Category Archives: Private Property

NEW COLUMN: Self-Ownership & The Right To Reject The Pharma-State’s Hemlock

Conservatism, COVID-19, Critique, Democracy, Democrats, Government, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Private Property, Republicans

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NEW COLUMN is “Self-Ownership & The Right To Reject The Pharma-State’s Hemlock.” It’s currently on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com, The New American and American Greatness.

Excerpt:

It matters not that the few “Republican governors crusading against vaccine mandates are [allegedly] facing significantly lower approval ratings on their handling of the coronavirus pandemic than their counterparts,” as Politico purports. (Don’t believe Politico!)

What matters is that governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott, who “flat-out banned vaccine requirements, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, followed up by vowing to sue the Biden administration.”

These two governors are unique in upholding natural, inalienable, individual rights—the right of self ownership, bodily dominion; the stuff mocked by President Joe Biden, wearing a ghoulish grin.

The Biden reference is to a recent, highly contrived CNN townhall, during which “moderator Anderson Cooper noted that as many as one in three emergency responders in some major cities are refusing to comply with city vaccine mandates.”

“I’m wondering where you stand on that,” inquired Cooper. “Should police officers, first responders be mandated to get vaccines? And if not, should they be mandated to stay at home, let go?”

“Yes, and yes,” replied the president.

Disinterred for the day, Biden went on to mock the quaint notion of bodily autonomy with a demented quip, “I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID. I mean, come on, freedom.”

Bodily autonomy, self-determination and self-ownership: Were our representatives to frame the vexation of vaccine mandates in the correct language of natural rights—we’d get the right answers, more likely to be followed by rights-upholding legislation.

But are Republican representatives doing so? Are our representatives who art in D.C. doing anything but wait in Tucker Carlson’s green room?

When it comes to Covid-19, only the following arguments are permissible as an objection to the Covid vaccine mandate. “Exemptions from employer-mandated coronavirus vaccines [are] in [these] three general areas“:

* natural immunity
* religious objection
* medical objection …

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Self-Ownership & The Right To Reject The Pharma-State’s Hemlock.” It’s currently on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com, The New American and American Greatness.

UPDATE II (11/16/021): Republican Argument Against COVID Mandates Indirectly Capitulates To Coercion

Argument, Business, COVID-19, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Natural Law, Paleolibertarianism, Private Property, Republicans

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It matters not that the few “Republican governors crusading against vaccine mandates are [allegedly] facing significantly lower approval ratings on their handling of the coronavirus pandemic than their counterparts,” as purported by Politico. (I don’t believe Politico.)

What matters is that governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott, who “flat-out banned vaccine requirements, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed up by vowing to sue the Biden administration.” These two are upholding, natural, inalienable, individual rights—the right of self ownership, bodily dominion, the stuff mocked by Joe Biden thus:

During the event, moderator Anderson Cooper asked Biden his thoughts about reports of emergency responders in different cities refusing to comply with city vaccine mandates. Cooper asked Biden whether he thought such workers should be fired, encouraged to stay home or be allowed to keep their jobs.

Were our representatives to frame the issue of vaccine mandates in the correct language of natural rights, namely bodily autonomy, self-determination—we’d get the right answers, more likely to be followed by rights-upholding legislation.

But are Republican representatives doing so? Are our representatives who art in DC doing anything but wait in Tucker Carlson’s green room?

When it comes to Covid-19, only the following arguments are permissible as an objection to the Covid vaccine mandate. “Exemptions from employer-mandated coronavirus vaccines [are] in [these] three general areas“:

*natural immunity
*religious objection
*medical objection.

And one hears support for outcome-based coercion because it  works; rights-violations work. This latter argument is a scandal:

Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, said she approves of the administration’s push for employer-based mandates because “frankly nothing else was working.”

As an objection to the Covid vaccine, nowhere is a rights-based argument or an argument based on the right to question the safety of the vaccine being advanced by the idiots who represent us. “Exemptions from employer-mandated coronavirus vaccines are in three general areas” only.

Self-ownership is nowhere mentioned.

UPDATE I (10/26/021): Josh Hawley to the rescue (from Fox News’ green room).

Harmeet Dhillon Dishes on Republicans and Business:

UPDATE II (11/16/021):

Thank Trump for being the first GOP president in recent memory to do his bloody job and appoint justices who uphold the Bill Of Rights:

Judge Kurt Engelhardt issues stay on mandates. At play, “liberty of individuals to make intensely personal decisions.”

Hon. Kurt Damian Engelhardt, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, New Orleans, Louisiana and Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, standing between The People and the effing Brandon Administration.

UPDATE II (12/21/021): NEW COLUMN: Centralize Liberty: The Solution To Wicked, Woke Tech (Part 3)

Free Speech, Individual Rights, Justice, Labor, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Republicans, Technology, The Courts, THE ELITES

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NEW COLUMN: “Centralize Liberty: The Solution To Wicked, Woke Tech,” is now on WND.COM, The Unz Review, CNSNews, and The New American.

This column is Part 3 of a 3-part series. Read Part 1, “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication” and Part 2, “Justice Thomas’ Solution to Big Tech’s Social And Financial Excommunication.”

An excerpt:

It is inarguable that by financially crippling and socially segregating, and banishing politically irksome people and enterprises—the Big Tech cartel is flouting the spirit, if not the strict letter, of the Civil Rights Act.

For how do you make a living if your banking options are increasingly curtailed and constantly threatened, and your ability to electronically communicate with clients is likewise circumscribed?

Do you go back to a barter economy (a book for some bread)? Do you go underground? Cultivate home-based industries? Do you keep afloat by word of mouth? Go door-to-door? Return to stamping envelopes? How can you, when your client base is purely electronic?

Telling an individual he can’t open a bank account on account of the beliefs and opinions swirling in his head teeters on informing your innocent victim he might not be able to make a living, as do other, politically more polite Americans, and despite his innocence: Our only “offenses” as dissidents are thought crimes, namely, speaking, or typing or wafting into the air unpopular, impolite words.

“[I]n assessing whether a company exercises substantial market power,” Justice Clarence Thomas has argued, “what matters is whether the alternatives are comparable. For many of today’s digital platforms, nothing is.”

To paraphrase this Supreme Court jurist: Sure, there are alternatives to The Big Tech, but these make a mockery of the outcast. It would hardly be hyperbole, in driving home Justice Thomas’s point about comparability, to put it thus:

With respect to financial de-platforming, barring someone from PayPal is like prohibiting a passenger from crossing the English Channel by high-speed train, via ferry and by means of 90 percent of airplanes. “Have at it sucker.”

By Deep Tech decree, some Americans are worth more than others, based not on their actions, but on the voiced thoughts in their heads. This cannot stand.

The letter of the law needs changing. Do it.

Civil Rights Act

Thus, the preferred remedy to Deep Tech depredations would build upon existing Civil Rights Act jurisprudence.

As a reality-oriented conservative libertarian, I inhabit and theorize in the real world. From the conservative-libertarian’s perspective, Barry Goldwater got it right. Civil Rights law is an ass, for it infringes on property rights. But the onus is on flaccid Republican lawmakers to ensure that that ass can be ridden by all equally (with apologies to adorable, much-abused donkeys for the cruel metaphor).

These are existing laws that are already enforced. I see no reason to reject the application of civil rights solutions to wicked, woke bullies because existing laws that’ll never be repealed go against my core beliefs. What is libertarianism? The art of losing in life because of a slavish devotion to theoretical purity? …

… NEW COLUMN, “Centralize Liberty: The Solution To Wicked, Woke Tech,” can be read now on WND.COM, The Unz Review, CNSNews, and The New American.

UPDATED (10/26/021) I:

UPDATE II (12/21/021) II: “Berenson v. Twitter“:

Twitter is indisputably a messenger service. A longstanding California law regulates messenger services as “common carriers.” This means that they must accept all messages they receive. Twitter thus must accept all tweets it receives. It has no First Amendment rights to refuse them on the basis that it does not agree with them.
A federal law commonly called Section 230 “preempts” the California law, giving Twitter the right to reject tweets or ban users. (Whether that right is universal or whether Twitter must act in “good faith” in restricting service is a separate question; whether Twitter acted in “good faith” in this case is still another question. But put those issues aside for the moment.)
Section 230 is what enables Twitter to claim a First Amendment privilege that supersedes the California law and restrict my own First Amendment right to speak; thus federal courts have the right to review 230 on First Amendment grounds.

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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.

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*Image: Screen pic via The Economist.