, virus, Covid, coronavirus, authoritarianism,

“Over the course of April and throughout May,” writes Timothy McLaughlin in The Atlantic, “Beijing was undertaking aggressive actions across Asia.” These include:

  • The ramming — and sinking — of a Vietnamese vessel in the South China Sea.
  • Intrusive surveying by a Chinese research vessel (plus coast-guard and other ships) near a Malaysian oil rig, drawing warships from the United States and Australia. 
  • Creating two administrative units on islands in the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam. 
  • Ugly if predictable rage directed towards Taiwan, “whose handling of the pandemic has won plaudits and begun a push for more international recognition.”*

Bursting out of Wuhan, did the coronavirus pandemic, responsible so far for taking more than 350,000 lives worldwide, not make the Chinese rulers look bad enough?**

Now the Butchers of Beijing move against Hong Kong, today considering a so-called “national security law” to further take away Hongkongers’ civil liberties. The CCP gang is so insecure they cannot stand to hear Hong Kong crowds boo the Chinese national anthem at soccer matches. So the new law will punish the Bronx cheer with three years in prison.

Months ago, former New York Mayor and short-lived Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg argued that America would “have to deal with China” . . . “to solve the climate crisis. . . . because our economies are inextricably linked.”

Yesterday, showing more backbone, the U.S. Congress passed legislation asking the Trump Administration to sanction Chinese officials over the camps imprisoning Uighurs. Meanwhile, responding to China’s Hong Kong clampdown, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared the territory “not autonomous” from China, which could lead to a big change in trade status.

It is getting harder to ignore this menace in Asia.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* For some reason, Mr. McLaughlin left the recent border clashes between China and India, which have left 100 soldiers injured, off his list. 

** They looked especially bad after it came out that the Chinese government had arrested doctors in Wuhan to cover it up.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Pocket Prohibition?

vape, backpack, authoritarianism, surveillance,

Should the FDA outlaw backpack pockets?

Trick question. 

Oh, you said “no”? 

Okay, not that tricky . . .

But a little tricky. The FDA doesn’t want to prohibit backpack pockets as such. Only backpack pockets that can hide vaping equipment, like an e-cigarette.

Such pockets could presumably also hold a pen, thermometer, stick of beef jerky, perhaps even a plastic straw or spindled dollar bill. The list of cacheable contraband is endless. But it’s the thoughtcrime that counts.

The FDA wants to deploy its power to regulate food and drugs to also bully makers of pockets and other things that facilitate peaceful actions of which FDA officials disapprove. For now the agency is sending stern letters to sellers of legal products. 

Tomorrow it may send SWAT teams.

“The FDA is especially disturbed by some of these new products being marketed to children and teens by promoting the ease with which they can be used to conceal product use,” frets Mitch Zeller, king of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. (It’s not an emporium.)

Various products that could help a person vape furtively are on the FDA’s hit list. Many of these products never hurt a fly. Backpack pockets in particular are getting a bad rap. I’m a fan of backpack pockets and hope the production of every kind of backpack pocket will continue unabated.

So, regardless of any animus that certain functionaries may feel about the covert carrying of e-cigarettes, pencils, or swizzle sticks, let them leave backpack pockets alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

vape, backpack, authoritarianism, surveillance,

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ideological culture

The Great Divide

Virus, corona virus, Covid, epidemic, pandemic, authoritarianism,

The current pandemic panic and crisis, Brian Doherty noted in Reason, “is a harshly vivid example of Americans’ inability to understand, fruitfully communicate with, or show a hint of respect for those seen to be on other side of an ideological line.”

Mr. Doherty, who profiled me in his book Radicals for Capitalism, calls the two major positions “Openers” versus “Closers.” 

They do not trust each other, and their respective policy prescriptions — opening up society to normal commerce versus keeping it closed, under lockdown — are poles apart. 

Doherty doesn’t mention how we treat experts. Virologists, medical doctors and epidemiologists also form ranks on both sides, and these experts sure seem to be talking past each other, too.

Which seems neither professional nor scientific.

Doherty concludes by asserting that, even after obtaining answers to questions regarding “the disease’s spread, extent, and damage” or coming to an eventual conclusion regarding “the long term damage to life and prosperity the economic shutdown is causing,” we must admit that “human beings of goodwill and intelligence might come to a different value judgment about what policy is best overall.”

Sure. But, looking over the divide as he presents it, I am afraid I see one side — the Openers — concerned about a broad number of possible disasters (economic dislocation and even mass starvation in addition to illness and death) while the other — the Closers — obsessing about fighting a disease about which there remains limited knowledge and little agreement.

The Openers seem a whole lot more open to diverse considerations.

Including the possibility that freedom might result in a better collective response than orders issued by mayors and governors and the president. 

Which strikes me as more like Common Sense.

I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Virus, corona virus, Covid, epidemic, pandemic, authoritarianism,

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
education and schooling

End Educational Freedom Now!

home schooling, education, Harvard, authoritarianism,

“A rapidly increasing number of American families are opting out of sending their children to school,” Erin O’Donnell informs in the May-June issue of Harvard Magazine, “choosing instead to educate them at home.” 

Yippee! Thanks for the great news — right?

Not to O’Donnell, or to Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet. O’Donnell’s article is something of a friendly regurgitation of Bartholet’s Arizona Law Review article, entitled, “Homeschooling: Parent Rights Absolutism vs. Child Rights to Education & Protection.”

Bartholet “recommends a presumptive ban on homeschooling.” Why? Because, as O’Donnell offers, it “violates children’s right to a ‘meaningful education’ and their right to be protected from potential child abuse . . .”

Her evidence? Professor Bartholet offers none. Harvard Magazine does not need any.

Avoided, perhaps, because research shows students educated at home significantly outperform public school students on standardized tests. 

As for the specter of homeschooling as massive smokescreen enabling vicious child predators? “The limited evidence available shows that homeschooled children are abused at a lower rate than are those in the general public,” Dr. Brian Ray reported in 2018, adding that “an estimated 10% (or more) of public and private schoolchildren experience sexual maltreatment at the hands of school personnel.”

So, what is going on here? 

Perhaps O’Donnell provides the explanation, writing that “surveys of homeschoolers show that a majority of such families . . . are driven by conservative Christian beliefs, and seek to remove their children from mainstream culture.” 

Oh, my, can that be permitted? Should people choose their own religious and cultural beliefs? May parents freely educate their kids?

Bartholet calls that “essentially authoritarian control,” which is “dangerous.”

There, she is correct. Homeschooling is dangerous . . . to experts hell-bent on telling us what to think.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

home schooling, education, Harvard, authoritarianism,

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts