I would have hoped that the arts community would be the first to welcome a return to seeing faces, exchanging smiles, and including all who want to benefit from the inspiration of art. Sadly this has not been the case.
Trust in government and its ability to solve problems has always tended to be higher in more urban areas. Government solutions tend to constrain individual action, and this too tends to be tolerated more in more populated areas. Across cultures and times, areas of higher population density have been associated with more politically and culturally progressive attitudes, manifested in a greater willingness to trust governmental power and to follow its lead.
Now that the population has gotten used to one form of mobilization and a sizable fraction has found it enjoys the opportunities that mobilization opens up for bullying, new mobilizations for new excuses will be harder to resist.
And now I see this country as split, but not down political lines anymore; that is just a facade. There is a distinct divide between those caught up in the revolving stories of war and disease through tech addiction and those who are – or have become – truth seekers, science followers, and truly critical thinkers.
Not too long ago, the cultivation of a wholesale disjunction between one’s inner thoughts and outer presentation was broadly seen as pathological. Now, however, the ability to propagate free-floating images of the self (and with it one’s chosen causes) is now presented as proof of good sense and high intelligence.
Students Against Mandates join with Jeffrey Tucker to discuss the lockdown and mandate trauma of the past two years. From prolonged isolation to discriminating mandates, government overreach to infringement on student and human rights, and what steps the organization is taking to fight back.
Images from Canada, of tables quaking under the weight of home-cooked food, of people in sub-zero temperatures lining the roadsides and bridges, of tweeted offers of hot showers and warm beds for strangers, of makeshift saunas and pop-up barbeques, of dancing and singing under threat of militarized suppression…these will not fade from our consciousness of what human beings who live freely with one another and in their environment can achieve and achieve with joy.
Conviviality: The Alternative to the Administrative State Read More
Biden, Putin, and the CCP all face the same problem: they preside over systems that are underperforming and generating enormous unrest at all levels. The leaders blame each other while the people in all countries are left to suffer. We are just at the beginning, but this strategy of deflection could end very badly for the arrogant political class that imagines no limit to their power.
Peace talks, or at least ceasefire talks are underway between Russia and Ukraine. No such ideological ceasefire, talks or dialogue of any kind are occurring in Canada between political factions or between leaders and their psychologically, financially and emotionally wounded populace. The coronavirus measures enacted in Canada have created a highly divisive country, torn apart along public health lines.
Dr. Henderson died in 2016. Four years later, precisely what he warned against became policy the world over. And yet after two years of hell, and now that the fear has subsided and the political and bureaucratic class is acquiescing to the dramatic change in public opinion, the pandemic is becoming endemic in exactly the way it always has in the past, precisely as he said it would.
Military leaders must insist upon the truth, abide by principles guaranteeing human rights, and ask appropriate questions regarding the welfare of members of the armed forces. How could any commander not do so? To state “I am just following DOD or CDC guidance,” is no excuse. This behavior is not the mark of leaders of character, who are entrusted to lead the men and women of the armed services.
The Military’s Abusive Imposition of Mandatory Covid Vaccinations Read More
To everyone who dumped on me for questioning the shutdown of civilization and calling out the damage it inflicted on the young and the poor: you can take your shaming, your scientific posturing, your insufferable moralizing, and stuff it. Every day, new research knocks more air out of your smug pronouncements.
