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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The Freedumb Fallacy

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Freedom matters—even in a pandemic. Without freedom, elderly people may spend their remaining time on earth isolated from their loved ones, and we know that social isolation kills. Without freedom, people may lose not only their livelihoods but the momentum and opportunity to build careers as flight attendants, orchestra musicians, chefs, or scientists working on viruses. Without freedom, children may lose important and irretrievable experiences and milestones. Without freedom, life becomes a shadow of itself. 

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Reparations for the Business Victims of Lockdowns 

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The lockdowns were and are an intolerable attack on property rights, the freedom of association, free enterprise, and basic rights of trade and exchange that have been a bedrock of a thriving economy since the ancient world. They were also without precedent on this scale. We need a clear statement from the top that this was wrong, and did not achieve the aims. A well-constructed reparations package would make the point. 

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“The Honking Will Continue”: A Conversation With BJ Dichter

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BJ Dichter is one of the organizers of the Canadian Truckers for Freedom Convoy and its media spokesman. We had an opportunity to speak with him earlier this week about the situation in Ottawa, the convoy’s strategy and about some of the political elements that are at play as this extremely fluid situation makes headlines and continues to inspire people all over the world. 

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Seven Urgent Lessons of Lockdowns

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The destruction wrought by the lockdowns has many fathers—computer-modelers who terrified federal policymakers with guesses dressed up as certainties; health officials who were given the levers of government without any sense of or care for unintended consequences; governors who ruled by executive fiat.

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Brownstone Institute at Six Months

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Freedom is not an option, despite what they say. It is not something granted to us by the powerful at their discretion. It is a universal right, one protected only by a culture that loves it, institutions that guard it, and people who fight for it. We can get there. We are in a position to help prove this, to rebuild, and work for a world in which nothing like this ever happens again. 

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Does Fauci Bear Any Responsibility? He Says No

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Unfortunately, sitting atop the world’s largest stash of infectious disease research money, with an annual NIAID budget of over $6 billion, Dr. Fauci was able to command the nation’s pandemic strategy with little opposition from other infectious disease scientists.

Does Fauci Bear Any Responsibility? He Says No Read Journal Article

Post-Lockdown Politics Will Disrupt Republicans Too

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While conservatives were properly disgusted by the $1.9 trillion coronavirus “rescue plan” signed into law by President Biden in 2021, they were rather quiet in 2020 when a $2.9 trillion Cares Act was passed. Please keep in mind that absent this massive bit of wealth redistribution, there’s no way lockdowns around the country could have lasted even two weeks, let alone many months.

Post-Lockdown Politics Will Disrupt Republicans Too Read Journal Article