Let’s First See if They Drown

In April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes.

-          Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty, Opinion by Emily Oster

I came across this piece thanks to Karen De Coster, referenced in her LRC blog post entitled The Satanic Church-of-Covid Left Begs for Mercy.  I will allow her to introduce it (in case her title isn’t sufficient):

The sham propaganda continues to twist in the wind, looking for one last chance to be embraced by the gaslighted masses.

Returning to Oster. 

We all wore cloth masks that I had made myself.

That was very scientific.  Homemade masks.  I wonder what surgeons and epidemiologists thought about that before March 2020? 

It’s bad enough that the parents in this family were deluded, what they did to their children was horrendous:

Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!” 

Someone’s dad should have decked the other child’s dad.

These precautions were totally misguided. … But the thing is: We didn’t know.

Bullsh!#.  We did know.  Those telling you to mask and social distance knew that they were lying.  Countless pre-stupidity peer-reviewed studies were clear: masking by amateurs with pretend masks (let alone homemade masks) was useless – and even harmful – when it came to dealing with airborne viruses. 

We knew that anyone younger than seventy years old with no co-morbidities was at virtually zero risk of serious complications.  We knew that continuing in school was the best option for young people.  We knew that the virus (such as it was) travelled equally well in both strip clubs and churches, but only one of these was closed.  We knew when politicians and other leaders went to restaurants or hair salons without masking while we were all forced into a face diaper that it was a lie.  We knew that these modern jabs were based on science that failed every test before.  We knew that forcing the decision of jab or job on individuals was both immoral and corrupt.

We knew.  And so did those who said otherwise.

And on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong.

And on every topic, the people most listened to were always wrong, and those who were cancelled were (almost) always right.  This latter group wasn’t made up of just loons like me; hundreds of prominent and world-renowned doctors and scientists were cancelled because they didn’t agree with MSNBC, CNN, or “the science.”  Go back and read the Great Barrington Declaration (as mild as it is), written in October 2020 and signed initially by almost fifty doctors and scientists and currently by almost one million individuals.

They knew.  But Collins and Fauci and others worked to crush this attempt at minimal rational pushback.

The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat. Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.

Nope.  I don’t want to gloat; that’s not good enough for me.  And nope, I won’t merely allow the criminals to retrench; that isn’t justice.

My Nit to Pick With the Judge

There are three individuals that I credit with the meaningful advancement of libertarian thought and principled thinking regarding governance that we have witnessed in the last decade.  These three have done God’s work in this regard, and have done far more than any hundred of us writing a few paragraphs a day based on ideas stolen from and better explained by others.

Not in any particular order, these three are Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell and Judge Andrew Napolitano. 

It cannot be argued that Ron Paul’s run eight years ago sparked everything we now see as American society’s revolt against the stakeholders – whether those doing the revolting understand this or not.  Dr. Paul would not have been successful in this had it not been for his principled approach and consistent record on issues of government, freedom and peace.

Lew Rockwell is clearly the most successful entrepreneur for ideas regarding Austrian Economics, freedom and peace.  He is the founder of two institutions that stand at the forefront of educating the public on all things associated with libertarianism.

Judge Napolitano has been a consistent and principled voice in an environment where consistency and principle usually result in being shown the door.  He has survived and thrived on the mainstream stage, always interpreting events through the lens of the strictest interpretation of the US Constitution.

If some semblance of a more free and decentralized society becomes reality in the next century, the story of this renaissance cannot be told without the first three chapters covering these individuals.

With this said, I have a nit to pick with the judge:

To my friends who have rejoiced in James Comey’s letter, please take warning that, as [Sir Thomas] More accurately predicted [in Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons”], the tables can be turned.

-        J. Edgar Comey, by Andrew P. Napolitano

Judge – assuming the infighting at the FBI is real, which I do believe to be the case – this event is the turning of the tables.

The only endeavor in which the federal government even comes close to being successful (other than aggrandizing itself) is the federal prosecution of defendants.  From my examination of the success rates of various government departments at their assigned tasks, where every single department except one was somewhere between total and abysmal failure to well below average, I offer:

Department of Justice:

To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 97% conviction rate.  In an environment defined by mediocrity at best, and failure most often, this is exemplary performance.

I wonder how they do it.

I do not fear that somehow this action by Comey will unleash the FBI and the Department of (In)Justice on me or the average citizen.  I do not fear this because that has been the reality for virtually all of us for decades.

Government bureaucracies are hotbeds for infighting and backstabbing.  This is inherent in the system as it is the only way to demonstrate performance and gain advancement.  We are witnessing events that normally occur behind the scenes, events that normally happen only to us mundanes.  The inherent contradictions in the beast known as the US government are causing it to consume itself.

Conclusion

Returning to the commentary by the Judge:

In his play “A Man for All Seasons,” Robert Bolt shows Sir Thomas More arguing with William Roper, a colleague, who suggests that government lawbreaking can be justified for the greater good, particularly if the target is the devil (which Trump has called Clinton). More demolishes that argument in a few now iconic lines: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”

It is not me, or the average citizen, that needs to fear this as something new.  Sir Thomas More isn’t lecturing me.  He is lecturing the Hillary Clintons of the world.  Once people like her have made criminals of the rest of us – which they have most certainly done – where will the machine turn next for victims?

Let them consume themselves.  Let them occupy themselves with concern for the knives pointed at their backs.  Let them see how it is to live like this every day, how the rest of us live every day.

The New York Times…

…pretends to do investigative reporting.

Before the United States permitted a terrifying way of interrogating prisoners, government lawyers and intelligence officials assured themselves of one crucial outcome. They knew that the methods inflicted on terrorism suspects would be painful, shocking and far beyond what the country had ever accepted. But none of it, they concluded, would cause long lasting psychological harm.

Fifteen years later, it is clear they were wrong.

How the story has changed, from “we don’t torture,” to “well maybe a little, but it yields great intelligence,” to “we don’t do it in horrific ways anymore,” to “we didn’t know that it would hurt.”

I will go right to the punch line, in case you don’t want to read further: all that the United States torturers needed to do to realize the certainty of “long lasting psychological harm” is to have a sit down with John McCain.  Talk about someone with permanent and obvious psychological harm!

In all seriousness, you would think that VA hospitals would have thousands of records from prisoners of war, covering this general topic.  Even more fundamentally, what kind of creature must you be…well, now I am getting into the longer version of the story.

Permanent headaches, disturbed sleep, nightmares, rage triggered by memories of torture, paranoia, depression.  Shocking, I know, but “Some emerged with the same symptoms as American prisoners of war who were brutalized decades earlier by some of the world’s cruelest regimes.”

You think?  This wasn’t predictable?  Of course it was, and the torturers knew it and condoned it anyway.  Will you read this in the so-called investigative report?  (Hint: no.)

The United States government has never studied the long-term psychological effects of the extraordinary interrogation practices it embraced.

Is this conceivable?  The US government never studied the long term psychological effects of American former POWs being treated in VA hospitals?  This is both an indictment of the VA (a low bar, I admit) and an indictment of those who authorized the torture (an even lower bar).  Does the Times challenge this assertion?  (Hint: no.)

It is not conceivable.  Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, a former military psychiatrist and retired brigadier general, offers some perspective:

General Xenakis had seen such anxiety before, decades earlier, as a young psychiatrist at Letterman Army Medical Center in California. It was often the first stop for American prisoners of war after they left Vietnam. The doctor recalled the men, who had endured horrific abuses, suffering panic attacks, headaches and psychotic episodes.

I guess no one else in the military noticed this before the torture was authorized.  Is this what the Times believes?  (Hint: yes.)

…General Xenakis delved into research on the effects of abusive practices. He found decades of papers on the issue — science that had not been considered when the government began crafting new interrogation policies after Sept. 11.

The research covered Vietnam, Korea and World War Two.  Does anyone believe that somehow the US government forgot that Americans were tortured during these wars?  This voluminous research was unknown to the government before they decided unfathomable torture was the way to go?  Does the Times challenge this?  (Hint: no.)

Instead, the government worked hard to find some study that demonstrated that torture had no more long-lasting psychological effects than eating an ice-cream cone:

Instead, the government relied on data from a training program to resist enemy interrogators, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.

A training program?  Over the weight of tens of thousands of Americans subject to torture.  The wise men behind this theory?

Two veteran SERE psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, worked with the C.I.A. and the Pentagon to help develop interrogation tactics.

If there is justice, one day they will be tried for war crimes.  For now, these modern-day disciples of Dr. Mengele merely have to face being sued in US Federal Court by some of their victims.  Employees of the same government that employs those who authorized and committed the torture are going to determine the fate of these lawsuits.  How will that turn out?

Of course, to be fair to all sides, the Times notes:

Researchers caution that it can be difficult to determine cause and effect with mental illness. Some prisoners of the C.I.A. and the military had underlying psychological problems that may have made them more susceptible to long-term difficulties… 

Because, having your head stuck in a toilet, having rabid dogs in your cell, being sodomized and threatened with rape, being subjected to blaring music 24 hours a days, being deprived of sleep for days on end, forced nudity, wearing diapers, sexual taunts, mock executions, threats to harm their children and rape members of their family – all for months and years on end…these would not effect a “normal” person.

…Libyans said they were treated better by Colonel Qaddafi’s jailers than by the C.I.A.

Maybe this is why Qaddafi had to be taken out.

Conclusion

What has the Times accomplished with this report?  Is it news that victims of torture suffer long term psychological effects?  This is the entirety of the examination by the Times.  Congratulations for reaching this conclusion, Captain Obvious.  Dozens of interviews and hundreds of hours of research were not necessary to conclude this.

Investigate the criminals behind these actions; write an editorial recommending a war-crimes trial in an international (or better, non-empire-aligned Middle-Eastern) court for those involved.  That would be newsworthy – therefore such an investigation and editorial is inherently something that the Times will no longer consider.

No Reasonable Prosecutor…

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

-        Excerpt from Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System

It is this statement that has remained with me since hearing the news that the FBI would not recommend prosecution of Clinton.  I would like to examine one word from the statement.

Reasonable: agreeable to reason or sound judgment; logical.  Capable of rational behavior, decision, etc.

Who can disagree with Comey’s statement? 

What reasonable prosecutor – a political appointee – would want to take on someone who not only still has significant political pull but could very well be the next President of the United States?

What reasonable prosecutor would want to get on the wrong side of the Clinton machine – a machine rumored to be on the perpetrating side of several unfortunate “accidents” to those who reportedly did them wrong?

Comey is correct: a reasonable prosecutor, using sound judgment and rational behavior, would never bring such charges.

Of course, this was a reasonable statement to make even before any investigation. 

You have to wonder: what was the point?

Libertarian Justice

A plane blows up in mid-air over a desert.  Apparently a bomb.  Over 200 dead.  Representatives of the victims place a $50 million reward for information leading to the capture of the perpetrators.

A horrendous night of murder and mayhem occurs in a major city.  Apparently several individuals coordinated attacks on several locations.  Over 100 dead.  Representatives of the victims drop 20 bombs on people who live 2000 miles distant from the scene of the crime and from any known location of any of the perpetrators.

Is This Why We Need “Government”?

There are several aspects of this Ray Rice story that are worthy of comment; for example, the power of a video in the outrage toward Rice as opposed to the lack of power in the written word in the lack of outrage toward Floyd Mayweather, by all accounts an infinitely more troubling character than is Ray Rice.

I want to consider another aspect: the victim’s role in deciding about prosecuting the perpetrator, and the possible mental incapacity of the victim in this regard.

As he always does, Victor Ward raises valuable points through his unique lens on the world.  He addresses this Ray Rice situation along with a handful of other recent, high-profile, racially-charged stories.  I offer the following, relevant point, from his post:

Everyone wants to condemn Ray Rice for hitting his wife, everyone, that is, except for his wife. If she has accepted his apology, isn't that the end of the story?

Sure, Ray Rice may do something worse. Or he won't. What difference is it to anyone other than Mrs. Rice?

The district attorney in New Jersey is getting some grief over not prosecuting Rice.  This grief erupted, not after the incident, but after the release of this second video.  At the same time, as Victor points out, Mrs. Rice has accepted her husband’s apology and wants to move on. 

As we know, this decision is not in the hands of the victim in today’s legal systems throughout much of the world.  The decision is in the hands of the state.  And, as is the case in every monopoly, the cost is too high and the quality is too low; the state too often jails the innocent and releases the guilty.  There is no budget constraint or fiscal ramification to this incompetence.  Worst of all, the victim receives no justice – there is no form of compensation to the victim.

Suffice it to say, in a libertarian world, the victim would decide if prosecution was warranted.  This, for me, is the easy part of my two part question.

However, what if the victim is in some way mentally incapacitated?  In this specific example, in a manner of psychological and emotional dependence on the perpetrator?  There are too many stories of such victims returning over and over again to the perpetrator’s waiting arms, only to be once again greeted by the fists.

Such a person may not be the best one to decide if prosecution (by state or non-state means) is in order.  The state interjects individuals who know nothing about the people involved – victim, perpetrator, and other family members – to decide in the place of the victim. 

This is why we need government.  But is it?  Is the best course to interject strangers into this decision?  Why not family, close friends, the pastor at the church, support programs at work?  Why are those with a relationship with the victim and/or perpetrator not in the best position to offer guidance and counsel regarding making the decision?

In other words, in order to do what is best for the (possibly mentally incapacitated) victim, who is in the best position to, if not decide, at least influence the decision of prosecution – a family member or a stranger?

In the end, it seems to me that Victor is right – ultimately the victim must decide.  It also seems clear that the best people to guide or assist in this decision are those who are close to the victim.  This course – one that recognizes the victim’s right – of course, leaves room for error. 

As if there is not error today.  The criminal justice system is as corrupt and error-prone as one might imagine.

A libertarian society does not promise heaven on earth, nor should this be the standard.  It does provide for the victim deciding what is just; it does not externalize this decision on the entire society.  Leaving this decision in the hands of the victim – and certainly the victim of such crimes – comes with risks, but this is life. 

What is certain is that such an approach will serve the needs of the victim far better than does the current system.

This should answer the question I posed at the top.