Category Archives: libertarianism

American Leaders, Political and Corporate, Outsourced Life To China

China, Donald Trump, Economy, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Healthcare, Homeland Security, Labor, libertarianism, Outsourcing, Trade

Unless major shifts are taken by the West to stop outsourcing life to China—it is Western leaders who must be considered traitors to their people. China is just being China. Ultimate retributive action against China must come from our leaders. Ire must be directed at our leaders if they continue to outsource life to China, which includes manufacturing as well as energetically replacing American workers with Chinese workers.

It’s not enough to agonize “aloud, about how [the West] found [itself] so dependent on a country like China.

Via The Economist’s Chaguan column:

“On March 29th the Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper, quoted government ministers blaming Chinese secrecy over covid-19 for ruining the world economy. How could Britain [and the U.S.] not now review Sino-British [and Sino-American] ties?”

Easily, unless the people hold their leaders responsible for reckless endangerment …

European and American elites “were [so] confident of ‘change through trade’; that commerce with China will nudge that country towards openness and democracy.”

a propaganda campaign [is] under way inside China to stress that most new infections involve cases imported from abroad. Though almost all of these involve Chinese nationals, curbs on foreigners are tightening. The border has been shut to most of them. On March 27th the government shocked embassies in Beijing by declaring a halt to the issuing of new identity cards for most grades of diplomat. This was apparently in response to the flouting of virus controls by a Western envoy. Embassies, in effect, face a ban on staff rotations until at least mid-May.

…during this pandemic, POTUS seems strikingly unmoved by ethical questions about China’s conduct. Asked about Chinese propaganda accusing America of infecting China with covid-19, which his own aides have angrily denounced, Mr Trump shrugged. “Hey, every country does it,” he told Fox News

On April 19, Trump suggested that Chinese culpability for mass murder would depend on the presence of intent: “If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they deliberately carried responsibility for it, that’s what I mean, then there must be consequences.”

I agree with President Trump that the “autocracy called China” is characterized by “ruthless self-interest” that is praise-worthy. More so than America is China likely to act in the interest of its own people.

UPDATED II (4/17): NEW COLUMN: Coronavirus And Conspiracy: Don’t Be A ‘Covidiot’

Conspiracy, Government, Healthcare, libertarianism, Liberty, Political Philosophy, The State

NEW COLUMN (with YOUTUBE video) is “Coronavirus And Conspiracy: Don’t Be A ‘Covidiot.’” The column is on WND.COM and the Unz Review.

An excerpt:

Reality is bad enough; there is no need to explain the world using conjecture and fantasy. The facts suffice.

Government is bad enough. There is no need to explain it using conjecture and fantasy. The facts about it suffice.

In particular, imputing garden variety government evils to conspiracies is based on the following faulty premise: Government generally does what is good for us (NOT). So, whenever we think it is failing in a mission it fulfills so well (NOT), we should look beyond the facts for something more sinister (NOT).

As if The State’s natural quest for expanded power were not enough to explain the events! Why, for example, would you need to search for the “real reason” behind an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless you honestly believed government would never prosecute such a war? History belies this delusion. Even when government prosecutes a just war, it finds ways to turn it into an unjust war by prolonging it. After all, a protracted crisis demands more taxpayer funds. Cui bono? For whose benefit?

There’s no conspiracy here. The constituent elements of the bureaucratic behemoth that is government continuously work to increase their sphere of influence. Thus, grunts don’t benefit from war; the generals everybody reveres do. It is therefore but natural for the soldier’s superiors to pursue war for war’s sake. By virtue of its size, reach, and many usurpations, the U.S. government is a destructive and warring entity—no matter which of one the big government parties is at the helm.

Clearly, conspiracy thinking is not congruent with a view of government as fundamentally antagonistic to the welfare of the individual and civil society, a position held by a good number of libertarians and conservatives.

Some conspiracy claims are more consequential than others. Those pertaining to coronavirus are an example. Let us, then, briefly discuss coronavirus and conspiracy. Watch the YouTube corresponding to this section of the column here. …

READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Coronavirus And Conspiracy: Don’t Be A ‘Covidiot.’” It’s on WND.COM and the Unz Review.

UPDATE I (4/17):

The great Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ph.D, writes:

I always read my friend Ilana Mercer’s essays with great interest, and whether one agrees or disagrees with her on this or that issue, she never ceases to be thought-provoking, including in this current piece, “Coronavirus and Conspiracy: Don’t Be a ‘Covidiot‘”—which is timely for those among us who are always concerned about the growth of government power in times of crises. Check it out.

UPDATE II (4/18):

Living With One Foot In Wuhan, The Other In The West

Ann Coulter, China, Conservatism, Globalism, IMMIGRATION, Labor, libertarianism, Nationalism

Writes Michelle Malkin:

Just learned that OpenBordersInc tool Charles Sauer is not only a DACA amnesty promoter, but also wants more EB-5 visas for wealthy Chinese, which Lindsey Graham and Jared Kushner are trying to expand as part of a coronovirus rescue package. Expose AMERICALAST and OpenBordersInc.

Ms. Malkin is referring to “Don’t let populism push people out of the country” by Charles Sauer, a very dull piece full of old bromides and shibboleths, such as that the cessation of immigration is synonymous with stagnation.

As I am beginning to see it, America First and more immigration from WuFlu China are mutually exclusive!

Expanded immigration from China means very many more people living with one foot in Wuhan, the other in Washington State and beyond.

Ann Coulter put it succinctly in “Cheap TVs, Expensive FLU”:

Thanks to “globalism” — i.e., cheap goods from China — we’ve gotten many wondrous things, for example:

— Toothpaste on American shelves made with a poison found in antifreeze.

— Toxic Chinese drywall installed in about 100,000 U.S. homes, emitting noxious fumes that destroyed electrical wiring and metal fixtures and sickened homeowners. Replacement of the drywall, pipes and wiring cost Americans billions of dollars.

— Hundreds, possibly thousands, of American dogs killed by melamine-laced Chinese dog food in 2007.

— The loss of about 200,000 beautiful maple trees lining the streets of small New England towns, eaten by Asian long-horned beetles that arrived on Chinese cargo ships in 1996. The U.S. taxpayer spends hundreds of millions of dollars to eradicate the repeated outbreaks that continue to this day, despite promises from the Chinese to do better.

— Viral pandemics — H1N1 (from China), bird flu (from China), SARS (from China) and now the Wuhan virus (from China).

Is it really worth paying $3 for a T-shirt at Walmart, rather than $9? The precise reason Chinese goods are so cheap is that they skip the crucial quality-control step.

NEW COLUMN (1/16/020): The Punishing Agenda of the Anti-Punishment Movement

Argument, Britain, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Critique, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Political Philosophy

NEW COLUMN is “The Punishing Agenda of the Anti-Punishment Movement.” It is now on WND.COM and  The Unz Review. The column first appeared on American Greatness.

And excerpt:

On November 29, 2019, a man now called the London Bridge terrorist slaughtered British student Jack Merritt.

While the cutthroat has been named for a famous London landmark; his victim has been all but forgotten.

The killer’s family was quick to condemn the London Bridge terrorist’s actions.

The family of his victim—not so much.

David Merritt, the late lad’s dad, got busy condemning those who wish to condemn that killer and his ilk to life in a cell.

By December 2, Merritt the elder was already penning op-eds about clemency and leniency for criminals like the man who murdered his son.

Such minute-made forgiveness would have been Jack’s wish, asserted Merritt senior rather presumptuously—for how can the living speak for the dead?

David Merritt, then, proceeded to minimize what was murder with malice aforethought, by dismissing what his son’s killer did as a mere “tragic incident.”

Just how obscene is the progressive mindset can be gleaned from what Mr. Merritt wrote:

“If Jack could comment on his death – and the tragic incident on Friday 29 November – he would be livid. We would see him ticking it over in his mind before a word was uttered between us. Jack would understand the political timing with visceral clarity.
He would be seething at his death, and his life, being used to perpetuate an agenda of hate that he gave his everything fighting against. … What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens.
That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences … Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge.” [Emphasis added.]

Anti-punishment ideologues like Merritt, incorrectly and condescendingly conflate punishment with “hate” and vengeance, and justice with restitution and “rehabilitation.”

They typically treat us to facile flimflam such as that the desire for vengeance cannot become the foundation of jurisprudence. By this verbal manipulation, these ideologues disingenuously advance a definition of justice that precludes incarceration and instead equates that object with restitution and rehabilitation alone.

Compared to David Merritt’s woke sentiments, the family of the London-Bridge Killer was mundane in its proper and civilized expiation:

“We are saddened and shocked by what Usman has done,” said the family. “We totally condemn his actions and we wish to express our condolences to the families of the victims that have died and wish a speedy recovery to all of the injured.”

But there was apparently no need to apologize, Mr. and Mrs. Khan. Speaking for his dead son, David Merritt appears to have already made peace with Jack’s ripper.

In their extreme versions, anti-punishment ideologues like David Merritt often plump for complete penal abolition.

Driven by parental and pedagogic progressivism, Jack, of blessed memory, had “devoted his energy to the purpose of a “pioneering program” called “Learning Together,” which aims “to bring students from university and prisons together to share their unique perspectives on justice.”

The imperative to offer up young lives to this or the other manifestation of Moloch is a progressive impulse—an obscene one, at that. …

… READ THE REST.  The complete COLUMN, “The Punishing Agenda of the Anti-Punishment Movement” is now on WND.COM and  The Unz Review. The column first appeared on American Greatness.