Category Archives: Business

On June 4, 2021, one of MSNBC’s egos in an anchor’s chair said this:

“Social media giant is cracking down on politicians and speech. But is it too little too late?”

I transcribed the statement verbatim but it is not easily found as a URL hyperlink.

This is how illiberal mainstream liberalism has become. And it raises no eyebrows. How dare the US pose as a free society?

My point here, however, is contrarian. Again and again you will hear conservatives, politicians and pundits, complain on Fox News about the calamitous censorship by Deep Tech, as if it’s a problem that began with the Biden Administration.

De-platforming (of a president, no less), banning of legions of powerless dissidents, including detrimental financial de platforming, “occurred in a country with a Republican President, a Republican-controlled Senate, a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees, and a majority of whose state legislatures and governors are Republican.”

Republican solutions—anti-trust busting or the repealing of Section 230, which they refused to do when they were in control of both houses, and the presidency, all bandied about shallowly on Fox News—do not begin to address de-platforming, cancellation of dissidents, including the infringement of the right to make a living. (See sub-section, “Flouting The Spirit Of Civil Rights.”)

I’ve done some theoretical rethinking. More to come.

*Image courtesy here.

Populist Or Centralizer? Boris Johnson Undermines Local Authority

Britain, Business, Elections, libertarianism, Populism, Private Property, Secession

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Progressive and “conservative” corporatists think that NIMBYism, Not In My Backyard initiatives, is an economic and political problem when it involves the Little Guy fighting to conserve his community’s landscape and way of life—often by rejecting the enforced settlement of refugees and illegal immigrants, as well as by opting out of development.

The Economist detests NIMBYism because, from its perspective, it’s development uber ales (above all): The paper approves of Boris Johnson’s “promises to reform the planning system, which allows homeowners to veto development and thus condemns Britons to live in expensive rabbit-hutches.”

Oh, no, homesteaders can’t be allowed to “veto development.”

But even The Economist disapproves of Boris Johnson’s usurpation of local authorities:

“Mr Johnson’s solution to the problem of NIMBYism is to limit local authorities’ say on planning, giving central government more control over development. Whether or not he will really face down angry suburbanites in the Home Counties over new houses—he has already bottled out of a previous attempt—this approach derives from the fundamental problem with Johnsonism: his tendency to grab power. If local authorities do not want development, Mr Johnson’s answer is not to give them more say over taxation and thus an incentive to grow, but to force them to accept it. If parts of the country are poor, his answer is not to allow them to develop their own growth strategies, but to create a central fund to give them money.

MORE.

*Image: Screen pic via The Economist.