George Orwell No Longer a Hero of the Left

Orwell was often lionized during the last three years by the left as a harbinger of the evils that Trump would surely bring about.  Not any more. Now Orwell is being quoted as a harbinger of the evils the left is bringing about.  In 1984, Orwell describes vividly how the government methodically destroyed all history in order to create a new order that controlled all thought.  Looks to me to be a lot more realistic than fear about Trump.

Defunding the Police

The ironies just keep coming. A TV station in Minneapolis reported that the city was paying for private security protection for three city council members who had received death threats related to  their support of measures defunding the police.  Why wasn't the police department providing the protection?  The department's resources were stretched thin by everything else going on.

What Should the Grounds Be For Tearing Down a Public Statue?

If a statue is anti-American, can it be torn down?  What if it honors someone who is arguably a traitor?  What if it depicts slavery or subjugation of humans?  What if it implies that some people are better than others?

How do we draw the line between what public statues can be torn down and which ones not?

Easy.  The answer is none. Vandalism is vandalism regardless of the property being vandalized. A government can decide to tear down or move or replace a public statue.  Mobs cannot. 

What Is A Racist?

I've noticed several instances of the liberal media capitalizing the word "black"  recently.  If you capitalize "black" but don't capitalize "white," guess what that makes you?  Hint:  It's a six-letter word that starts with "r."

Dissent

Many years ago, Edmund Burke said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Several weeks ago, I decided that I would post responses to every inaccurate, schmaltzy, dumb posting up here in western Massachusetts about black lives matter or sympathy for rioters or defunding police.  Sad to say, it takes a lot of time.

At our annual town meeting earlier this week, two young people tried to change the town budget by reducing what we spend on police.  They were unaware that the town has a contract with our police union that wouldn't allow that. 

The more sensible people in town - we still have some - successfully fought off the move. But there was a considerable amount of support, expressed through pious ruminating, for defunding the police.  Seriously?  Here in rural Massachusetts, where the only charges ever made about the police are  about ticket fixing and alleged cooping?  It's insanity.

I  spoke against the move, pointing out that in most urban places reducing police budgets would result in more black deaths, not fewer.  I described the effort as "asinine."  One of my "woke" neighbors went to the microphone and called me out - by name - claiming that I said she was an "ass."   English is not her strong point.

I can withstand a lot of opprobrium.  And I don't think I'm paranoid. But I'm starting to worry that my outspokenness might lead to physical attacks on me, even out here, because there are so many people who can't accept any dissent from their "wokeness."  So I'm cleaning my rifle, and thinking about getting a shotgun and a permit to carry. Sad time. 

White Wokeness

From a piece today by Charles Love (who is black):

"It appears that a sleeping giant has been awakened in white America. Most woke whites probably have good intentions, but their symbolic gestures will at best have little effect and at worst do real harm. The campaign against police is a good example. Broad anti-police sentiment has already caused cops to become less proactive in high-crime neighborhoods, with the predictable result that shootings have spiked around the country. Whites are engaging in activism motivated by a misperception about black life that does not comport with reality for most blacks. With their views of blacks as wounded and perpetually oppressed, woke whites would do more good by doing nothing."

Mind Control

Cuomo's noontime pronouncements are sometimes entertaining, sometimes hilarious and almost always misleading. Today he was downright scary.

He was talking about the "demonstrations" in the city. He said you didn't have to be either on the side of the demonstrators or on the side of the police; you could be on both sides.  He said we should support the demonstrators because they were expressing their right to be heard, and also the police because they were trying to do their job and deserved support.  So far, so good.

Then, without a hint of humility but plenty of hubris, he said we had to change people's attitudes.  We had to get people to have "societal awareness." He asked can you "change behaviour to respect one another?" "Yes," he sayid emphatically, because we just did it.  We successfully got them to stay home and wear masks!  He believes that he can - and will - change society to fit his vision of what's right, not by persuading people but rather by compelling them to think and act as he orders them to.

This is scary stuff.

My despondence took a bit of a turn for the better this afternoon.  First I got a haircut from a barber who believes all these coronavirus rules are hogwash. I told her about the latest CDC data and she said a sixth grader could have figured out how all this was going to turn out from the beginning: many old people would die and the rest of us would be okay.  It's not as if coronavirus is some sort of never before seen scourge that is going to eat you alive. 

Then I went to the grocery store. The people in front of me at the checkout counter (obviously New Yorkers) were protected to the nines:  masks, shields, wipes, the whole nine yards.  The checkout woman and I grinned at each other, and when the New Yorkers were gone I said their chances of dyimg from coronoavirus were less than their chances of being run over and killed in the parking lot.  She chuckled and commented about how all day long she had to pretend that lowering her mask was tantamount to mass murder.

So maybe there's hope.  I hope the sheep don't carry the day any more than they have already.

 

Can a Libertarian Tolerate Shutdowns?

If you purport to be a libertarian, can you tolerate the coronavirus shutdowns?  The answer depends on the breadth of the shutdowns.

The basic libertarian philosophy is that individuals should be free to act as they wish, so long as their actions don't adversely affect the health or safety of others. That means governmental action should be limited to protecting health and safety.   The shutdowns are intended to protect public health. Therefore they're okay, right?

Yes, but there are limits.  First, there must be a real health problem; government can't use the "health problem" excuse to justify regulatory action.  Second, the scope of the governmental action can't exceed what is necessary to deal with the problem. Third, the severity of the governmental action must be commensurate with the severity of the health problem; no using a hammer to kill a fly. Finally, the duration of the governmental action must be limited to the duration of the problem; the action should have sunset limits.

As the data concerning the coronavirus pandemic pours in, it has become clear that government overestimated the severity of the problem.  Like all of us, government can make mistakes. The political problem is that polticians hate to admit them. Can you imagine Mr. Trump or Mr. Cuomo publicly saying "In hindsight, I didn't accurately weigh the potential adverse effects of the pandemic against the potential harm that would result from the shutdowns.  I don't think I was irresponsible, but as it turned out, I was wrong.  I take responsibility for that."

Of course not. They'll say things like "I relied on the science," or "it was the other guy's fault." So rather than promptly adjusting governmental action to accord with the newly found data, they'll continue doing the wrong thing for as long as it takes to justify their mistakes. And we'll all suffer as a result.

As you approach one end of the spectrum, libertarianism transitions into anarchism. It's important not to let your disgust with government action on the pandemic turn into rejecting virtually everything government does.   Rather, speak up about the mistakes, hold the politicians responsible for their actions and stay true to your principles.