Category Archives: libertarianism

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.

Impeachment Uninteresting To A Certain Kind Of Libertarian

Constitution, Democrats, Law, libertarianism, Republicans, The State

As a libertarian, I’m not in the least interested in the impeachment proceedings and process.

Democrat or Republican initiated, impeachment as we’ve come to know it intimately, showcases the might of the American Administrative State in all its muscular display of extra-constitutional powers. There is nothing constitutional, and very little that is naturally licit, in this process, despite all the “solemn” references to the poor, unused document.

That the participants wrap themselves in the toga of constitutionality makes the process all the more  farcical.

To quote from my “Moral Of The Mueller Inquisition, Part 2″:

“As a scrupulously honest broadcaster, Tucker Carlson recently confessed to ‘looking back in shame’ for having originally supported Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation of President Clinton. (Good libertarians have always opposed the very existence of the OSC. This writer certainly has.)”

Another comment, relating to the above and to the imperative to, at the very least, denounce the last two impeachment productions undertaken by the extra-constitutional Office of Special Counsel (OSC):

I like Jonathan Turley a lot. But I am shocked that he supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I am beginning to suspect that Turely, despite repeated denials, is a Republican through-and-through. Why not say so, sir?

Here is Jonathan Turley, in 1998.

In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker; it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. The allegations against President Clinton go to the very heart of the legitimacy of his office and the integrity of the political system. As an individual, a president may seek spiritual redemption in the company of friends and family. Constitutional redemption, however, is found only in the company of representatives of all three branches in the well of the Senate. It is there that legitimacy, once recklessly lost, can be regained by a president.