Libera Voce

“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.” Aesop

It was a grotesque display of an American tragedy that our president has again gone to Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, known as MBS, the crown prince, deputy prime minister, and effectively the de facto current ruler of the House of Saud, hat in hand to virtually beg for increased oil production. What makes this so tragic is that his own administration’s domestic policies stifling US energy production, but the worst part is that he is choosing to deal with what he had once correctly called a pariah state.

Has Joe Biden forgotten or failed to understand that the House of Saud is an enemy of America, despite his own government’s proof that they were responsible for the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands of our fellow citizens, murdered the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and continue with the genocide in Yemen, and with the illegal and immoral assistance of the US military?

We were also treated to his hypocrisy by on one hand pledging continued support for Israel, our only real ally in the region, while at the same time providing financial support to the PLO, who continue to call for Israel’s destruction. If Israel is indeed our ally, then aiding and abetting their enemy is a gross betrayal. Israel could, and maybe should view the US as a doubtful friend, especially given the rhetoric from his own party condemning it.

The pain that has been expressed on the news by families and friends of those Americans murdered on 9/11 who witnessed this tragic event is testimony to a tone deaf and blundering administration that only adds to the discontent festering like an open wound. While I’m not a supporter of either of our major political parties, I can see why there is such certainty for what is called the “Red Wave” come the mid-term elections this November.

I say all this not only from a clear headed historical perspective of what has occurred, but from the personal anguish as the brother-in-law of a recently deceased first responder to the Twin Towers that day who suffered from a brain cancer being at Ground Zero, but from the loss of the many friends and associates in the design and construction industry who perished in the building collapse. I am angry with my government, I am ashamed of my president, and I am disheartened for my country to have come to such a dismal point in our history where our heroes are so disregarded and dishonored.

Now we must not only live with the memories and sorrows of these tragedies, but the shame our leadership has brought us. We must never forget any of this but we must learn from it, and teach our children that this is not the legacy we wanted and not one we should support in any way. As Dan Rather once observed, “But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won’t. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.”

“It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.” Malcolm Forbes

Sage words from the most influential business journalist of all time. In an age that was much like the mindless green eyed envy of the progressivism of today, he courageously took a small and relatively obscure business journal he had inherited to become Forbes, the premiere business publication in America, with a sub caption famously known as the “Capitalist Tool.” With surgical skill the magazine eviscerated the business ethos of cronyism, the corrupt symbiosis with government.

It is no surprise that the vast majority of Americans are most concerned about inflation, whether it’s with food, energy, or shelter. They are far less interested in solutions to things like the war in Ukraine, abortion, green energy, gun control, social justice, or any other issue government or media put out there when they are faced with life support issues. Clearly the government is floundering by spinning solutions to problems that are at best of secondary concern to its citizens; no surprise then that the polls show such a low level of approval for this administration.

An axiom of good management is that in order to solve a problem you first must understand and admit there is one, clearly identify what it is, what caused it and then focus on solutions to it; the corollary to that axiom is not to be distracted by your bias about the nature of the problem, who to blame for it, or indulge in prejudices against possible solutions that may not fit your political narrative. In all things in life there are guard rails that constrain the field of possible solutions ethically, legally and physically, but to successfully solve a problem requires an objective focus, and that often presents the biggest hurdle, most often because of confirmation bias.

The lack of objectivity is so apparent regarding the essential problem behind the existential threats in food, energy and shelter that Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated. While this is understandable, it is creating another problem, and that is anger. While that may fuel the partisan agenda for some politicians, it’s a distraction from focusing on the problem, and hence the solution. This is not the first time that common sense is ignored in favor of partisan pandering, but this is certainly one of the more dangerous times for this to be happening.

What Americans are focused on is survival; that admittedly sounds like an exaggeration until we consider the simple fact that more than 40% of Americans are living solely on pay checks now, no more “stimulus”, and little savings. The government and media keep telling us how the economy is doing well because all the major corporations are in great shape with strong balance sheets, while small businesses, which not long ago accounted for 52% of employment, are failing in record numbers and Americans are paying record high prices for life’s essentials. We are given low unemployment statistics with little said about low participation rates. We are told that the Fed is determined to bring inflation down with higher interest rates but sees no cause for concern about a recession given the strong economy, despite the fact that there has been a yield curve inversion indicating a recession has already started.

Recently, while in Madrid for the NATO Conference, Biden chooses such an inappropriate venue to speak about the recent SCOTUS ruling on Dobbs which overturned Roe v. Wade. Further, why would he, as president of the US, denigrate its Supreme Court while at an international conference, and then go on to set himself up for failure by announcing plans to void the filibuster in order to attempt passing legislation to address abortion at the Federal level when the Supreme Court has already ruled that in belongs with the states, and which some in his own party will not support, and even if passed will not survive a constitutional challenge? The president and congress propose even more senseless spending and raising taxes, all of which will only exacerbate an already egregious inflation not to mention an unsustainable debt. The lack of focus is apparent except to the spinners.

What’s really bewildering in all of this is the dissonance of proposed solutions with the existential problems the county is facing; the public would be happy to hear the explanation if the president and congress can provide a direct answer without resorting to spinning another narrative that puts people in the awkward position of the “Emperor’s New Clothes”. We are way beyond the point of politely ignoring the embarrassingly obvious reality that the administration lacks either the ability or the integrity to address inflation.  

“People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.”  Will Rogers

The title of this post comes from an old phrase attributed to various sources, some biblical, some literary and some colloquial; it is very appropriate in describing the environment of the world today, including the US. We saw this in the summer of 2020 with the assaults and vandalism following the murder of George Floyd, the same with the January 6^th Capital Riots, the Uvalde School massacre, and most recently the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. As Will Rogers said, all this flying into a rage has resulted in bad landings.

Where does this psychosis come from that so many people act as if no one can honestly disagree with them, and if you do, you will be censored, vilified, cancelled, fired or perhaps even shot? There is no more civil discourse, just civil unrest. American culture has devolved into partisan trench warfare, an endless series of narratives based on nothing more substantial than derogatory labels followed by violence.

While there is such a thing as righteous anger, what we experience is more akin to narcissism; it does not seek to engage and understand but to destroy; it is cowardly and envious because it sees the success of others as a threat, whether that be in an election or court decision.  Thankfully, the majority of Americans are above the fray, but unfortunately we are all victimized by this sad state of affairs, and that can create an atmosphere of fear and hopelessness.  

The latest example of this with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade is a case in point.  While I am a pro-choice advocate, I always thought that the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision had a shelf life. In fact, I was surprised the overturning took this long as that decision was based on things not supported by the Constitution as the entire issue has no place at the Federal level. While I believe that it has no place at all with government at any level, apparently that will have no bearing with the outcome and I will have to live with that, as will many people in some states that will now ban or restrict abortion.

The existential problem arises with the violent reactions, which started with the leaked Alito draft. Actually, violent reactions regarding abortion started in 1973 with the attacks on clinics and doctors following the Roe vs. Wade decision, and now with the Dobbs decision on pregnancy centers. There is no real dialogue about abortion and with the recent SCOTUS ruling, only curious jubilation or unwarranted rage. The ruling was no surprise to the observant as the court was now decidedly conservative, and the leaked document was like a weather report after the storm, with the ruling of record a mere historical foot note about federalism.

What both sides on the non-debate are missing is the actual basis for any government involvement does not exist in the constitution even though the Founders were all aware of the practice. From colonial times to the mid 19^thcentury abortion was legal in the US in most states, although socially unacceptable to many. But it is also true that some of the Founders, in their legal capacity within their states, viewed abortion as a misdemeanor based on common law, particularly as espoused by William Blackstone, a famous English jurist and frequently cited thinker in the American political writings of the founding era. Blackstone believed that fetuses, even while in the mother’s womb, are legally considered born.

What could hopefully happen, now that the issue has been returned to the states, is that each goes about its business according to the will of its people but respecting the decisions of other states. Making it illegal to leave your state for another to get a legal abortion, and return to your own state is contrary to the constitution on many levels, but some states have already made that law.  

So far eleven states have now banned or restricted abortion, and likely there will be more, while many states will allow it under some guidelines and even provide fiscal support. Whether or not there will be cases of prosecution of women and their medical providers for an abortion remains to be seen, but if so such cases will likely make their way back to the Supreme Court by pro-choice advocates, and the outcome will likely spawn further conflict and violence. This is a movie that just gets endless remakes with no real progress in calming the polity of our country.

What we need is a thoughtful leadership that will help guide a polarized nation to a truly civil discourse on this, and other intractable issues, and back to a respect for the constitution and the right of all to their beliefs and opinions, regardless of how wrong we may find them; unfortunately no such leadership is on the horizon, and in fact the contrary seems more likely. For now we seem trapped in this Age of Rage, and as Thomas Sowell so insightfully observed “It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Dessert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand” Milton Friedman

The above quote has many iterations from 1951 to 1980, attributed to various pundits such as the William F. Buckley, Alfred Kahn and Milton Friedman, whose version is the most remembered and repeated. It targeted various ludicrous situations such as the Soviet shortages of just about everything, the Swedish lumber shortage, the Emirates oil shortage and our own housing shortage.

It is the anatomy of such blunders that speak to the phenomenon of governments creating a crisis that they then made even worse with solutions that exacerbated the very problem they created. The US is not exempt from this malaise, and currently is suffering from an energy crisis that clearly illustrates this.

The rising costs for energy, especially when you go to the gas pump, has a genesis that goes back quite a few years, but let’s start with the Bush administration and it’s illegal and tragic war mongering in Iraq, destroying a major source of oil production, which has yet to recover. Move then to the Obama administration and its grossly premature move to reduce the oil industry in the pursuit of green energy. Even with these issues, during the Trump administration we were still at the point where we were importing less than 17% of our energy needs, mostly from Canada and Mexico.

At this point a brief story to illustrate an important development I learned from my financial adviser. A few years ago he recommended that I buy stock in oil refiners. I was skeptical as back then oil had just dropped below $30/bbl, but he quickly corrected my ignorance and said to notice he wasn’t referring to oil producers but refiners, those that take crude and make it into useful products like gasoline, diesel and home heating oil. Apparently ever since the Obama Administration, refining capacity in the US had declined by more than 30% due to the regulatory hurdles in building new refining capacity as the old plants became obsolete; apparently the effective tool in the push to go green was DC’s glacial bureaucracy. I found that astonishing considering that the US was once the world’s leading refiner, but facts are facts and so I became an investor in refining. Recently those refiners’ stock prices hit the projected peak so we sold, more than doubling the investment.

Now there’s a clue here as to why, despite the fact that the last time that oil hit $120/bbl gasoline only rose to just about $4/gal. Refining capacity back then was relatively adequate, presenting no huge increase in cost in distribution, and demand was not as high as it is now. Yes, one result is huge profits much of which went to stock buy-backs. Further, those 900 oil leases that the Administration says weren’t being used were either spent, found economically untenable or inaccessible; that, coupled with the absence of capital over the last few years as the source for investment was mostly from pension funds and university endowments, nearly all of which dried up with the advent of the ESG investing mania.

Oil production is capital and labor intensive. This is not a problem for authoritarian and socialist regimes like OPEC countries and Russia where capital is in the hands of governments who weaponize energy, environment is a nonissue and labor is cheap; in the US we have unionization, capital markets and burdensome regulations. Add to this the current administration’s cancellation of major useful leases and pipelines resulting in declining domestic supply, coupled with reduced refining, and the US becomes, as it was in the 70’s, vulnerable to imports from countries not exactly friendly or dependable.

So we have the anatomy of twenty years of blunders giving us the crisis we are now in, but we hear nothing in the way of solutions from the Biden administration, except of course if you count accusations of greed, blaming Putin’s war in Ukraine, begging the Saudis to increase oil supplies, or proposing a Federal gas tax holiday. All of these things are irrelevant and easily debunked and none gets to the cause or constitutes a solution.

Take the accusation of greed leveled at the oil industry. True, American oil companies have record profits, but nowhere to invest them, so they buy-back their stocks, increase dividends, all to make their stock more valuable; while that’s their ethical obligation to their shareholders, it’s short money; long money requires planning for future development, but the Biden Administration has made clear the oil industry, along with natural gas, is to be replaced by the Green New Deal. Now there’s an old cowboy adage that’s appropriate here that goes something like “Don’t shoot your horse from under you unless you have another one to ride.” Maybe someday we will have sufficient green energy to replace carbon based energy, but it’s not today; you would think government would have the simple common sense of cowboys and not kill an industry vital to energy before we had a replacement. If the government didn’t shoot the horse out from under us, we would be a net exporter of energy.

Then we have the Putin narrative. We import less than 6% Russian oil, little of which is refined to gasoline and diesel. The real problem with the Ukrainian War in regards to energy is the US policy of meddling in the foreign affairs of other countries; in this case we are providing billions in military aid to Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries in Europe and one with which we have no treaty or security interests. We then strong arm our NATO Allies into sanctions against Russia, incurring severe energy shortages for them even greater than our own, and bidding up the price for oil and natural gas. We then have the hubris to tell them not to worry, we will send them LNG, which some of them are beginning to realize is proverbial nonsense as we are actually killing that industry in our own country, and even if that were not the case, it would arrive too little, too late.

We have the embarrassing spectacle of an American President begging the Saudi’s to increase production, first with phone calls that go unanswered, then with physical trips with little results. They are not our allies, even with the unconscionable assistance we give them in their genocide of the Yemen people. This is not just a bad idea; it’s a horror show, especially considering that we have the resources ourselves if we would only stop shooting the horses out from under us.

As far as the three month holiday from federal gas taxes, it will make a slight difference, more so if you just abolish it altogether, but regardless Congress has made it clear that’s not going to happen. I think Biden was just looking for something to show that he’s trying to address this crisis, but in the face of the budget and debt issues, again created by the government, Congress has little appetite for tax cuts.

Where will this lead? Few economists are willing to take a guess, and the same with inflation, another government creation and also a strong contributing factor to the energy crisis. Despite what the government and the media tell the American people how all this is “unprecedented”, more and more are coming to realize that we’ve seen this movie before, like sand in the Sahara.

“The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics.” Michael Crichton

The idea that we hear a lot about in today’s politicized science, especially about Covid, are phrases like “the science is settled” and “believe in science.” Such statements have always bothered me because as an engineer I was always taught that science is a process, a discipline of constantly asking questions in order to gain knowledge, and not some static dogma that ends further questioning and therefore stunts the growth of knowledge. Further, science is not a question of belief but a process of thinking, which if ended because something is deemed settled, leads to ignorance.

This phenomenon of consensus science is problematic for two reasons, i.e. it seeks to make final whatever is pronounced to be settled and therefore becomes a moral or value judgement. This does not serve science at all, but is useful politically because moral and value judgements are the tools of politics, which always seeks to make those that have a different or contrary thought to be wrong minded.

So we should consider the WHO, CDC and the FDA, and the recipients of much revenue garnered from the lack of science by these politicized organizations, the pharmaceutical industry. First, I must make clear that I elected to be vaccinated. It was a difficult decision for me to make because the lack of clear communication and the contradictory statements from the proponents of vaccines served more to confuse than enlighten. It started with the claims of efficacy from the two major producers of some 90-95% which, when compared to the duration of development and testing of a drug based on a relatively new process called mRNA, seemed at best overstated. Then the accounts of some negative reactions and infections of those vaccinated only added to the dilemma. Seeing how seniors such as myself were the most at risk from Covid I was placed in the unfortunate position of making a judgement in an environment of factual chaos.

The organizations we rely on were further put to task with their science-is-settled dogma as the virus evolved, as viruses are want to do, with the Delta, Omicron and yet to be named variants. I guess Covid didn’t get the memo about the science being settled, proving again that consensus is not science. Albert Einstein once modestly rejected the idea that he was the father of modern science. He said that Galileo was the father of modern science, who once wrote that “In science the opinions of a thousand are not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.”

Over the course of time men like Galileo developed a process we today call the scientific method. A predecessor to Galileo was Leonardo da Vinci who wrote that “All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of experience, the mother of all knowledge.” Experience is something humanity has had a great deal of and will hopefully have for a long time to come and that is what experience takes, time. The scientific method or process is in three parts:

1. Verifiability/Falsifiability – a theory, proposition, or prediction is subjected to experiments, i.e. empirical process to show it’s either true or false.
2. Replicability – the experiment, or test, can be repeated by anyone and achieve the same results.
3. Causation – simply put, correlation is not a proof. The experiment, to be valid, can’t be something that makes the theory look like what it proposed but actually causes the result.

What has been verified is that mRNA is a process that can produce a useful vaccine, but like the seasonal flu vaccine, it’s nowhere near the efficacy claimed. While mRNA research has been developed over decades, starting with Robert Malone in 1987, the first vaccine created from it for human use was for Covid. It is not mRNA that is in question here; while it presents many questions regarding its genetic basis, that is not the subject of this post, but perhaps a future one. What is at issue here is the vaccine produced and how it was presented. It was a great achievement but not what was touted by government agencies, health organizations and the media. If it were, then there would have been no reason for the government to have extended immunity from prosecution to the producers. What all these actors did was to tell us that their consensus was that we should trust them and get vaccinated, and further, for many, do so or lose their job.  That’s not science; that’s what you get in authoritarian regimes like China, Cuba, or Russia.  

Good ideas do not require mandates, but transparency. Science is not some magical process to be held as a belief, and one that we are coercively required to follow or be subjected to some punitive action like loss of livelihood. It remains to be seen if such draconian edicts against our basic liberties will be tolerated or struck down, but we should remember that the worst ideas are those created by consensus and invariably require compulsion.

“To eliminate statism is not to physically subdue the rulers, but to mentally liberate the ruled.”
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

For those like myself who were not familiar with the author of the above quote, I first read of Jakub in a Mises article. He is a professor of Law, Administration, and Economics at the University of Wroclaw with an MA in philosophy from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in political economy from King’s College London. He is the author of many books about political science and economics. I found this quote to be particularly relevant to the topic of this post.

When politicians sense that their popularity, i.e. power, is falling, they have a well-used tool chest to fix the “problem”. In general, the most useful tool is a crisis, and if there isn’t one handy, they will create one. Crises give cover to those who crave power, especially when their agenda is not being well received. It provides a narrative around which they can construct a reasonable argument for doing those things the general public would likely not tolerate in less turbulent times, a narrative that blurs the lines between society, government and the state.

The pandemic, despite the recent uptick in positive testing (send out massive quantities of test kits, get back massive results), is a crisis of more than two years with now diminishing returns for power grabbing. What politicians in trouble love more than anything is a good old fashion war.  Nothing satisfies a power lust like what you can grab with a war; it’s like blood for a vampire as it sucks the life out of a nation’s polity, economy and social stability. 

In the case of the Russian/Ukrainian War, as has been stated many times before here and by the more well known intelligent and moral folks than those in power, the US has no treaty, security or territorial basis for involvement in that conflict. However, it represents an opportunity for the current administration to deflect attention from its many failures by making this a crisis for the US regardless of the fact that none exists.

Add to this that President Biden announced today a deployment of seven hundred American troops to Somalia. While I have been highly critical of Trump, one thing he did that I supported was getting us out of that slow burn war that had no legitimacy whatsoever; so to see Biden reverse that on the pretext of “….a more effective fight against Al Shabab.” is truly alarming. When did we declare war on Somalia? Are we going to do so to every country where a terrorist organization exists? Why then did Biden withdraw from the Forever War in Afghanistan only to redirect the same stupidity in Somalia?

The answer is the economy. As it becomes increasingly obvious that inflation is persistent, and that the Fed is way behind the curve and desperately trying to catch-up with ever increasing rates, lower GDP forecasting a slowing economy, a falling market, and persistent supply problems, polls are showing a steady decline in Biden’s popularity. Distractions like the leaked Alito preliminary opinion fueling outrage on a likely reversal of Roe vs. Wade are just not getting the kind of crisis needed for a sufficient deflection from the hurt on American’s pocket books.

Trying to blame business for high prices after the most egregious monetary and fiscal bloating of all time has just not had the traction the administration hoped for; while current American society is no more economically astute than in the past, that old deflection isn’t making points anymore. The mystery that some folks question is why is the dollar so strong? What we need to understand is that the nature of fiat currencies, which is the only type left in the entire world, is relativity; when all central banks inflate, and all governments spend from empty pockets accumulating incomprehensible debt, the only differentiating element is interest rates, and on that score the US is ahead of others, at least for the moment.

We have now spent more on aid to Ukraine than we have on our own infrastructure over the last year, despite the largest appropriation for that in generations, and in the face of record debt and a falling economy. We have a critical shortage of life essentials like baby formula, but stupidly refuse to allow importation of European and Canadian products. We have an energy crisis resulting in record energy prices yet the administration inexplicably cancels federal leases for major gas and oil production. So it’s understandable in the midst of all this mismanagement why deflection is needed.

This is what happens when government “manages” an economy; it’s not just a Biden administration issue, it’s an American issue, and we will all suffer the consequences, because all such things have consequences. Americans pay the state about $4.5T in taxes each year, and this is what we get for our money. The state does a poor job at protecting our rights while funding military adventurism, bailing out big banks, giving lucrative grants to the politically well-connected, keeping half the population in a state of dependency, and flying drones around the Middle East and Africa blowing people up. We have politicians of both parties supporting ever increasing belligerence and confrontation with Russia, China, Iran and a host of smaller countries for no other reason than to maintain the straw man of American hegemony, and of course deflect attention from problems they create.

Increasingly, we hear from both parties a call to repress “disinformation”, a phrase as elastic in meaning as anything that is contrary to what those in power want you to know, believe or express. This particularly virulent form of statist virtue signaling we used to call censorship, a word that is politically and constitutionally toxic, so instead we get the benevolent sounding words like “fake news”, “misinformation” and “disinformation”. However, be found within the ever expanding scope of what is not acceptable and you are viscously attacked with labels like “racist” or “fascist”; in short, don’t be a crisis pooper.

It is time for the American people to do something they haven’t done in a very long time, and that’s to say “no”, or to put it in Jakub’s terms, become mentally liberated. Americans have allowed themselves to become conditioned to repress their own self-interest for the “greater good”, that vague and malleable concept politicians love as if politics has become a new religion. There’s another word for that kind of persuasion, and it’s called manipulation.

For the politically elite, it has become a way of life. They never take responsibility for their actions, always attempting to convince us that there’s a crisis that needs our attention more than what we actually need to do. They take and take until you’ve finally had enough, then they move on to the next crisis. It’s time to look for new leadership, and listen to those that tell you that your interests are more important than theirs.

“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.” John Locke

Given the recent firestorm over the leak of Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s preliminary opinion on Roe vs. Wade, John Locke’s quote above provides existential meaning to the concept of owning oneself; discard all the other noise we hear, such as the fact that the US Constitution does not mention abortion, as it’s all irrelevant because people are not property to be defined, limited or treated in any way as government may see fit.

The constitutional issue with the Roe vs. Wade decision that makes it vulnerable to reassessment is that it was based on fetal viability, a judgement that can change with advancements in science; while that may be a medical consideration, it certainly should not be a legal one. Any consideration of liberty as protected by the constitution guarantees that all human beings are the sole decision makers regarding any and all aspects of their own bodies, such as a woman’s right to consider whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

The political issue with Roe vs. Wade includes states’ rights, i.e. do the states have the right to legislate on this issue.  That has been a heated debate since the 1982 proposed amendment that provided for just that; it cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee with the support of then Senator Joseph Biden, who referenced his moral dilemma as a Roman Catholic as a reason for doing so.  However, the proposal was defeated in a Senate vote, with Biden doing one of his famous flip-flops by voting against it; subsequently, he has reversed himself various times, but for now he is in the pro-choice camp.

While there have been challenges to Roe vs. Wade over the subsequent decades, it has survived until now, assuming that the justices reported to agree with Alito continue to do so. As Chief Justice Roberts said today, while the leaked opinion is what Alito wrote, all else is rumor and conjecture until the court actually rules. While there are reports that the leaker is known, identity has not been confirmed, so the motive is to be determined.

In his piece in the Washington Post Tuesday, George Will outlined the four points of Alito’s opinion about Roe vs. Wade:

1. It made moot all state laws and civil discourse regarding abortion and created a bitter polarizing political and social argument; it noted that about a third of the states had already passed freedom of choice laws prior to the ruling, with likely more to follow.
2. There was no historical or judicial precedent on which it was based.
3. The court respected precedent, but not as an absolute.
4. The court did have a history of reversing precedents, many times for the better.

He summarized Alito’s opinion not as a reversal, but as a “turning away” toward a new starting point. He remarked that “Hysteria is the default mode of many Americans of all persuasions who engage in civic arguments. So, by late June, when the court would normally be expected to issue a momentous opinion, such people will have worked themselves into an apocalyptic frenzy.” He also noted that should the court go with Alito’s opinion, it would mean that the states would reacquire what they had lost in Roe vs. Wade, and make laws as they see fit, as some already have.

What’s missing in all this is some commonsense, specifically making it easier for women to avoid an unwanted pregnancy to begin with. Well that too has a surprising history. Republicans have repeatedly tried to make birth control pills available without a prescription; however, Planned Parenthood brings in 1.7 billion dollars in revenue annually from contraception services, and they are a big donor to Democrats. It is notable that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, is a supporter of eugenics, a racist, and believed that her organization would do a great service in limiting the black population. Health insurance and pharmaceutical companies are also big donors to Democrats, and they all want birth control pills subject to health insurance reimbursement. Surprisingly, the champion fighting against this cabal is none other than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; at last something to support her on.

What’s really missing in all this is John Locke’s natural law of man owning himself. When we consider this we understand better that neither the Republican nor Democratic parties respect the fact that whether the issue is abortion rights or COVID mandates, government has no legitimate involvement. The hypocrisy of both parties shows in their respective policies regarding both these issues. Approximately 63% of all Americans, including 78% of Democrats and 49% of Republicans, support free choice. Considering the fact that the American electorate is approximately 30% Democratic, 30% Republican, and 40% independent, the scales tip with independents. However, jurisprudence is not a popularity contest as there is something far more important than that at issue.

Religion plays an outsized role in all this given the enormous power of Roman Catholicism and other Christian Sects. If you think abortion is wrong, don’t get an abortion, but it’s not acceptable to impose your religious views on others. Why should a Jew or Muslim, a Buddhist or a Hindu, for example, have to live according to your beliefs? If you don’t get this, please don’t ever use the phrase “religious freedom” again. Believe whatever you want, practice whatever you believe, but never impose those beliefs on others as that is a violation of the US Constitution and the existential liberty of all mankind. Without respecting that we fail as a society and invite the tyranny where government actually has a say in what you as a human being actually are, i.e. free or slave.

“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” George Orwell

It is amazing that the creation of a government entity can push all other news like the Ukrainian War and a major market correction off the front pages, but that happened Wednesday with the Biden administration’s announcement of the formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board”. To say that this news went viral is a profound understatement. The fumbling by White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to explain what this board would actually do showed that they were ill-prepared to discuss this, which is odd given that one would think such an issue would have been discussed in detail in order to prepare for the inevitable press coverage.

The fumbling ranged from focusing on disinformation coming from Russia, misleading messages about the US/Mexico border, human smugglers, false claims about U.S. border policy, and to counter misinformation in Hispanic communities especially. Myorkas also stated that as part of the Department of Homeland Security, the board would focus on foreign threats. Also mentioned however were the administrations concerns about American’s lack of trust in COVID policies. Responses to questions as exactly what its powers would be were studiously avoided, likely because they really didn’t yet know.

Nina Jankowicz was named executive director, which seemed to garner special attention given her political history of categorizing any criticism of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration as misinformation, adding to the perception of the board as just a partisan propaganda tool.

The press seemed both amused and confused at the same time, some noting for instance the rhythmic similarity of the initials DGB for the board to the KGB; others asking more serious questions as to the timing of the announcement given the news of free speech advocate Elon Musk buying Twitter, and the Justice Department’s recent disclosures of the content of Hunter Biden’s laptop regarding influence peddling with foreign nationals, spawning all sorts of commentaries.

One of the more telling comments was the comparison of the DGB to George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” in his book 1984, which controlled the news media, entertainment, the fine arts and education, in order to change the facts to fit party doctrine. Although the comment was shared by many, I wonder who actually understood the depth of the danger for even proposing, let alone creating, such a toxic entity in a so called democracy. It is hard imagining a more horrifying way to determine what is or isn’t misinformation then leaving that in the hands of known liars like partisan bureaucrats.

Even prior to Orwell’s famous book of 1949, we have the terrifying example of the 1933 Propaganda Ministry for the Nazi Party headed by Joseph Goebbels, which eventually took control of the news media, arts, music, radio, press, films, theatre and was especially vigilant in protection against “counter-propaganda”, both foreign and domestic. For those that think this could never happen in America, then explain why a free country should ever tolerate the existence of a Disinformation Governance Board.

The immediate cause for the creation of the board at this time may very well have come about as a reaction to the Musk Twitter purchase and DOJ investigation, but the underlying cause goes back quite some time. The most alarming and persistent examples of the repression of liberty is the attack on free speech in the media and our universities. In both cases we have the bizarre display of two institutions who at one time were the most ardent proponents and guardians of this vital and cherished liberty. Now, in the name of some ill-conceived crusade against “disinformation”, any idea expressed that is judged to be harmful, inaccurate, unacceptable or contrarian must be silenced. The idea of free speech is not that everything said must be judged by all to be true in order to be heard, but that everyone has a right to be heard regardless of what they have to say. So strongly was this right held that it became part of the republic’s constitution, and even just as important a part of our ethos.

The concept that free speech needs to be a “regulated right” in order to protect democracy is an oxymoron; such nonsense is intended to make us think that liberty is actually respected by the government while it destroys it. In effect it makes free speech not a right at all, but a privilege reserved to the regulators and whatever speech it may approve of. Embracing totalitarian methods without embracing a totalitarian ideology shows that our government fails to realize that the methods are a manifestation of that ideology. As Thomas Sowell so well observed “Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.”

By narrowing the definitions of what is acceptable speech while at the same time professing to protect democracy creates an illusion for people to feel comfortable with a status quo created to protect those in power. The stage was set for such a thing to happen at the cultural level in American society such to the extent that when people object to such intrusions on our liberty, it is openly equated with fascism, when in fact such intrusions are based on willful ignorance and/or ideological decadence.

While we hear so much about inclusiveness from Progressives, we are treated to their hypocrisy in supporting repression of free speech. How can you have a meaningful civil discourse among all citizens by excluding those you disagree with? While there have been many voices criticizing this creation of what is in effect a governance of speech, there was one that made a critical point to all, including those responsible for this atrocity, and that was Justin Amash who said “Wherever you land on the political spectrum, imagine your worst enemies in charge of the Disinformation Governance Board.”

“We consider it sheer arrogance to believe that people in Government know better for the people than they know for themselves.” Dwight Eisenhower

Throughout his military and political career Eisenhower was reticent to express his political beliefs, even after he left politics. One of his rare comments was the above quote on the growth of government in American society. This arrogance of government has grown enormously, together with its size, since his retirement. This has been facilitated greatly with the shift in American society away from its reverence for liberty.

America’s founding principles are based on the philosophy of John Locke, arguably the greatest political scientist of The Enlightenment. As an advocate of man’s natural rights, he wrote “All people are free, equal, and have natural rights of life, liberty, and property that rulers cannot take away. All original power resides in the people, and they consent to enter into a social contract among themselves to form a government to protect their rights.” Therein we can find the very purpose for which a free society forms government to begin with. It was this foundational principle upon which the US Constitution was constructed; it’s not what governs the people, but what governs those who govern the people. The very concept of a limited government is in order to preserve and protect liberty.

What is most disturbing about our current state of affairs is a government that overtly professes its disdain for such a concept. We have Trump’s attempt to thwart the electoral process in the 2020 election. Subsequently we have a President issuing “mandates” like a king issuing edicts, and supporting proposals to pack the court in order to assure the outcomes his political party demands. We even have a Congress professing the idea that we don’t even need the Supreme Court because it represents a check on the wishes of the legislature and the electorate.

What is actually at play here is a societal corruption of these fundamental principles by those professing to be experts in all matters political, social, economic, philosophical and educational; you name the topic and you will find an expert espousing “progress” away from those principles, which they deem to be tools of oppression and manifestations of racism. The defining of the essentials of liberty with an opposite meaning is best expressed by Orwell who once observed that “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

The “principle” under which those that identify as “Progressives” propose such things is “social justice”; this is not a definitive concept but a vague and therefore malleable catch-all for whatever the cliché of the day is trending. Should someone disagree with whatever a BLM advocate may say, they are racists, and if that someone stands firm on the basis of free speech, well that shows what’s wrong with free speech. Is this as Orwell observed stupidity, or is there malice at work? What we have is a disdain of liberty because it does not yield equality; except in regards to the law liberty can’t do so because no two people can ever be equal as each individual is different from all others, which is the basis for the very concept of liberty to begin with, the sovereignty of the individual. Of course there is the ultimate alternative to liberty known as slavery.

This phenomenon of the disdain for liberty is nothing new in America. Alexis de Tocqueville observed nearly two centuries ago that “Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” It is a malignancy within the culture of American society that has led to the cancerous growth of government. With every crisis that arises, whether real or imaginary, the American people are led more and more to believe that government is a solution, despite the fact that it enables more and more corruption of liberty. It really matters little whether tyranny arises through hereditary rule, electoral process or revolution, it is liberty that is lost as the state grows ever larger. The US government has grown so large that it currently absorbs nearly 48% of our GDP; even such authoritarian states like China are less at about 33%. The Federal government employs about 2.9M people, excluding the military, while China employs about half that, again excluding the military. Further, this bloated Leviathan now has a debt larger than our GDP.

As we come out of the COVID crisis, we are now burdened with yet another; constantly needing a crisis to justify expanded power, the Ukrainian-Russian War, like the Cold War, serves statists another opportunity. President Biden, experiencing embarrassing low popularity, espouses to be a war leader to deflect attention from his incompetence. We would do well to listen to one of our country’s greatest military leaders, General Douglas McArthur, about such folly: “Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Indeed, it is a part of the general patterns of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.”

However, there are signs of a shift in our political dynamics, some good but also some that don’t reflect well on our national psyche. According to a recent Gallup Poll, only 35 percent of Americans trust the Federal Government. This aligns closely to Biden’s approval rating, which is not all that different from Trump’s prior to the 2020 election. Also of note was the Pew Poll from last year that showed that the two major political parties each had about 30% registration of the electorate, while the independents have grown to 40%. This could be serendipity of statistics, but regardless it is apparent, and perhaps inevitable, that Americans increasingly view government negatively.

Now that’s not to say that Americans have become more concerned with the loss of liberty; it could, and likely also shows an increasing polarization of the two main parties, with many Americans troubled by that. However, as the great and sadly late Walter Williams observed “Now is not the time to pine for the days of agreeable politics. In recent decades, the US has gone through radical political and cultural transformations that are making the country progressively ungovernable. Any kind of national election from here on out will be viewed as illegitimate by the losing side due to the perceived high stakes of these affairs. No longer do America’s partisan coalitions treat each other as respectable competitors, but rather as existential threats that must be vanquished at the ballot box. As America’s social fabric continues withering and polarization intensifies, it’s only a matter of time before this kind of tension turns violent.” A very prescient observation considering what happened during the riots of 2020 and January 6^th.

Ronald Reagan once observed that no government ever voluntarily reduces its size and power; however, there is a way to make that happen and without physical force, but for the American people to liberate their minds away from the parasitical nature of what is contrarily called “progressivism”. This is not wishful thinking as the power of ideas has always been understood, especially by tyrants like Joseph Stalin who famously said “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, so why would we let them have ideas?”

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Isaac Asimov

Ali Velshi, MSNBC reporter and anchor, recently “suggested”, whatever that means, that NATO do more than sanctions against Russian aggression in Ukraine.  When asked what that meant, his response was “Direct military involvement”. While the Biden Administration has repeatedly assured Americans that the US will not get involved with any military actions against Russia, it does continue to press the NATO  countries, particularly Germany, to cut off all Russian energy imports, the one sanction that would likely enrage Putin to use non-conventional weapons such as biological, chemical, or even “tactical” nuclear.

While Velshi is simply a reporter and not some cabinet member putting forth policy, he represents a major media player pinning for an expansion of a war that is currently confined to a limited area of Europe. Granted that Russian military tactics qualify for war crimes, but to propose that NATO entertain what would be an exponential increase of human carnage is irresponsible journalism; unfortunately, he is not alone.

In various Baltic and Eastern European NATO states there is a growing demand for various measures such as supplying Ukraine offensive weaponry like tanks and jets, and instituting a no-fly zone.  The latter is a virtual declaration of war as it would mean engaging Russian air power. It’s easy for these small nations, none of which have sufficient air power, to propose such things. Should this happen, it will not be at their cost in pilot deaths or lost resources, but likely given their proximity to Russia civilian deaths when it retaliates.

It is apparent that Russia drastically underestimated Ukraine’s defensive ability and overestimated its own military ability, especially its competency. What on paper appeared to be a war that would take a mere week to win, has become an embarrassing exposure of a once formidable war machine reduced to a gang of thugs with little training and even less resolve. With little to show for a month of war, they resort to barbarism, a sign of at best a third rate army; more the reason to beware of a wounded beast in possession of weapons of mass destruction. While Russia’s recent withdrawal from parts they invaded is called a ruse for reorganizing and resupplying their forces, it brings to mind Patton’s famous dig at Montgomery’s suggestion that he do just that during the Battle of the Bulge; he declined as he did not want to fight for the same real estate twice.

Despite Biden’s bluster that NATO is united in its resolve, the EU countries are still not buying into an energy sanction, at least not yet; the reason is simple, they can’t afford to. While the EU’s dependency on Russian energy is a dilemma of their own making, the present reality is that such an action would kill their economy, especially Germany’s, and as Germany goes so does the EU. Who can blame them; they always declined to have Ukraine part of NATO or the EU based on its corruption and authoritarian governments. That did not change with Zelenskyy as he recently declared that all political parties other than his own are suspended; as James Madison said, “Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.”

As far as the US offering the EU energy support by supplying LNG, such plans are apparently more for show than substance as it would represent a small fraction of the EU’s needs. LGN is not only expensive to process, but difficult to transport. It takes specially equipped tankers to cross the Atlantic, and then you need adequate port facilities to accept it, both of which are in short supply. We would do our allies better by understanding that unlike the US they lack domestic capabilities.

While we have no way of knowing what the outcome of the Ukrainian war will be, we can only make it worse (and yes it can get even worse) by meddling in a war we don’t even have a treaty basis or security urgency for doing so. What’s curious about Ukraine is the relationship of both the last and the current residents of the White House with it and its Russian antagonists. What’s more important than even that is our vigilance and competency to avoid the refuge of violence.