Brownstone Journal

Articles, News, Research, and Commentary on public health, science, economics, & social theory

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media policing

Media Complicity in Policing the Opinion Corridor

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Among the many startling aspects of the topsy-turvy world that we have lived through since early 2020 is the extent to which the media and social media, often with the active collusion and indeed under requests-cum-instructions from national governments and international organizations, denied space and voice in their columns, letter pages and online commentary to questioning and criticism of the official narrative. 

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rights gone

And Just Like That, Your Rights are Gone

By / / / 8 minute read / Articles
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Here in the US, the “government creep” that happens into your life is gradual. It oozes its way into your liberties, at first slowly, as they inch their way in, bit by bit. Then you awaken one day, and suddenly your rights are gone. This is what I’ve been hearing and seeing happen for years now, but especially the past three+ years of the COVID19 mania.

And Just Like That, Your Rights are Gone Read Journal Article

biology of administrative state

The Biology of the Administrative State

By / / , / 12 minute read / Articles
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Using strategies found in nature to find analogies for complex political and cultural organizational strategies has merit. It opens up new ways of thinking about human society and social structures. So, can we use biology to predict how these organizations will react on the world stage in the future? 

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digital learning

The Dashed Dreams of Digital Learning

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The results we were promised from increased tech adoption, always available learning content, and a device for every child has turned out to be not much more than a successful marketing campaign. One where tech corporations cashed in, government overspent taxpayer money, and once again, the children were let down.

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elite pride

The Cosplay of Elite Pride 

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So many of our narratives contort public policy failures into a simulated pride for apocryphal success, incidentally acknowledging the imperfections in order to cover the bodies. From the initial days of the lockdowns, there were way too many people with paychecks talking. All the voices on all of our telescreens enjoyed uninterrupted direct deposit while aggressively advocating the closure of tens of thousands of small businesses – first to flatten the curve, then to slow the spread, then to await the vaccines.

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major media

How Major Media Suppressed My COVID Journalism

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This is why traditional left-versus-right paradigms are obsolete. Many “conservatives” bought the public health propaganda wholesale while a number of traditionally progressive thinkers — such as Russell Brand, Matt Taibbi, Jimmy Dore, and Glenn Greenwald (regardless of their personal medical decisions) — vigorously objected to Covid mandates on the basis of foundational, societal principles.

How Major Media Suppressed My COVID Journalism Read Journal Article

Australian censorship

The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs

By / / , , / 6 minute read / Articles
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The Australian stereotype of mocking self-important authorities was tepid at best during the crisis, and what questioning of authority did take place appears to have been quickly memory-holed by the spell-checkers-turned-fact-checkers at the Department of Home Affairs “Extremsim” team. With each passing day, Idiocracy is looking more and more like prophecy.

The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs Read Journal Article

Economic Cost

Why Economic Cost Was So Seriously Neglected

By / / / 5 minute read / Articles
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Economic illiteracy is an important part of the explanation of why there was such broad acceptance of the pandemic policies. And also why there was very limited skepticism among common people. Had they understood economic reasoning, they would have been inoculated (if you excuse the pun) against being deceived by experts. They would have been able to see through the promises and would have asked the necessary questions.

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fear of a microbial planet

Fall of the Experts

By / / , / 11 minute read / Articles
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The pandemic opened the curtain to expose the folly of expert worship. Experts are just as fallible and prone to biases, toxic groupthink and political influence as anyone else. This recognition might make people uneasy. However, it should also force a sense of responsibility to search for the truth despite what the experts might say, and that’s a good thing.

Fall of the Experts Read Journal Article

Focused Protection: Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff

It’s Not Really About the Data 

By / / , / 6 minute read / Articles
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To prevent a repeat of the Covid debacle, we need to draw on principles that transcend the contours of a particular virus, like the above-mentioned freedom of assembly, bodily autonomy, and the right to provide for one’s family. As an online acquaintance—a man of the cloth—recently put it, “Would you want to live with the knowledge that you are alive today because thousands of families have lost their means of survival?” Well, no, I would not.

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republican

The Illusion of Republicanism

By / / , , / 17 minute read / Articles
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The open society is also dependent on a positive narrative of freedom and self-determination. As an open society, however, it must be open in terms of how – and thus by which values – this narrative is justified. That is to say, it has to accommodate a pluralism of narratives which agree in the conclusion of implementing in society the moral obligation for every person to respect the right to self-determination of every other person.

The Illusion of Republicanism Read Journal Article