Policy

Policy articles analyzing social and public policy including impacts on economics, open dialog, and social life. Articles on the topic of policy at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.

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Travel Blocked from Europe: The Second Anniversary

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This was a turning point not only in the Trump administration. Pollsters agree that the Covid response not only cost him the Presidency but his party also lost the Senate and secured minority status in the House. It was a turning point for American liberty and the general stability of the world economy. It set in motion all that we currently endure, including emergency powers, egregious mandates, inflation, stagnation, demographic upheaval, ill-health, cultural disorientation, and arguably war too. 

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What the Truckers Want

What the Truckers Want: An Explanation for the Confused

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These truckers and others drove from California to Hagerstown, MD, over a week and a half – and all across the country, from overpasses, at evening rallies, and all along the highways, Americans turned out to cheer them on. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans turned out to show their support for the truckers, and hundreds of thousands if not millions more cheered them on from their homes, unable to be there in person. 

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What Happens When Cases Rise?

What Happens When Cases Rise?

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Covid-19 cases will eventually rise. I don’t know when, but we are extremely vulnerable to an ill-formed and schizophrenic response. As we near midterm elections, politicians will be more volatile, and seek to control news that is seen as a threat to political fortunes. That’s the territory for bad decision making.

What Happens When Cases Rise? Read Journal Article

It's Time to Talk about Elephants

It’s Time to Talk about Elephants

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As we step into year three, we urgently need to widen the lens beyond Covid metrics, beyond epidemiology, beyond even science itself. With Covid easing into endemicity, we need to grapple with big-picture concepts like costs, benefits and tradeoffs. We need to ask the tough questions. We need to name the hulking elephants in the room, to lift up their trunks and see what lies beneath.

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Freedom Is Our Birthright

Freedom Is Our Birthright, Not Dependent On Medical Status

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On occasion the majority may need to swallow a risk for a time. Sometimes respecting the freedom of others will seem to cost us, but codifying human rights, and insisting on process, legalism, and law gives wisdom time to overcome fear. It is the insurance that keeps the members of a free society free.

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It’s All in Good Fun

Drs. Walensky and Offit: It’s All in Good Fun

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Did you ever think of the cruelty bordering on sadism of forcing millions of people who, thanks to natural immunity posed no infectious threat to anyone, were having to choose between taking a medication that can do them little good and might do them considerable harm, and losing their livelihood? 

Drs. Walensky and Offit: It’s All in Good Fun Read Journal Article

What Can the Stanford Prison Experiment Tell Us

What Can the Stanford Prison Experiment Tell Us about Life in the Pandemic Era?

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Given the world in which we have been living for the past two years, despite the numerous flaws critics have found in both Zimbardo’s work, it would seem that both he and other members of social psychology’s golden age can still tell us a lot about how social roles, oppressive environments and powerful authorities can alter the psyches and actions of normal people in pathological ways.

What Can the Stanford Prison Experiment Tell Us about Life in the Pandemic Era? Read Journal Article

Why Did Politicians Choose Economic Contraction Over Virus Mitigation?

Why Did Politicians Choose Economic Contraction Over Virus Mitigation?

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Poverty has always been mankind’s most brutal killer, while prosperity that’s produced the resources necessary for cures has been death’s greatest foe. Politicians chose economic contraction as a virus-mitigation strategy. Historians will marvel…

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Forget About Covid, They Say

Forget About Covid, They Say

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By all means, forget about Covid and live life as normally as possible in defiance of those who live to foster fear. But, never forget the disastrous Covid restrictions that created such destruction. We cannot let anyone off the hook, much less pretend that the policy disaster that created billions of personal tragedies never happened. 

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Why Is Walensky Refusing to Answer this Senator’s Questions?

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According to Johnson, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky is one of the public health officials who has been non-compliant with his requests. To date, Johnson says he has made eight specific requests, directly of Walensky, that have gone unanswered.

Why Is Walensky Refusing to Answer this Senator’s Questions? Read Journal Article