Policy

Policy articles provide in-depth analysis of social and public policy, examining their wide-ranging impacts on economics, social life, public health, individual liberty, evidence-based decision-making, and institutional accountability.

We cover critical areas such as healthcare and vaccination policies, pandemic responses and WHO, economic subsidies, national security strategies, withdrawals from international bodies, and pathways to reform that restore freedom, truth, and human dignity over centralized control.

All articles from Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages to support global access, foster international dialogue on governance and reform, and empower readers worldwide to challenge flawed interventions.

narrative

The Narrative in Retreat

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The puzzle of why there was a worldwide cascading abandonment of a hundred years of accumulated knowledge by scientific and policy advisers will occupy researchers for many years. The result is that old lessons are having to be relearned. Judging by the rush of studies now coming through to contradict key tenets of the 2020–22 narrative, there’s hope that the wall of silence rooted in groupthink and fear of consequences to career and reputation might have been irreparably breached.

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washington dc

There is No Cure for Washington’s Arrogance

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Most Washingtonians I meet are color blind to other people’s freedom. At the start of the pandemic, government officials trumpeted terrifying statistical extrapolations of potential infection rates. Thus, they automatically became entitled to lock people in their homes, shut down their businesses, and padlock their churches. The credentials of experts receive infinitely more respect inside the Beltway than Americans’ constitutional rights. 

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Balaji Srinivasan: The Man Who Was Fired Up for Covid

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Unlike Tomás Pueyo, it’s unlikely that Balaji’s Twitter prophecies had a major effect on policy—though he did spread a bit of panic to bring these outcomes about. Rather, aside from the uncanny global coordination we observed in COVID policies and propaganda, Balaji’s tweets might be the best evidence so far that this plan to recreate China’s response did, in fact, exist, down to the particular terms and details of how the world would transform.

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covid bonfire of the vanities

Bonfire of the Covid Vanities 

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Freedom to take a walk on the beach? Stop killing the vulnerable! Freedom to earn a living? The economy will recover! The demotion of freedom—that noble ideal of liberal democracy—to a caricature has been painful to observe. Without freedom, we have nothing resembling a life. Pandemic or not, freedom needs a place at the discussion table.

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trump lockdown

Was Trump Tricked Into Lockdowns or Not?

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How do we know for sure that Trump was not selling his advisors on lockdowns rather than that reverse? We do not actually know that. The most plausible scenario is that everyone in that hot house of Oval Office power pretension was equally enthusiastic for the most catastrophic public-health decision in modern history.

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chickens

Why Are the Chickens So Sick?

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The parallels between HPAI expert orthodoxy and covid orthodoxy are too numerous to mention. Fear porn is rampant in our culture. The HPAI worry feeds food worry, which makes people clamor for government security. People will accept just about anything if they’re afraid. Does anyone really think human cleverness is going to beat migratory ducks? Really? Think it through and then embrace a more natural remedy: well-managed decentralized pastured poultry with appropriate flock sizes.

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gordian knot

How to Cut Through the New Gordian Knots

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We can forget about seemingly simple fixes, like giving politicians the right to fire civil servants on the spot. Besides, giving clueless and corrupted politicians yet more power is not going to make matters better. Real reform will have to be dramatic, and it will come about only in dramatic circumstances.

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The Greatest Lie Told During Covid

The Greatest Lie Told During Covid

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Deaths in the US used to be more volatile. but since the advent of penicillin, that stopped. Pre-covid, I do not think there has been a single year in US history since 1945 where the age adjusted death rate exceeded something “normal” from within the five years prior to “pandemic” year. 

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DeSantis Djokovic

Ron DeSantis’s Letter to Biden on Behalf of Novak Djokovic

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At present, it appears that the United States is one of only a handful of countries that requires foreign visitors to have received a COVID-19 vaccination. Indeed, in an interview on September 18, 2022, you personally declared that “the pandemic is over,” and your administration has already communicated to Congress that the COVID-19 emergency will formally end on May 11. The time has come to give up the fiction that COVID vaccines remain a necessary tool to promote public health.

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women health work

The Collapse of Women’s Health and Work

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The pandemic policy resulted in the biggest setback in women’s participation in paid work and gender equality for a generation and undermines women’s security and resilience to shocks and ability to pay for health services when needed. An expected further collapsing health system, and at the same time an increase in disabilities and elderly people, suggests that even more women will leave the workforce in the near future to fulfill (unpaid) care and domestic work. 

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