(This lecture was presented on July 18, 2020 at the 2020 Mises University.)

The year 2020 is not passing quietly. We are witnessing events unthinkable even a few months ago: keep your antisocial distance, wear a mask when entering a bank, follow the arrows on the floor of the supermarket, all sporting events cancelled, homeschoolingeven for university studentsis approved by all corners of government and society. Most relevant to this discussion: pot shops, liquor stores, and abortion clinics are essential; churches during Holy Week are not.

Add to this the protestsmore specifically the riots. Police told by government officials to stand down. Those who intend to defend their lives and their property are the ones judgedby the media, and potentially by government prosecutors and courts. Oh, yes: protesting and rioting wards off virusesno need for masks.

What, of all of this, is directly relevant to you? Why did I feel it appropriate to change the topic of this lecture in the last days? We are living through massive cultural changes. While culture always evolves, in the last several decades the changes have been revolutionaryand I use that term purposefully. These changes are aimed right at you and those who sat in your place over the last decades. The purpose is to create soldiers for the revolution.

What I hear of college, and it also is true in business and government, are stories of various cultural indoctrinationsmade ever more intense given the pretext for these recent riots. Politically correct speech to include even compelled speech, cancel culture, self-flagellation, a fight for the gold medal in the oppression olympics. If you disagree with any of this, you are a fascist. To further cement this indoctrination, a requirement to take classes that tear down Western civilizationeven saying those two words in anything other than a scornful tone could be costly.

There is a purpose behind this, a strategy. Events that we have been living through recently are not spontaneous or random. This is not accidental. These events are the result of a political strategy designed to strip us of our liberty. It is an insidious strategy. It is also very effective.

Whether knowingly or not, those carrying out this strategy are using the playbook of the most successful Marxist thinker in history. Given the damage this strategy has done to the freedoms of the West, I consider him to be the greatest political strategist in history.

And this is what I would like to discuss. Before beginning, I must give you fair warning on two points: First, much of this Marxist playbook sounds an awful lot like the wishes of simplistic libertarianslibertarianism for children, as a good friend once labeled this. I will come back to this point more than once.

Second, there will be a lot of discussion of Western tradition and culture in this lecture. Inherently this will include Christianity. But if you want to understand the enemys playbook, then this cannot be avoided.

Now, I know many libertarians push back hard on this topic: Christianity is unnecessary for liberty; in fact it is an enemy to liberty. I will only ask that you keep in mind: the most successful Marxist thinker in history believed that Christianity is the enemy of communism; its what stood in the way of communisms advance in the West. For now, I ask that you stay open to the possibility that he was rightbecause, when I look around me today, he sure appears to have been right.

With this laborious introduction out of the way, lets begin. The political strategist of whom I am speaking is Antonio Gramsci. Malachi Martin summarizes the importance of Gramsci, in his book The Keys of this Blood:

the political formula Gramsci devised has done much more than classical Leninismand certainly more than Stalinismto spread Marxism throughout the capitalist West.

What is that formula? Gary North explains: noting that Western society was deeply religious, Gramsci believed that

the only way to achieve a proletarian revolution would be to break the faith of the masses of Western voters in Christianity and the moral system derived from Christianity.

Religion and culture were at the base of the pyramid, the foundation. It was the culture, and not the economic condition of the working class, that was the key to bringing communism to the West. To be fair to Gramsci, he didnt start this ball rolling; the West was doing a fine job of damaging its cultural tradition.

One can point to elements of medieval Catholicism, the Reformation and Renaissance, the Enlightenment (as I have previously discussed), and postmillennial pietist Protestants (as Murray Rothbard so clearly demonstrated) as all contributing to this destruction long before Gramsci hit the scene. But without these cracks in the armor, Gramsci would never have been successful.

What is our current condition relative to Gramscis objectives? I could speak to the destruction of the family, the loss of all meaningful intermediating governance institutions, the absurdity of a good portion of what passes for university studies today, especially in liberal arts and humanitiesall of which are symptoms of the crumbling of the ultimate target at which Gramsci aimed. We have, this year, been given indisputable evidence as to the success of his political strategy in the response by Christian leaders to the coronavirus. Just as one example, from Kentucky:

When I asked (Bishop John Stowe of the Catholic Diocese of Lexington) what he would say to a pastor planning Easter worship, he was blunt: I would say its irresponsible, he said. Its jeopardizing peoples lives.

I know we live in a fact-free world, but was it ever wise to believe that we were facing the Black Death? In premodern plagues, did Christian leaders act this way? The simple answer to both questions is no, yet we have churches closed during Holy Week. I cannot think of a better symbolic representation of the destruction of Christianity in the West. Such is the success of Antonio Gramsci.

Who is Antonio Gramsci? He was an Italian Marxist (more accurately, an Italian communist), writing on political theory, sociology, and linguistics. His work focused on the role that culture and tradition play in preventing communism from spreading through the West.

Gramsci was born in 1891 and died in 1937, the middle of seven children. Hunchbacked, either due to a malformed spine from birth or a childhood accident; it is not clear. One of the stories has him falling from the arms of a servant down a steep flight of stairs. Though his family gave him up for dead, his aunt anointed his feet with oil from a lamp dedicated to the Madonna. Ironic.

Continuously sickly, until the age of fourteen a coffin for him was kept at the ready in his bedroom. His father was thrown in prison for political cause and his mother, somehow, kept the family alive.

Prior to leaving Sardinia for Turin and university, he was a nationalistSardinia for the Sardinians. Upon arriving in Turin, he came upon the automotive factories of Fiat. It was here that he found the class struggle: workers and bosses.

World War I made this clear: half a million Italian peasants died, while the profits of industrialists rose. He left university and began writing. He founded a newspaper: LOrdine nuovo, The New Order, with its first issue delivered on May Day 1919. He was a founder and leader of the Communist Party of Italy, and a member of Parliament.

With parliamentary immunity suspended by Mussolini, he was sent to prison. Several years later, a prisoner exchange was proposed by the Vatican: send Gramsci to Moscow in exchange for a group of priests imprisoned in the Soviet Union. (Mussolini put a stop to these negotiations in early 1933.)

It was during his time in prison that he wrote his famous Prison Notebooks, describing the contents as Everything that Concerns People. It comprised over twenty-eight hundred handwritten pages. Twenty-one of the notebooks bear the stamp of prison authorities. Given the risk of censorship, he used bland terms in place of traditional Marxist terminology.

Though completed by 1935, these were only published in the years 194851, and not in English until the 1970s. By 1957, nearly four hundred thousand copies had been sold.

Suffering from various heart, respiratory, and digestive diseases, he was eventually transferred to a prison hospital facility. On April 25, 1937the same day that he received news that he would be releasedhe suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died two days later.

Through his notebooks, he introduced several ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory, and educational theory. Most important was the idea of cultural hegemony, which was the unifying idea of Gramscis work from 1917 until he died.

Cultural hegemony: Why hadnt the Marxist revolution swept the West by the early twentieth century? Gramsci suggested that capitalists did not maintain control simply coercivelyas Marx would describe itbut also ideologically. The values of the bourgeoisie were the common values of all. These values helped to maintain the status quo and limited any possibility of revolution.

While Lenin felt culture was ancillary to political objectives (as do many libertarians), Gramsci saw culture as the key. The working class would need to develop a culture of its own, separate and distinct from the common values of the larger society. Control their beliefs and you control the people. This was only possible if the hegemony of the ruling class was in crisis.

John Cammett expands on this point. Hegemony is described as an order diffused throughout society in all institutional and private manifestations. All tastes, morality, customs, including religious and political principles, are infused with its spirit. This tone is set from the topone class or group over other classes. From Cammett:

The fundamental assumption behind Gramscis view of hegemony is that the working class, before it seizes State power, must establish its claim to be a ruling class in the political, cultural, and ethical fields.

There are three phases to the revolution in this regard: first, take claim to be the ruling class in culture; second, seize State power; third, transform completely the economic base. You can decide how far along we are in this path.

A second important idea was Gramscis focus on intellectuals. Gramsci believed that the working class would have to develop their own intellectuals, with values that were critical of the status quo. This would require the takeover of the educational establishment and institutions. These intellectuals, through the educational establishment and the state, had almost free reign to push forward the revolutionary idea.

Gramscis idea of intellectuals is much broader than academicians and the like. From the book Gramscis Politics, by Anne Sassoon, Gramsci identifies two groups of these intellectuals: organic intellectuals, coming from the working class, and traditional intellectualsthe clergy, philosophers, academicians. This latter group presents a false air of continuity from their predecessors. Today I would include thought leaders from entertainment, sports, business, and politics in one or the other of these two groups.

Gramsci is, perhaps, the foundational theorist for what we now call cultural Marxism. When it comes to the importance of the culture and the value of mass media in influencing the political and economic system of a country and economy, Gramscis work spurred the growth of an entire movement in the field of cultural studies.

Gary North describes Gramsci as the most important anti-Marxist theorist ever to come out of the Marxist movement. He was anti-Marxist, because, unlike Marx, he did not place the mode of production at the center of social development. Paul Piccone furthers this point: Gramscis vision contradicted official Marxist-Leninist ideology, providing an ethical and subjective dimension superior to the formers materialism.

According to Angelo Codevilla, Gramsci even had scorn for Marxisms focus on economic factors: stuff like that is for common folks. It was a little formula for half-baked intellectuals. Economic relations were just one part of social reality; the chief parts were intellectual and moral.

Many libertarians, like Marx, are equally focused on the mode of production as the key to liberty, but on the other side of the coin. They are focused on economic freedom as the means to deliver liberty for all, and, like Marx, they virtually ignore or even despise any cultural aspects. Gramsci knew better, andas should be obvious by the comparison I am drawinghe offers a lesson for libertarians who believe that broader cultural questions beyond the nonaggression principle are irrelevant for liberty.

Continuing with North:

Gramsci argued, and the Frankfurt School followed his lead, that the way for Marxists to transform the West was through cultural revolution: the idea of cultural relativism. The argument was correct, but the argument was not Marxist. The argument was Hegelian.

The Frankfurt school further developed the concept of critical theory. Critical theory teaches one to be critical of every prevailing norm, attitude, and cultural attribute in society; the purpose is to challenge power structures and hierarchies. Spelling out precisely the discourse of tolerance that we are faced with today, Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt school would write:

the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, (and) opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed.

Violent revolution was not the answer. From Malachi Martin:

While firmly committed to global Communism, (Gramsci) knew that violence would fail to win the West. American workers would never declare war on their middle-class neighbors as long as they shared common Christian values.

Martin continues:

The main weapons would be deception, manipulation and infiltration. Hiding their Marxist ideology, the new Communist warriors would seek positions of influence in seminaries, government, communities, and the media.

Gramsci agreed with Lenin that there was an inner force in man, driving him to the Workers Paradise, but he felt that the assumptions underlying this Marxian view were too basic and gratuitous. Yes, the great mass of the worlds population was made up of workers, but this was insufficient, as Martin would note:

What became clear to (Gramsci), however, was that nowhereand especially not in Christian Europedid the workers of the world see themselves as separated from the ruling classes by an ideological chasm.

These workers would not rise up against their coreligionists, those with whom they shared culture, custom, and tradition. They would certainly not offer a violent overthrow as long as these traditions were held in common. Again, citing Martin:

Because no matter how oppressed they might be, the structure of the working classes was defined not by their misery or their oppression but by their Christian faith and their Christian culture.

Gramsci found the logic of Marx as it found its home in Lenin to be futile and contradictory. Was it any wonder that the only state in which Marxism took hold was the state which held it together by force and terror? Without changing that formula, Marxism would have no future.

A common culture, grounded in Christianity, would always stand in the way, requiring ever increasing terroror requiring a different path. Gramscis path. Murray Rothbard noted the Gramscian long march through our institutions in 1992, writing so colorfully: Yes, yes, you rotten hypocritical liberals, its a culture war!

Angelo Codevilla writes that there would be no need for brute forceat least not on the front end, again, contrary to the general Marxist view. Transform the enemy into the soldier you need; he will then do the rest. Gramscis method would be more Machiavellian than Marxist; in the place of the Prince, it would be the party.

This method would eliminate the very possibility of a cultural resistance to the communists progressivism. There would be no cultural force standing in its way. As Gramsci believed human nature is not fixed and immutable, it would be the modern Machiavellian princes job to change human nature.

Destroy the old laws, the accustomed ways of living; inculcate new ways of thinking and speakingin essence, introduce an entirely new language. Language is the key to the mastery of consciousness. Language can achieve what force never could. Reform the morals; reform the intellect. In this way, people who would otherwise never spend a minute on such things would become the most rabid soldiers.

A blunt-force hammer would not work. Ranting about a revolution or a dictatorship of the proletariat would only make enemies of the working class. The educational system was the key. Gramscis path to revolution would take much longer than that proposed by Marx or Lenin, but it would be much more thorough and successful.

In the meantime, use their rules against them: the democratic process, lobbying and voting, full parliamentary participation. Behave just like the Western democratsaccept all political parties, forge alliances where convenient. Unlike the majority of Marxists, Gramsci would make common cause with all leftistscommunist and noncommunist alike; every group with a bone to pick with tradition and Christian culture was an ally. Knowingly or unknowingly, they would assist in the communist cause. Martin writes:

Marxists must join with women, with the poor, with those who find certain civil laws oppressive. They must adopt different tactics for different cultures and subcultures. They must never show an inappropriate face. And, in this manner, they must enter into every civil, cultural and political activity in every nation, patiently leavening them all as thoroughly as yeast leavens bread.

Regarding these alliances, Fr. James Thornton adds:

In Gramscis time these included, among others, various anti-fascist organizations, trade unions, and socialist political groups. In our time, alliances with the Left would include radical feminists, extremist environmentalists, civil rights movements, anti-police associations, internationalists, ultra-liberal church groups, and so forth. These organizations, along with open Communists, together create a united front working for the transformation of the old Christian culture.

The method would be described as seduction, as opposed to the rape advised by Marx and committed by Lenin and Stalin. This would subvert Western culture; it would redefine itself without the need for picking fights with it.

Gramsci was writing in the interwar years. Christianity was an already weakened foe: the Enlightenment divorced God from both the individual and reason. Nietzsche announced the death of God in the latter part of the nineteenth century. World War I was the crushing blow, leaving Christian Europe reeling. Gramsci spotted a wounded enemy, and he knew that this is where the fatal blow to the West must be struck.

Whatever was left of the Christian mind must be changed. Every individual, every group in every class, must think about lifes problems without reference to God and Gods laws. No Christian transcendence; at minimum, antipathy, and even positive opposition to any introduction of Christian ideals. These could not possibly be allowed in the conversation regarding the treatment and solution to the problems of modern life.

I could say the same things about many libertarians. Yet, who do you believe has a better understanding of human nature, of the direction where such a path leads: Antonio Gramsci or any libertarian who views the broader culture as ancillary or even irrelevant to liberty? The Christian culture is being destroyed; this we know. Who has been more successful given this path of removing Christianity? Is libertydefined as rights in life and propertyblossoming in the wreckage of its wake, or is it the other thing? To ask the question is to answer it. Martin continues:

All the meaning of human life and the answer to every human hope were contained within the boundaries of the visible, tangible, material world of the here and now.

With this material view offering the limits of our meaning, is it merely coincidence that the West is at the same time going through a crisis of meaning? We have no idea who we are, where we come from, or where we are going. Given that we are told to believe that we are nothing but the result of random atoms smashing together randomly, why would we?

Another utopia, requiring yet another new man. The perfectibility of man was now mans responsibility, not Gods. We have a war on cancer, a war on drugs, a war on poverty, a war on terror, a war on a virus. We must eliminate bigotry, racism, prejudice. We must embrace diversity: we are all different. In the same head and at the same time we must embrace equality: we are all the same.

Academic institutions were already well on their way. Proud of their position as vanguards of forward-looking thinking, these new Marxist interpretations of history, law, and religion were like red meat to a hungry lion. Throw in easy-to-get student loans, extend the college experience to all, and add a couple million newly indoctrinated crusaders every year to the cause.

Secularization in Catholic and Protestant churches would aid and accelerate this reform. Everything is material; nothing is transcendent. In case this wasnt obvious to us before, what could be more secular than Christian churches closing during Holy Weekthe week that gives meaning to the entirety of Christianity? How pathetic we must appear to Christians from centuries past, who comforted the sick during real pandemics.

Speak of mans dignity and mans rights. Speak of these without reference to the Christian transcendence that underpins these; in fact, speak of the Christian transcendence as standing in the way of these.

Tim Cook of Apple gave a speech that was precisely along these lines: mans dignity and rights. While finding a way to mention Muslims and Jews, he made no mention of Christianity. As Jonathan Pageau offers, what Cook is describing is a totalizing system, a system that includes everythingexcept Christianity.

From Cooks speech, there are only two values that matter: total inclusivity, and dont oppose the system. Total inclusivity means no borders: not physicalwhether state or private propertynot mental, not emotional. Not even of your body. If you dont embrace total inclusivity, by definition you are opposing the system; therefore you are to be excluded. This was Gramscis messageand it is Cooks.

Consider all of the systems of belief and thought that find common cause with Gramscis grand strategy: secular humanism, materialism, progressivism, the new atheists, various new age religions, critical theory, postmodernism, even those libertarian strands that find an enemy in Christianity and in traditional norms.

Jeff Deist describes such libertarians, who believe that

liberty will work when humans finally shed their stubborn old ideas about family and tribe, become purely rational freethinkers, reject the mythology of religion and faith, and give up their outdated ethnic or nationalist or cultural alliances for the new hyper-individualist creed. We need people to drop their old-fashioned sexual hang-ups and bourgeois values, except for materialism.

I will ask you to read this quote again, but just replace the first word, liberty, with the word communism. The sentence works perfectly for Gramsci. This hyper-individualist that many libertarians have in view was precisely the type of individual Gramsci desired for his project. From Piccone:

Gramsci considered the constitution of individuality resulting from the revolutionary process to be an irreversible development preventing any subsequent disintegration. For Gramsci, the fully individualized ego is not the starting point of sociopolitical revolution, but the result.

Hans Hoppe also offers that libertarianism is logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture and religion. He writes:

logically one can beand indeed most libertarians in fact are: hedonists, libertines, immoralists, militant enemies of religion in general and Christianity in particularand still be consistent adherents of libertarian politics.

Hoppe says libertarians can be this way in theory, but liberty will not be the result:

You cannot be a consistent left-libertarian, because the left-libertarian doctrine, even if unintended, promotes Statist, i.e., un-libertarian, ends.

Gramsci understood exactly that which Deist and Hoppe describe. Gramsci believed that the destruction of these traditional values would lead to communism; many libertarians believe that destruction of these same values will lead to liberty. Who do you think knows better?

Murray Rothbard would add:

Contemporary libertarians often assume, mistakenly, that individuals are bound to each other only by the nexus of market exchange. They forget that everyone is necessarily born into a family, a language, and a culture.usually including an ethnic group, with specific values, cultures, religious beliefs, and traditions.

Rothbard offers that Gramscis hyperindividual is not a human being; yet hyperindividualism is the view of many contemporary libertarians. Hoppe summarizes, regarding what are known as left-libertarian positions, from his book Democracy: The God That Failed:

The views held by left-libertarians in this regard are not entirely uniform, but they typically differ little from those promoted by cultural Marxists.

In other words, the cultural views of libertarians such as these cannot be differentiated from Gramscis. This is not to say that these libertarians have communism in their sights. Yet look around us today: Is freedom advancing or retreating? We are sitting at a time when the evidence could not be more clear.

We live in a narrative. The West had a narrative. There will always be a narrative. Destroying the traditional narrative will not leave a void; a new narrative will take hold. We see it on the street: kneeling, the washing of feet, sitting with arms raised to heaven, the sainting of a Minneapolis martyr.

Once we lose our story, our narrative, our tradition, we are lost. We are easily manipulated, not having any foundation of meaning. With no foundation, we blow freely in the direction of the new, loudest narrative.

Narratives are always exclusionaryand if you dont embrace the total inclusivity of this new narrative, you will be excluded. Christianity teaches one way of handling those who are excluded, those on the margins: love. This new narrative teaches another, and it does not bode well for libertyor life. Returning to Gramsci, from Martin:

Total materialism was freely, peacefully and agreeably adopted everywhere in the name of mans dignity and rightsautonomy and freedom from outside constraints. Above all, as Gramsci had planned, this was done in the name of freedom from the laws and constraints of Christianity.

Create the autonomous, completely sovereign individual, freed from all hierarchies and freed from all responsibilities. Martin continues:

By just that process, authored by Antonio Gramscihas Western culture deprived itself of its lifeblood.

There is only one way to fight this battlean embrace of objective values in ethics. Murray Rothbard knew it. He would write:

What I have been trying to say is that Misess utilitarian, relativist approach to ethics is not nearly enough to establish a full case for liberty. It must be supplemented by an absolutist ethican ethic of liberty, as well as of other values needed for the health and development of the individualgrounded on natural law, i.e., discovery of the laws of mans nature.

Natural law. Ethics beyond the nonaggression principle. I seem to recall hearing something about this earlier this week. An idea flowing from Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, and Murray Rothbardamong many others. Available for all to discoverChristian and non-Christian alikethrough right reason.

It strikes me that the true political divide in society today is not based on the stereotypical left and right or liberal and conservative labels, or even libertarian and statist, but based on where one sits regarding natural law and objective ethics.

Rothbard takes this idea of natural law and objective ethics quite seriously:

See the original post:

Antonio Gramsci: The Best Political Strategist in Historical past - The Shepherd of the Hills Gazette

Commentary: A fundamental assumption underlying libertarianism is the persons sovereignty over their own physical bodies. This idea is the foundation of the right to private property, which is ownership over the product of ones physical body.

Personal sovereignty also provides the fundamental logic to the adage, Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose, or to rephase in a way more relevant to the time of COVID, Your right to spiel virus ends at my nasal cavity. For libertarians and libertarian fellow travelers, like me, these are always the hardest questions, how to reconcile conflicting rights. Where does the right to swing end and the nose begin? It is a hard question, not easily answered.

For those who simplistically state that it is their American right not to wear a mask, they are wrong because the right they claim conflicts with others right to go into public without being coated in virus laden spital. Among the fundamental functions of government according to libertarians is the adjudication of conflicting rights. For government to decide that the balance falls on requiring masks in public is not in conflict with basic American liberties. For government to decide the opposite also is not conflict. Balancing competing rights is a basic element of politics.

One idea would be to abandon a pure libertarian approach to bring in utilitarian considerations. Utilitarianism is the school of thoughts that argues for the application of cost benefit analysis in determining the best policy to pursue.

In the case of masks, the utilitarian would compare the cost or harm imposed on the wearer to the benefit accruing to others. For example, one economic study found that mandatory mask laws reduced transmission rates by 10%, which would have reduced cumulative deaths in the United States by 40% through the end of May, about 40,000 lives.

The EPA uses $7.4 million as the value of a statistical life, meaning saving one life on average is expected to add $7.4 million in economic output. If wearing masks saves 40,000 lives, that translates into an expected savings of $296 billion. A disposable face mask costs about 40-cents, so giving every American one mask a day for 90 days costs about $12 billion. The net monetary benefit from wearing masks is about $284 billion, or $811 per person for the three months ending May 31.

Of course, the above calculation does not take account of human suffering. The suffering of the millions who have contracted COVID, as well as the suffering of their loved ones, must be weighed against the discomfort felt by reluctant mask wearers. I think it obvious were the balance falls.

That is not to say that reluctant mask wearers dont have a point. They are being asked to sacrifice their comfort and incur what they perceive to be an indignity for the benefit of others. This when the science, while becoming more certain, is still evolving.

Here Libertarian ideals can come to the rescue. The solution is to compensate mask wearers for giving up their property right, which is the joy of going maskless. Exactly how this would be done isnt completely clear, maybe with a tax write-off. A simpler and more effective payment might well be to say thank you to those around you wearing a mask, for their considerate behavior and kind concern for their follow Las Crucens health.

Christopher A. Erickson, Ph.D., is a professor of economics at NMSU. He considers himself to be a commonsense libertarian, meaning that he defaults to libertarian solutions, except when those solutions dont work. The opinions expressed may not be shared by the regents and administration of NMSU. Chris can be reached at chrerick@nmsu.edu.

Continued here:

Those who claim wearing masks to be un-American haven't thought through the problem - KRWG

In 2017, 40 percent of entrepreneurs were female, representing a 58 percent uptick in female-owned businesses from a decade prior. Fifty-six percent of college students are female, a complete reversal from fifty years prior, when 58 percent of men filled university halls. Yet in 2017, only 2.2 percent of venture capital (VC) money went to women-founded companies. Society has changed, yet the worlds of start-ups and venture capital are still predominantly run by white men.

Big Think was founded in 2007 by Victoria Montgomery Brown and Peter Hopkins. As with many start-ups, the fundraising process provides quite a story, one that Brown has now decided to tell. Her forthcoming book, Digital Goddess: The Unfiltered Lessons of a Female Entrepreneur (HarperCollins Leadership), reveals how this website came to beand how women can overcome barriers in a male-dominated business world.

Below are six lessons from Brown's chapter on raising capital when you have no money or product. Brown writes that there are essential qualities for starting a business that help you navigate the terrain, such as a having a strong vision and maintaining unflinching tenacity. While some of these came naturally to Brown, others were hard-fought lessons that changed her for the better. The chapterand the bookis a reminder that with perseverance and dedication to learning, anything is possible.

Use whatever will get you in the door

The greatest challenge every start-up faces is "first money in." Many investors are willing to back a good idea only when someone else has already committedand they like to know who that someone else is.

In some ways, being a female founder has its advantages. As Brown writes, a Boston Consulting Group study shows that female-run start-ups outperform male-run start-ups, generating 78 cents in revenue per dollar invested compared to men at 31 cents. That's solid data, but you still need to get in the door.

Brown leaned heavily on her master's degree from Harvard Business School. This helped tremendously for her first investor meeting with Founder Collective co-founder David Frankel. He was enthusiastic, but he wanted to know who else was interested. Brown turned to former Harvard University president, Larry Summers. His buy-in increased Frankel's interest; he became the lead investor.

Meeting with such heavyweights is no easy matter for entrepreneurs with no product or history in founding a company. As Brown writes, "Study after study confirms that people tend to equate confidence with competence." Presenting Big Think confidently made the impression needed to secure funding.

With two investors in, landing Nantucket Nectars founder Tom Scott and billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel was not as challenging as one might assume. Brown writes, "Getting the first investor feels impossible, but if you can pull it off, getting the second is sometimes surprisingly easy."

Quit your day job

This is one of the hardest aspects of being an entrepreneur. Not only do founders not have the capital needed to launch their company, they sometimes work for years without paying themselves. If investors are going to put money into your project, they have to know you're serious about success.

"People don't like to fund things if the entrepreneur and CEO don't have their entire skin in the game. You better have something big to lose, or how are people going to believe you are all in?"

With no income or savings, Brown quit her day job in order to devote her every waking hour to Big Think. Self-imposed deadlines made sure she hit her targets. Founding a company isn't comfortable; waiting for relief will only distract you from the work that needs to get done.

"If you truly want to start somethingwhatever it may bewaiting won't helpput yourself in a position where you must do it."

Three months after quitting her day job, money showed up in Big Think's bank account.

Build momentum

If you're trying to convince investors to believe in youand it is you that they're investing in, more than your productshow them traction, even when you don't have it. Go out and make it happen.

"Our investors needed to be intrigued by the idea and see its potential to succeed and to scale, but they also needed to see that I was actually in a place of discomfort if it didn't work out."

Securing funding before showing a minimal viable product (MVP) is no easy task. Brown knew that she had to show something. Big Think started as a video platform; she needed experts to appear on video. Through their networks, Brown and Hopkins contacted Richard Branson, Moby, the Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman, and famed architect Lee Mindel. They wanted them to be anchors.

Convincing high-profile business leaders, artists, and academics to partake in a new project is as daunting as landing VCs. When these figures inevitably asked about precedent for such an initiative, Brown turned a potential negative into a positive. "No one. We are reaching out to a very select, initial group of experts to kick-start it."

Making people feel critical to a project's success is a powerful way to get their endorsement, Brown writes. More importantly, it worked. A risky play between content generators and financial backers worked out. Big Think had momentum.

Do your research

As mentioned, investors are often more interested you than your product. As Brown writes, fundraising is "about creating a situation where investors get a real glimpse of who you are and why they should invest in you."

It's not a one-way street. You should also be interested in them.

"Be truly interested in the person you are meeting or don't bother meeting."

Brown advises looking beyond LinkedIn profiles and superficial bullet points. Investigate their interests, such as their passions and philanthropic pursuits. Understand why they might be interested in your venture and where it intersects with their business. Discuss topics outside of the investment opportunity. Engage them as people, not bank accounts.

"Helping others feel attractive and specialnot in a sexual way but in a human wayhelps them see you as a more attractive person, too. But you have to mean it."

Learn to say yes

The discomfort of being a founder includes stretching your boundaries. PayPal famously iterated numerous times before finding success. Flexibility is key if you want to survive. Sometimes that means admitting your limitations.

"Here's something major that HBS [Harvard Business School] taught me. You don't need to know how to do things, you need to know how to ask people to do things for you."

Finding the right people is one aspect of saying yes. By admitting your limitations, you say yes to help. But there's also saying yes to projects you're not entirely capable of pulling off.

After scoring a sponsorship with Pfizer, the second Big Think project was with MSNBC. The media company had a deal to provide expert-driven content with GE and SAP. They just didn't have a team to produce it. Being nimble, Big Think could turn it around quickly.

"Smaller companies with greater agility can take advantage of this situation if they just have the courage to step up and offer."

Instead of focusing on the negatives, such as not having a website or even equipment, Brown and Hopkins saw the opportunity. They said yes, and completed the project without a hitch, because they had the foresight to say yes.

Learn to say no

Not everything demands a yes, however. Discernment matters in the frenetic world of start-ups.

There are investors, there are people that connect you with investors, and there are charlatans. As the latter often suck up oxygen in any room they enter, it's easy to confuse bluster with their capabilities.

And so we meet "Jake," who in the early days of Big Think promised a lot, demanded more, and delivered nothing.

"He hadn't brought us any investors, he hadn't booked any experts, he hadn't helped us put together the deck, so what were we doing spending time with him? He felt sort of sleazy, like a smooth talker but not a doer."

Brown told Jake he was not getting equity without deliverables during their final meeting. This news did not go over well. Jake yelled and stormed out. Such momentary discomfort is a low price for not giving up even a piece of your business. Calling our charlatans demands that you say no. Thankfully, for the future of Big Think, one bad evening paid off in the long run.

Credit: Harper Collins

--

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter, Facebook and Substack. His next book is "Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."

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3 highlights from Penn Jillette's Big Think interview on 2020, cancel culture, and friendship - Big Think

Sen. Ted Cruz said the future of conservatism after President Trump leaves office can be both populist and libertarian.

The Texas Republican weighed on ideological debates among conservatives, saying the future of conservative politics can be a combination of libertarian beliefs and populism during a Tuesday interview with the Washington Examiner about his podcast, The Verdict, co-hosted by conservative commentator Michael Knowles.

"I think properly understood, those concepts are complementary, and they're not antagonistic. So I am a conservative, an unabashed conservative. I'm also a populist. I am deeply a populist," Cruz began. "And I also have deep libertarian principles. Look, if you're protecting liberty, that is the foundation of our country. That is the foundation of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. When it comes to populism, I think the most fundamental and important shifts in the last decade in politics is that Republicans have become the party of the working class."

The idea of conservatism "conserving" libertarian beliefs, or classical liberalism, has recently been challenged by some writers. Sohrab Ahmari, a conservative opinion editor for the New York Post, advocated for a "common good" conservatism in May 2019. In an opinion piece for religious publication First Things, he wrote, "Here is the problem: The movement we are up against prizes autonomy above all, too; indeed, its ultimate aim is to secure for the individual will the widest possible berth to define what is true and good and beautiful, against the authority of tradition."

"There's some people who want to use the word populism to say, 'Well, we should just have socialism.' No, socialism is not populism. That's not good for the workers. Socialism is tyranny of government. Every socialist government across the globe has produced poverty and misery and suffering and death," Cruz said.

Earlier, Knowles said the ideological future of conservatism should focus on "ordered liberty" and unite against those "who want to tear down, not just one policy or another, but actually the symbol of our country itself, the star-spangled banner," echoing his previous essay in the American Mind titled, Its Good to Be Against Things.

Cruz did not answer when asked if he plans to run for president after Trump leaves office but called his bid for president in 2016 the "most fun" he's had in his life.

"We'll see. I probably won't make any announcements on this show. But look, it's no secret. I ran for president in 2016. We came very close. I'll tell you this: It's the most fun I've ever had in my life. And I enjoyed every minute of it," he said, adding he believes the United States needs leaders to defend the country in the future.

When asked, the Texas Republican also said he likes the idea of using his podcast to communicate with people similarly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats.

"I am excited about the podcast as a tool. I like the fireside chat analogy. And look, FDR used that powerfully, used the new medium of radio to connect directly with the American people in a time of crisis," he said.

[Read more: Ted Cruz: Unlikely Samuel Alito will soon retire from Supreme Court]

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Ted Cruz: Future of conservatism is populist and libertarian - Washington Examiner

* Illinois Public Radio

Rapper Kanye West was among those submitting petitions for the fall ballot Illinois on the final day for independent and third party candidates to file.

West said he is running for president. But he has missed the deadline to file in several states. While he was on time in Illinois, filing does not guarantee a spot on the ballot. Pettitions can be challenged for the number of signatures and their vailidity. West did not have a vice presidential candidate file with him. []

A judge eased signature requirements for third parties this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak. That made it much easier for the Libertarian candidates running for the legislature to get on the ballot. Steve Suess, the partys state chairman, said that should send a message to the two major parties. []

More than 10 Libertarians are running either for a legislative or a congressional seat in Illinois, along with the offices of President and U-S Senate. The Green Party also has several running for state legislative posts.

You can see all the newly filed candidates by clicking here.

* Fox News

Four minutes before the Illinois State Board of Elections 5 p.m. CT deadline, two [West] representatives filed 412 petition sheets with election officials, a spokesperson confirmed to Fox News.

Election officials will be counting those signatures of registered Illinois voters, of which he was supposed to have had at least 2,500 to get on the ballot. Petition sheets usually contain 10 names per sheet.

They contain 10 lines per sheet. Those lines arent always filled with valid names or any names, for that matter. We shall see.

Adding This was an obvious rush job and they may not survive a challenge

* Bernie

In a central Illinois race, Angel Sides, who got less than 5 percent of the vote in a five-way, 2018 Democratic primary for the U.S. House from the 13th Congressional District, filed as a Green Party candidate in the 87th House District, where state Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, has been unopposed.

In the 96th House District, John Keating II of Springfield filed as a Green Party candidate. Hes taking on Democratic state Rep. Sue Scherer and Republican Charlie McGorray, both of Decatur.

In the 100th District, where Democrat Brandon Adams of Jacksonville already was taking on Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Jacksonville, two candidates filed Monday: Thomas Kuna of Kane, in Greene County, on the Bullmoose party; and Ralph Sides under the banner of the Pro-Gun Pro-Life party.

Original post:

Your Illinois News Radar Longshot day at the ISBE - The Capitol Fax Blog

When U.S. Rep. Justin Amash ended his exploratory bid for the presidency, Libertarian activists held out hope he would run for re-election to his seat in the U.S. House, where he is the first and only Libertarian to serve in Congress.

It seems they are about to be disappointed.

A top Amash aide reiterated this week that the West Michigan congressman idled his congressional campaign back in February.She also indicated Amash does not intend to seek the party's nomination at the Michigan Libertarian Party's convention in Gaylord this weekend.

"He hasn't been campaigning for any office and doesn't plan to seek the nomination for any office," Amash adviser Poppy Nelson said by email.

Amash himself confirmed he isn't seeking re-election to his House seat in a tweet Thursday night.

The congressman's campaign raised only $24,200 for the quarter ending June 30 another indication he's not running for federal office. He previously raised over $1.1 million toward re-election.

That's not to say Amash,40, is done with politics. Those familiar with his thinking suggested he wouldn't have joined the Libertarian Party this spring if he didn't intend to work within the organization and run for office again in the future.

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash(Photo: AP, File)

But Libertarians say they would be disappointed not to see Amash on the ballot after finally seeing one of their own among the ranks of theU.S. House of Representatives a first for the party founded in 1971.

"You can definitely quote me saying that we hope he runs again. I feel pretty confident that applies to every member of the Libertarian Party, no matter where they live,"saidJim Turney, an Amash supporter in Altamonte Springs, Florida, who previouslychaired the national party.

"Because we really admire him a lot. Hes a real hero for us, and we certainly appreciate that he moved over and joined our party."

But after 10 yearsin Congress, the former Republican lawmaker and vocal Trump critic hasparted ways with the conservative House Freedom Caucus he helped to found and has made clear his frustrationwith the hyper-partisanship in Washington.

He has representedthe Grand Rapids area for five terms and sawhis national profile soar after he became the only GOP member of Congress to support Trump's impeachment.

He split from the Republican Party a year ago, became an independent, then signed up with the Libertarian Partyin April before launching an exploratory bid to run for president on the Libertarian ticket.

Amash dropped that possibility after five weeks, citing extreme polarization in the country, resistance in the press to third-party candidates, and limited chances for "lesser-known" candidates to secure media opportunities during the pandemic.

"After much reflection, Ive concluded that circumstances dont lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate," Amash tweeted in May.

The filing deadline for state and federal candidates running withthe Michigan Libertarian Party is Monday the day after their nominating convention concludes.

Gregory Stempfle, state party chair,said the party needs someone like Amash representing his views in Congress but also understands that Amash just might be "tired of everything."

"Justin is the best member of Congress, and itwould just be unfortunate if we didn't have that voice in there," Stempfle said.

"Plus, it would be an opportunity for the party to grow. We've never had an incumbent election campaign before on the federal level. It would have been historic for us."

Some observers say Amash would have faced an uphill fight to retain his seat, despite his advantages of incumbency and name recognition.

It's difficult for third- or minor-party candidates to break through and win election but especially so in times of hyperpolarization, where both the Republican and Democratic bases will be highly engaged and energized in November, said David Dulio, a political scientist at Oakland University.

"Having said that, Justin Amash would have as good of a chance as any third-party candidate given that he has somewhat of an established base of supportfor both votes and fundraising," Dulio said.

Nicholas Sarwark, former chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, said Amash could win the nomination at this weekend's convention if he wanted it, and clinch re-election in the fall with the help of the party's fundraising network.

"Its really up to the candidate, whether they think its the right thing to for their goals and their life and their family," Sarwark said.

"As our first Libertarian congressman I would like to keep that seat," he added. "But I understand if he thinks theres a better way for him to advance the Libertarian Party and improve the conditions of this country that he has to do what he thinks is right."

Nathan Hewer, who represents Amash's congressional district on the state Libertarian Executive Committee, said there's a possibility Amash could be nominated at the state convention even if he doesn't show up in person.

If that happens, Hewer would try to reach the congressman about whether he would accept the nomination, he said."I have no indication what the answer would be," Hewer added.

If Amash is not the nominee, delegates will nominate another Libertarian to run for his seat, Hewer said, though he's personally hoping Amash still runs.

"The feeling is hes been one of the most consistent advocates for liberty weve had in Congress, and I think whatever position he runs for next he will get our full endorsement and full support."

Some party activists in Michigan would like to see Amash run forgovernor in two years, Hewer added, noting that Amashraised the possibilityduring question-and-answer forums he held with Libertarian caucuses during his exploratory bid for president.

"One concern he had was taking a job as a congressman and vacating the position halfway through to take a differentposition. That's a major concern he has," Hewer said.

"I think he just wants to make sure he respects the office and does not take a job that he's not going to carry out to full term."

mburke@detroitnews.com

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Amash not campaigning for re-election to his seat in Congress - The Detroit News

Katherine Mary Nepton(Photo: Courtesy of Katherine Mary Nepton)

Michigan has never had an indigenous justiceon its Supreme Court, according to the states Supreme Court Historical Society.

Katherine Mary Nepton wants to be the first.

She received a pre-nomination for the states Supreme Court, the step before becoming an official candidate. But the 37-year-old Lansing attorney wont learn until July 18 if shell make the ballot for the general election in November.

Nepton, who ran for the Michigan Senate as a Libertarian in 2018, said she can't confirm which political party may nominate her. Her possible nomination is taking placethe same day the Libertarian Party of Michigan will hold itsCandidate Nominating Convention in Gaylord.

If she is nominated, Nepton could become the third indigenous person in the country to be serve on a state Supreme Court after Anne K. McKeig in Minnesota and Raquel Montoya-Lewis in Washington state. The latter two women were appointed in 2016 and 2019, respectively.

The number of indigenous judges at the federal level is also small, with only three in the countrys history, according to theFederal Judicial Center.

The only Native American among 900 federal judges in 2014 was Diane Humetewa in Arizona, according to the American Bar Association. Of the 1.2 million attorneys working in the country that year, a little over 2,600 were indigenous, according to a study from the National Native American Bar Association.

The possibility of serving on the Michigan Supreme Court is something Nepton never foresaw.

Nepton came from humble beginnings in which she worked at Wendys and Menards moving grass seeds to help pay for her law school tuition, she said.

For Nepton, the possibility of serving on the court is about more than making history, though the thought of breaking the glass ceiling also excites her.

Less than 1% of indigenous people get clerkships, which are internships with judges, said Nepton, who never had a clerkship. If me running helps them, thats my win. Thats why Im running. I can do a lot for Michigan in that positionthan the one or two people I help with my firm.

Nepton is a legally recognized member of a First Nations band, a migratory group who are primarily based north of Quebec in Canada.

Nepton grew up in Connecticut with her Montagnais father, Dennis, and her Irish-Scottish and Jewish mother, Mary, before moving to Lansing in 2010 to attend Cooley Law School and then set up her small estate-planning firm.

Life was never predictable for Nepton, whose parents fostered at least 17 children over the years. She shared her two-bedroom, one-bathroom house with 10 others at one point, Nepton said.

Things get hectic, but you learn how to be flexible really quick, she said. My family is my center of gravity. Id get so attached. It takes very little time for them to become yours.

Some of the children were adopted by her parents, she added.

They keep swearing they wont be taking on anymore kids, but every couple of years, we end up with a visitor, Nepton said.

Nepton learned how to interact with different people after having foster siblings who came from different backgrounds and experiences, including sexual assault from their biological families.

It was normal for my 4-year-old sister to say, I dont like the dentist; I dont like things in my mouth, Nepton said. At 15, I knew what that meant.

Her understanding of those who were sexually assaulted is why Nepton worked as a victims advocate in her early 20s in 2006.

Id show up on scenes where an 80-year-old woman was raped, or a 3-year-old child was raped, she said. It was a good job, but it was draining.

Nepton often helped people get into shelters and provided other resources. She also supported them at the hospital and in court, which is what she did for one woman after her husband struck her in the head with a hatchet, Nepton said.

The husband bullied her in front of the judge, Nepton said. Im like, Wait, your honor she hasnt said how scared she is yet. The judge looked at me and growled because Im not supposed to talk.

But Nepton wanted to ensure the woman got a restraining order against the man who abused her.

At the end of the proceedings, the judge granted the womans restraining order and dismissed everyone, except Nepton.

He said, If you speak in my courtroom again, Ill have you arrested. You cant practice law without a law degree, she recounted. I started studying for the LSAT that week.

Ellie Fox met Nepton through mutual friends before working alongside her at Neptons law firm. The two soon became close friends.

We went to Uganda on a mission trip together, Fox said. That bonded us. She is very passionate, loyal and is always thinking of others.

The two visited orphanages, where Nepton often brought paints for the children to make something beautiful, Fox added.

The women have also discussed the experiences of indigenous people, considering Foxs husband, Eric, belongs to the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve in Ontario, Canada.

Nepton has focused much of her adult life on learning as much about her roots as she can. She has regularly traveled to Canada and applied for her Indian card.

As an Indian-card carrying member of the Pekuakamiulnuatsh band who are also known as the Montagnais peopleNepton is eligible to collect benefits from the Canadian government, which recognizes her as a member of her band.

But she doesnt want to do that.

Its mostly because I am so white passing, she explained. I feel weird taking it. If I ever needed it, Id reconsider my situation to stay alive.

Nepton often thinks about her father, who is not white-passing. He had a harder time because of his darker skin, she said.

My cousin and I were encouraged not to be involved in our culture. It was like, Oh, good! You blend in better than we do', she added. I try not to be angry.

Instead, she focuses on the positive aspects of learning about her culture while engaging in the migratory traditions of her people on route to Canada.

They cant keep me out, she said.

Contact LSJ reporter Kristan Obeng at KObeng@lsj.com or 517-267-1344. Follow her on Twitter @KrissyObeng.

Support local journalism:Subscribe to LSJtoday.

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This Lansing attorney is running to be the first indigenous justice on the Michigan Supreme Court - Lansing State Journal

With the Covid-19 pandemic rampaging across the U.S. in April and 20 million people filing for unemployment in that month alone, libertarians thought there was a better way. The Heritage Foundation praised Sweden for preserving economic freedom. The Cato Institute said Swedens response to Covid-19 may prove to be superior from a public health perspective. In early May, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a committee hearing that the U.S. ought to look at the Swedish approach.

The Swedish approach was to largely allow businesses to remain open. And at first, it seemed to work, with a death count nowhere near what it was in countries such as Italy, Spain, and the U.K. But even as Sweden was being hailed as a model, its cases were steadily rising, and its death rate now exceeds that of the U.S. Sweden also did not seem to stave off the economic damage it was aiming to avoid.

Swedens Covid-19 strategy, adopted in March, emerged from the countrys top epidemiologist and other leaders evaluation of what little science about transmission there was at the time, factoring in economic considerations, and making a considered albeit controversial decision to stop well short of the full shutdown that other countries in western Europe (and many U.S. states) adopted.

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In early summer, parts of the U.S. began following a very similar path but one it has stumbled onto, not chosen based on science. Now, the next few weeks will show the consequences of being the accidental Sweden.

In some ways you could say were doing Sweden, but unintentionally and, crucially, without the guardrails that kept that countrys case count from exploding, said physician David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), whose Covid-19 model shows the epidemic resurging through early August almost everywhere in the U.S. but New England.

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In addition to places like Arizona, Texas, and Florida that have been hammered since June, the latest run of the CHOP model identifies Las Vegas, Los Angeles, northern California, Kansas City, Mo., Tulsa, Okla., Greenville, S.C., and Atlanta as poised for widespread transmission. And there are early signs that the virus is moving up busy travel routes, spreading north to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and all of Ohios major cities.

By doing Sweden, Rubin and other experts mean Americans pullback from social distancing that dates from May, when states began lifting stay-at-home orders and other policies aimed at reducing viral transmission. The effect has had many of the failed aspects of Swedens approach, but with none of the steps that kept that country from being a total disaster.

Sweden never imposed a total shutdown of nonessential businesses. It closed universities and banned gatherings of more than 50 people, including sports events, and discouraged domestic travel. But most bars, restaurants, schools, salons, and stores were allowed to remain open, with largely voluntary social distancing. If Spain and Italy got hit by an early Covid-19 tsunami, said Peter Kasson of the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Swedens Uppsala University, Sweden said, lets go swimming.

Many of its citizens, however, didnt jump into the deep end. For one thing, a lot of Swedes went well beyond the official recommendations for social distancing, individually taking the kinds of actions that in other countries were mandated, said Kasson, co-author of a recent study of Swedens strategy. A lot of people self-isolated at home, and companies promoted working from home even though it wasnt mandated. That shows that individual decisions that reduce [viral transmission] can have a substantial effect on national outcomes.

Among those individual decisions: 58% of Swedes didnt meet friends, and 74% stayed home during their spare time, researchers reported in May.

Sweden also issued its distancing recommendations early. Imposing less restrictive policies right away can be more effective at slowing transmission and preventing cases than stricter measures later in an outbreak.

In contrast, if Swedes had done everything they were allowed to do (especially since face coverings were never required nationally), such as shop and socialize at the same levels they had pre-pandemic, it would likely have led to runaway infection, Kasson said. But Sweden is a place with a very strong embrace of government authority. When that authority said keep gatherings small, Swedes took individual actions that went beyond the mandated measures, he said.

Sweden is 18th in the world in Covid-19 cases per million people, with 7,524 as of Tuesday. Thats better than the U.S. (10,626), but much worse than European countries that imposed shutdowns. Sweden is seventh in deaths per million people (with 549; the U.S. is ninth, with 419), though the U.K., Spain, and Italy are worse, possibly because of older populations, denser cities, and more imported cases early on. But a death rate nearly 12 times Norways is hardly reason for celebration. (In fairness, however, there is evidence that one reason for Swedens high death toll is that when elderly people contracted Covid-19, they did not receive aggressive treatment, Kasson found; if they had, about one-third might have survived.)

Because factors that kept Swedens numbers from being even more dire are largely absent in much of the U.S., there is growing concern that this country will blow past Swedens death rate and exceed its case rate even further.

Some states, especially in the South, began easing restrictions in late April. But many people seemed to take bars and restaurants can reopen with capacity limits as back to normal! An entrenched culture of dont tell me what to do just about ensured the opposite of Swedes placing greater restrictions on themselves than the government did. And thats what happened.

In early-reopening Tennessee, 20- and 30-somethings packed Nashville clubs, skin-to-skin with scores of strangers (and few face coverings). That pattern repeated from pool parties at Lake of the Ozarks to bar openings, such as one in Michigan blamed for more than 100 cases.

Call it individualism, cultural libertarianism, atomism, selfishness, lack of social trust, suspicion of authority, The Week columnist Damon Linker wrote, it amounts to a refusal on the part of lots of Americans to think in terms of whats best for the community, of the common or public good. Each of us thinks we know whats best for ourselves. We resent being told what to do.

The White Houses coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, is now stressing that individual decisions to distance, wear masks, and practice good hygiene can reduce transmission, even as the Trump administration has not rolled out new strategies to address the skyrocketing case numbers in parts of the country.

Swedens light-handed restrictions, Kasson said, produced results similar to those in countries with stricter policies because so much of the population was willing to voluntarily self-isolate. In the U.S., even though phased reopenings have been accompanied by pleas from experts (but not necessarily state or local officials, at least initially) to social distance and wear face coverings, many people have said, nah.

After Memorial Day, social interactions in the U.S. began creeping up to half or more of what they had been during the period of the strictest mandates. By the beginning of April, people were already tiring of stay-at-home and were increasing their movement, said epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, so it actually predates the loosening of restrictions that began at the end of April.

Indeed, cellphone data show that, after a month of increases in social distancing, as of April 24, 48 states saw a drop, researchers at the University of Maryland found. Many Americans had said, enough.

Also missing from the U.S.: strong national policy, as Sweden has. Instead, each state and many cities were left to devise their own plans for the initial shutdowns and, especially, re-openings. Although there was federal guidance on what would be safe to do when, based on measures such as case counts and hospital capacity, many states ignored them. Social distancing varied enormously, the Maryland data show: In early May, its index of social distancing ranged from the 50s (on a scale from 0 to 100, with 100 being maximum distancing) in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts to the 30s or less in many Southern states.

As a result, risky decisions made in, say, Florida and Texas have started to bleed into surrounding states. We can see the virus moving along travel corridors, said CHOPs Rubin. Even though the number of cases is still low, you can see it in the R, the number of new cases each earlier case is causing.

Swedens Covid-19 messaging was also much clearer than that in the U.S. An important factor in shaping peoples behavior is how governments talk, said epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. If you talk about Covid-19 as a hoax, you can be pretty much assured that youll be on a path to a rapid acceleration of cases and deaths.

In the U.S., Pence has highlighted the fact that a larger percentage of new cases in states like Florida and Texas are occurring in younger people. But if the virus is spreading in one population, it wont be contained there. As cases rise among younger people, experts expect more transmission to reach older people. That is what happened in Sweden, driving up the countrys mortality rate. Probably because workers brought the virus into care homes for the elderly, Covid-19 raced through such facilities, which have accounted for about half of all deaths in Sweden; people over 70 accounted for some 90% of deaths.

Anders Bjrkman, an infectious disease expert at Stockholms Karolinska Institute, pointed to another problem that has plagued both the Swedish and U.S. response: a slow rollout of diagnostic testing. Both countries effectively limited testing initially to people who were really sick, which he called a clear mistake. Even now in the U.S., as demand has soared along with cases, some people are still unable to get tested or have to wait more than a week for results. That makes it harder for people to know if they should isolate themselves and tell their contacts to stay home as well.

And if an unstated goal of Swedens approach was to get closer to herd immunity, it does not appear to have been realized. Serology studies looking at how many Swedes have contracted the coronavirus and who are then, scientists hope, protected from another infection for some amount of time have ranged from about 6% to 14% in the Stockholm area (though some Swedish scientists say they believe the figure is higher than that based on different signals of immunity). That leaves the country far short of the 60% or so that experts say will slow down transmission.

I was surprised they didnt recalibrate as the serology findings came out, said University of Florida biostatistician Natalie Dean. My concern with Sweden is that theyre going to muddle along at this level and its not going to go down, for longer than the models say.

In the U.S., states outside the Northeast have started to pause their reopenings and, in some cases, reimposed some restrictions in an attempt to gain a handle over the spiraling outbreaks. But the effects of Americans version of Sweden are becoming alarmingly clear. In the CHOP model, current hot spots such as Miami and Houston get worse over the next few weeks. San Francisco and New Orleans surge, as do suburbs of Kansas City, Mo., and Chicago. Philadelphia and New York City also see an increase in cases.

Weve lost control at this point, said CHOPs Rubin. Unless we go back to the very early phase of our reopening, and do it quickly, the fall could be catastrophic.

Lev Facher contributed reporting.

Read more here:

We're the accidental Sweden, raising fears Covid-19 will get worse - STAT

WednesdayJul15,2020at12:01AM

The Register-Guard ("UO will fight new ICE rules," July 11) reports the University of Oregon is considering ways to collaborate with other universities to push back against a Trump administration policy that forces international students to leave if not enrolled in any in-person courses. It lacks, the UO argues, a public health or educational basis and is unnecessary and xenophobic.

Imagine, if you will, the sources of "information" and "knowledge" on which the current administration relies for making policy.

You dont have to look far into his moronic, cretinous administration to have a good guess as to whether it relies on credible, partisan, or dubious sources or invention via lies, cover-ups, and confabulations in making policy decisions.

Trump and his administration are, it seems, both ideologically distorted liberals centered on a particular notion of freedom as non-coercion and superheated arch-libertarians who define freedom as the right to own and have absolute control over property and the freedom to form corporations with little regulations (e.g., environmental) and where individual freedom, corporate freedom and consumer freedom are absolute.

In addition to being doctrinaire "free" market fundamentalists, its a particularly stupid administration. Really really! dangerous dolts led by a ruinous knave!

Sam Porter, Eugene

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A ruinous knave leading dolts - Opinion - The Register-Guard

HANCOCK COUNTY With the ballot finalized for the 2020 general election, most local elections in Hancock County will be unopposed. The deadline for independent candidates to file passed by on Wednesday, July 15, with no new new candidates, which means county offices will be filled by the Republicans who won in the June primary.

Those candidates include D.J. Davis for Superior Court 1 judge; Dan Marshall for Superior Court 2 judge; John Jessup and Bill Spalding for county commissioner; Kent Fisk, Robin Lowder and Keely Butrum for county council; Jane Klemme for county treasurer; and David Stillinger for county coroner.

Janice Silvey, chair of Hancock Countys Republican Party, said in June she believed the party had a strong field of candidates and was happy with how the election season had turned out.

Without any county-level contested elections, the biggest draw to the polls for most voters will undoubtedly be the presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and his presumptive Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. However, there are also a number of other contested elections for state and federal office.

In the state Senate, Republican Mike Crider, R-Greenfield, is running for re-election in District 28. Crider, who was first elected in 2012, previously served as the director of Law Enforcement for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and is running for his third term.

Criders Democratic opponent is Theresa Bruno, a member of the Warren Park Town Council in eastern Marion County. In a recent interview with the Daily Reporter, Bruno said she is passionate about education as a teacher and about health care as a survivor of a brain aneurysm.

Two of Hancock Countys representatives in the Indiana House of Representatives are running unopposed for reelection: Republicans Bob Cherry (District 53) and Sean Eberhart (District 57).

The race for the District 88 seat, which includes a portion of Hancock County containing Fortville and McCordsville, will be contested. The Republican nominee is Fishers attorney Chris Jeter. The Democratic nominee is Pam Dechert, who lives in the Geist area and works for Blackbaud, a software company that provides services to nonprofits.

Rep. Greg Pence, who represents Indianas 6th Congressional District, which includes Hancock County, is running for a second term. Pence recently told the Daily Reporter his biggest priorities include working to ensure businesses can reopen and the economy can recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with his work on transportation and infrastructure issues.

Challenging Pence is Democrat Jeannine Lee Lake, who also ran against him in 2018. Lake is the publisher of The Good News, a publication in Muncie highlighting religious news and minority communities. Lake said she would be an advocate for equality for people of color, women, and LGBT people, along with prioritizing education and infrastructure funding. Libertarian Tom Ferkinhoff, who also sought the seat in 2018, will be on the ballot again as well.

At the state level, Gov. Eric Holcomb, whose executive orders have set state policy throughout the COVID-19 crisis, is up for re-election. Holcomb served as lieutenant governor under Mike Pence before his election to his first term in 2016. The Democratic nominee is Woody Myers, who previously served as the health commissioner for both Indiana and New York City before resuming a career in the private sector. Libertarian Donald G. Rainwater II also will be on the ballot.

The state attorney generals race also will be contested. At their recent convention, Republicans chose Todd Rokita over the scandal-plagued incumbent, Curtis Hill. Rokita served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019 and as the Indiana secretary of state from 2002 to 2010. His Democratic opponent is Jonathan Weinzapfel, who previously served two terms as the mayor of Evansville and also was a state representative for five years.

The general election will be held on Nov. 3, 2020.

Excerpt from:

With ballot finalized, county elections will be unopposed - Greenfield Daily Reporter

By David Hoesly

MondayJul13,2020at7:28AM

In this morning's Gazette a local reporter used the term "Black people" to describe African-Americans.

Shall we expect that reporter to refer to Caucasians as "White people"? Or only as "white people?"

The special treatment of any race when other races don't receive that same treatment is a manifestation of racism.

If a man voted against Obama because Obama is black, that person was exhibiting racism. He was as racist as a man who voted for Obama because Obama is black.

Treating African-Americans as equals requires that whites not consider whites superior to blacks, and that whites not consider blacks superior to whites. And the same requirement applies to blacks' attitudes toward whites. Equality under the law is just that: straight-from-the-shoulder, even-handed treatment of others as we wish to be treated.

Certainly, law enforcers who abrogate the rights of anyone should be dealt with swiftly and justly; that's why Libertarians have advocated for decades the elimination of "qualified immunity" the doctrine that frequently shields the police from being sued when they violate citizens' rights.

In early June, the only Libertarian congressman, Justin Amash (L, MI) introduced a bill, "Ending Qualified Immunity Act," to bring accountability to the "bad apples" who undermine the public's faith in law enforcement.

Justice for George Floyd's tragic death under the knee of just such a 'bad apple' cries for a fix for this problem; we need legislation that brings about justice by holding accountable those who violate others' rights, whether the violators wear blue or are just common thugs.

Rioting in the streets, which results only in the growth of Leviathan State, cannot be good for any citizens, regardless of their skin color.

David Hoesly is a member of the Public Policy Committee of the Libertarian Party of Gaston County.

Read more:

Letter: Why capitalize the 'B' in Black? - Opinion - Gaston Gazette

The everfading hope that aBiden administration would look fondly on free trade is becoming more of afree traders dying wish than arealistic expectation. The problem with this narrative, of course, was the Trump administrations embrace of alaundry list of ideas long held by Congressional Democrats, which made them more likely to agree with him than to oppose him on these measures. Instead of confronting the dangers of the Trump administrations trade agenda, embracing a progressive case for free trade, and aligning its campaign with aDemocratic base that increasingly views free trade more positively, the Biden campaigns newly released supply chain resilience plan shows more interest at besting Trump at his own protectionist game. Thats bad news for those who held out hope that aBiden administration would be different.

Within the plan sits amess of protectionist and counterproductive policies that would have been associated with the political fringe less than adecade ago and certainly aplan with enough trade restrictions to make the Trump administration blush. In fact, the plan has managed to win the approbation of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Thats not agood sign. Lets take alook at five big issues with the Biden camps proposal.

The myth that never dies. Worse, it continues to buttress poorly conceived campaign proposals such as Bidens new supply chain plan. The United States manufacturing sector is not dead. Just last year, before being devasted by the pandemic, U.S. manufacturing output set arecord high. And the sector once again proved itself an attractive destination for investment in 2018 when FDI stock in American manufacturing rose by 10% to $1.77 trillion. Decline in American manufacturing employment, however, has long been astory of American progress, as the sector has stayed competitive by learning how to do more with less. Using the decline in employment to tell astory of sectoral decline, not progress, is amistake and its amistake that permeates the rest of the proposal.

My colleague, Inu Manak, and Irecently dissected the pervasive and misdiagnosed idea that our supply chains are fragile and in need of saving. By several objective measures, the United States is one of the least dependent countries in the world. Trade accounts for asmaller share of domestic output than every country in the world other than Cuba and Sudan. Amongst the worlds largest economies, the United States also ranks near the bottom in import penetration of goods and services, indicating that America is less reliant on other countries to satisfy domestic demand than many of our peers. Shortages of needed medical products, on the other hand, was much more afailure of government than it was afailure of supply chains or domestic production. Along list of domestic regulations, documented by my colleagues at the Cato Institute, shows how onesizefitsall regulations, and restrictions on services such as telemedicine and barriers to the free flow of labor such as occupational licensing laws, kneecapped recovery efforts. Using the government to reshape supply chains would be amistake especially when it was so instrumental in Americas uniquely slow response.

The most puzzling claim in Bidens plan is that his proposals would avoid costs and bureaucracy. Monitoring supply chains alone would demand amassive expansion in government capacity and, as Professor Henry Farrell argues, this would require new bureaucracies, extensive reporting requirements, and the transformation of network analysis into atool of security analysis. Forging publicprivate relationships and monitoring supply chains means the government would need the ability to effectively pick the right winners and losers. Picking correctly is difficult. Picking correctly without an expansion of costs and bureaucracy is unimaginably arrogant and outright impossible.

Yes, over 70% of the API manufacturing facilities that supply the U.S. market are located in foreign countries, but the same statistics the Biden proposal cites also say the United States houses 28% of the worlds API facilities. Using his own statistics, America has more API manufacturing facilities than any other country in the world. For aproposal that makes an effort to reprimand the Trump administration for not working with U.S. allies (and rightfully so), its worth mentioning that the European Union ranks second at 26%, and China the country that typically tops the list of U.S. traderelated security concerns is home to only 13% of the worlds API facilities.

Some libertarians have entertained the idea of reforming and expanding the federal stockpile. After all, preparing for apandemic, most libertarians would agree, is alegitimate and necessary role for government. But the Biden plan neuters one of the stockpiles most important advantages. Instead of using the stockpile to subvert protectionist demands, the Biden campaign seems more inclined to use it as atool to further entrench protectionism through federal procurement policies. Needlessly limiting sourcing options for the stockpile would limit competition by requiring that the government discriminate against equally effective foreign products. That, in turn, makes it more expensive to replenish the stockpiles inventory by limiting supply. And more expensive products translate to more funding demands and funding battles over the stockpile were part of the reason we were having supply issues to begin with. The stockpiles inventories were depleted fighting the H1N1 virus and other natural disasters during the Obama administration, but funding became a political football and neither the Trump administration nor the Obama administration were willing to expend the political capital necessary to secure the proper resources. Making the stockpiles contents more expensive will only make matters worse. The recent funding history exposes protectionism and stockpiling as aparticularly dangerous combination but its also plainly apoor public health decision.

Of course, there is more in this plan thats bothersome. But free traders better hope the Biden plan was solely an illconceived campaign tactic, and not an indication of how he would govern. Biden was given an opportunity to embrace free trade and distance himself from Trumps disastrous trade policies. Choosing this path just means more of the same.

Read more:

Five Issues with Biden's Supply Chain Plan - Cato Institute

Former Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt was leading the way Tuesday night in the special election to replace former state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, though it appeared she would still be heading to a runoff with state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez.

Eckhardt, who needed 50% of the vote to win the election outright, was hovering around that figure Tuesday night. Rodriguez, the other Democrat in the race, was running second with 34% of the vote, according to election returns.

There are still ballots left to count. Election day totals were still being counted, and mail-in ballots that were postmarked on election day will be part of the final tallies if county officials receive them by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Eckhardt and Rodriguez were followed by Republican Don Zimmerman, a former Austin City Council member. Other candidates in the race were Waller Thomas Burns II, a Republican; former Lago Vista City Council member Pat Dixon, a Libertarian; and Austin physician Jeff Ridgeway, an independent.

All six candidates are fighting to replace Watson, who left his seat at the end of April to become the first dean of the University of Houstons Hobby School of Public Affairs.

Rodriguez and Eckhardt both cast themselves as the seasoned candidates in the race. Rodriguez has touted his 18 years in the Texas House, arguing that his relationships there will serve him well in the Senate. Eckhardt, meanwhile, has leaned on her time as Travis Countys chief executive, a post won in 2015, becoming the first female to hold the job.

The race between the two Democrats in the race grew increasingly tense in recent weeks, with Rodriguez knocking Eckhardt for resigning as county judge during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Eckhardt, meanwhile, questioned votes Rodriguez made in the Legislature related to criminal justice and police reform, particularly a key vote he missed in 2019 involving a follow-up measure to the Sandra Bland Act. Rodriguez has said he was off campus at the time negotiating another bill he was involved with.

The victor will serve the remainder of Watsons term, which ends in 2022. His district includes all of Bastrop County, most of Austin and northern Travis County.

Cassandra Pollock contributed to this report.

Disclosure: The University of Houston has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Sarah Eckhardt and Eddie Rodriguez poised for a runoff in special Texas Senate election to replace Kirk Watson - The Texas Tribune

Libertarian party presidential candidate, Jo Jorgensen, has appeared on a podcast associated with the anti-government boogaloo movement just days after an adherent of the movement was arrested for allegedly murdering two law enforcement officers.

One of the other people on the podcast also runs a Facebook page which is strewn with memes that reference insurrectionary violence, and appear to invoke white nationalist and neo-Nazi imagery and subject matter.

The Libertarian party is one of the largest political parties in the US, outside the dominant pairing of the Democrats and Republicans. Although the partys vote is still comparatively small, it has finished third in the last two presidential elections, and has increased its share of the vote in four successive elections, going from 0.4% of the vote in 2004 to 3.3% in 2016, when it fetched almost 4.5 million votes

On the Roads to Liberty podcast, Jorgensen was quizzed on her policy proposals by a group of men who were introduced as some of the head admins for some of the most influential pages in the so-called boogaloo movement.

The word boogaloo refers to the prospect of a second civil war in the US by playing off a reference to a movie sequel, Breakin 2: Electric boogaloo. For some in the anti-government boogaloo movement, any such civil conflict carries the possibility of an insurrection against an overbearing state and the law enforcement officers who serve it, particularly agencies tasked with enforcing restrictions on gun rights. But others who use the term conceive of the boogaloo as a race war.

Apart from the podcast host, who broadcasts under the name Hobbs, and the producer, Ben Backus, the questioners included a man identifying himself as Rick, an administrator of the North /K/arolina Facebook page; a man identifying himself as Justin, an administrator of the now-absent Thick Boog Line Facebook page; and Cameron Purser, a North Carolina man who runs Flytrap Firearms Consulting, a firearms training business.

Also questioning Jorgensen was a man identifying himself as Squid, an administrator of the Patriot Wave: V 2.0 (PW2) page, which currently has 10,000 followers. A group associated with a previous, since-banned incarnation of that page were responsible for the first high-profile public appearance of the boogaloo movement, when they paraded masked and armed at a large pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, in January.

While some boogaloo adherents articulate a racially inclusive, universalist form of anti-government ultra-libertarianism, the PW2 page features dozens of memes which reference fascist, white nationalist, and accelerationist neo-Nazi imagery.

Several memes featured on the page venerate white soldiers of the Rhodesian army who fought to maintain white supremacist minority rule in that country before it became Zimbabwe.Several other PW2 memes positively couch images of Nazi Germany and second world war German soldiers.

Other memes feature a reference to Marvin Heemeyer, aka Killdozer, a Colorado businessman who demolished several buildings with a modified bulldozer in 2004 before taking his own life. The Heemeyer incident was referred to by Steven Carillo, the accused double killer and apparent boogaloo sympathizer who allegedly scrawled a Heemeyer quote in blood on the hood of a police cruiser before his arrest on 6 June.

Alex Newhouse is the Digital Research Lead at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute, and has recently published two research papers on the boogaloo movement.

Upon viewing a selection of PW2s memes, Newhouse wrote in an email: While Patriot Waves memes do not explicitly promote Nazi ideologies, they are clearly evocative of more fringe and extreme Nazi accelerationist communities, and the allusions to Rhodesia and South Africa are clearly racist dog whistles which attempt to stoke fears of white displacement and genocide.

Cassie Miller, a senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center who has written on the boogaloo movement, said: Patriot Wave reflects the overlap between the so-called boogaloo movement and the racist far-right.

The questioners ask Jorgensen about a range of policy areas, including taxes, veterans affairs, and second amendment issues.

Squid, however, asks about Jorgensens views on the boogaloo movement as a whole.

Jorgensen replies, Oh, can you please explain that to me again?, and appears not to know about the movement, despite recent arrests of alleged violent extremists who identified with the movement.

Squid explains the purpose of the movement as basically liberty and justice for all.

Well, I am definitely for liberty and justice for all, Jorgensen replies.

On Jorgensens appearance on a boogaloo related podcast, Newhouse, the extremism researcher, says: When politicians make outreach to boogaloo communities, they are mainstreaming this explicitly revolutionary, anti-government movement that has already been linked several instances of real-world violence.

He adds: Boogalooers routinely celebrate and call for deadly violence against journalists and government officials, which means that politicians who ally with them may tacitly legitimize anti-democratic actions, such as armed intimidation and confrontation of political opponents.

In an email, after being given examples of troubling images on the PW2 page, Jorgensen declined to specifically repudiate the support of the boogaloo movement, writing: I welcome the support of anyone who will reject violence and bigotry in favor of non-aggression, peaceful persuasion, and voluntary cooperation.

Asked if the boogaloo movement were anti-government extremists, Jorgensen wrote: The media tend to lump together peaceful protesters and those who advocate violence, and paint the entire group as being violent.

She added: The boogaloo movement is highly decentralized and comprises both those who are aligned with the principle of nonaggression, and some who run counter to it.

Squid, the PW2 administrator, denied that the group were racist in an email, writing that they were constitutionalists.

Dozens of boogaloo groups, including many of the largest ones, have been promoting Jorgensens candidacy in recent days, and a dedicated Jorgensen meme group involves many self-identified boogaloo adherents.

Facebook, meanwhile, banned hundreds of boogaloo-related accounts, pages, and groups on Instagram and Facebook on 30 June, explaining the move as designating a violent US-based anti-government network as a dangerous organization.

The Libertarian party formally condemns racism in its platform. However in 2017, after the Unite the Right rally, the partys leadership had to issue a public denunciation of white nationalism.

This was necessary because lawyer and recently accused domestic abuser, Augustus Sol Invictus, was a featured participant, having previously run in a primary to be the partys Florida senate candidate.

Asked about how the Libertarian party will keep extremists at a distance in future, Jorgensen wrote: The Libertarian Party is the only political party that favors non-aggression as a fundamental principle. Every Libertarian Party member has signed a pledge that they oppose the initiation of force for the purpose of achieving social or political goals.

See original here:

Libertarian 2020 candidate appears on podcast tied to boogaloo movement - The Guardian

Libertarians want absolute freedom in all circumstances, even if this means reducing governmental amenities and retracting technological advances.

Libertarians by nature detest impositions by governments and financial institutions.

Right wing libertarians such as Ron Paul dislike complex economic systems and have called for a return to the gold standard a financial arrangement removed in the 1930s.

The gold standard was system where the value of a currency was defined in terms of the amount gold represented by the exchange of paper currency a system discarded by many countries in the Depression era.

These days, bankcards and computer-generated apps are replacing cash and the libertarians are typically upset.

Bankcards and ATMs have a long history in Saskatchewan dating to the 1970s.

Saskatchewan and Alberta had the first financial institutions on the Canadian Prairies to use card-based, networked ATMs beginning in June 1977.

Later, credit unions in Saskatchewan introduced debit cards, which were usable wherever credit cards were accepted in 1982.

By the 1990s, most of us were carrying bankcards in our wallets and purses. Bank websites were supplanting personal interactions with tellers at regional branches since the early 2000s.

Digital payments gained partiality over banknotes in the 2010s, as recorded in article by the Independent in May 2015.

PayPal, digital wallets like Apple Pay, contactless and NFC payments by electronic cards and smart phones are preferred for transactions in 2020.

Electronic payments can be insecure, mismanaged and data can be easily stolen.

Yet, the convenience of electronic cash is obvious, even if the libertarians dont agree.

Security measures for electronic payments are improving, as we buy groceries, gas, cigarettes and other goods with bankcards and apps, instead of pulling out masses of coins and bills from our pockets to spread over shop counters.

Electronic cash transfers are the bedrock of modern personal finance, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when cash is considered grimy and disease-bearing.

Although COVID-19 is a genuine threat, the growing apprehension over physical cash is ridiculous.

According to SCOOP Business in June 2020, There is no evidence linking cash to the transmission of COVID-10. Cash is sanitized before being delivered by cash companies to venues and ATM operators.

To have cash as an option for buying goods and services, instead of being solely reliant on electronic payments, will always be desirable.

Sometimes, cash is the only option with services such as coin laundromats.

Cash is defended by a libertarian group known as Cash is Legal Tender, but these Luddites are more than champions of banknotes and coins.

From reading several posts, these libertarians on the far right share French philosopher Michel Foucaults ideal of personal ethics in favour of the collective a development founded upon Nietzschean self-creation.

Foucault believed all human-led organizations had grown far beyond the needs of the individuals who were engaged with them.

Thus, Foucault decided the participants in society were trapped in games of power.

But the pro-cash libertarians arent gathering online to discuss French poststructuralism and German nihilism. More exactly, the online, anti-bankcard sect are using social media to disperse the views of American pop culture paleoconservatives like Tucker Carlson, who once shared their libertarian ideas on economics long before he became a Trumpist.

The Cash is Legal Tender sect are right in defending cash but their denunciation of organized societies is alarming and meaningless.

Society funds libraries, schools, roads, electrical grids and other public aims. Without communities, weve returned to the Hobbesian age of fear, loathing and self-interest.

Governmental organizations on all levels often misrepresent society but the outright rejection of society is short-sighted and founded on ignorance.

Critical theorist Jrgen Habermas accused Foucault and other like-minded postmodern libertarians as uncaring individualists disguised as philosophers who disdained the constraints of governments, but in turn scorned progressive ideals such as emancipation and equality in a 1981 paper he wrote titled Modernity versus Postmodernity.

Habermas disliked Foucaults libertarianism but like Foucault, the German philosopher and sociologist hated dictatorships. Habermas promoted the idea of a public sphere, where societies were occupied in public debates and where every citizen had access to forming public opinions a superior ideal compared to Foucaults nihilistic individualism.

Cash is Legal Tender are spot-on for defending banknotes and coins we still need cash for payment alternatives, but the groups libertarian-based fears about governments, societies, technology and globalism are mistaken and conspiratorial.

Read the rest here:

We're a cashless society now and the libertarians are nervous - Assiniboia Times

We have reached the end of privatized prisons in Hamilton County.

The governor wants to take down the Capitol's Nathan Bedford Forrest statue.

Area leaders continue to call for the resignation of county Sheriff Jim Hammond.

And, in a mandate I never imagined in my lifetime, the county mayor declared citizens must wear a mask in public or risk jail time or a $50 fine.

All this in the last seven days.

There is so much to discuss, applaud, criticize.

Today, however, I want to talk about something else.

Nothing.

Today, I want to say nothing.

***

These feel like Tower of Babel times.

There are so many different voices saying so many different things.

We hear medical experts who say one thing.

We hear more medical experts who say another.

We hear conspiracy theorists, politicians, libertarians, activists, Trump supporters, Democratic Socialists, researchers, anti-maskers, mask-wearers, pundits, preachers and fools.

They all say different things.

Like this:

In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said every American should wear a mask.

Days later, the World Health Organization said masks aren't necessary for healthy people.

Who do we listen to? What do we believe?

Each day, we are buffeted by a dozen winds.

It is exhausting. Everywhere, megaphones. Everywhere, noise.

***

Recently, I have been thinking about this Gospel scene:

Jesus stands before Pilate, his executioner. He is hours away from crucifixion.

Pilate asks Christ: what is truth?

Jesus doesn't answer.

He just stands in silence.

Why?

Why not speak out? Why not answer?

Why say nothing?

***

Jesus could have criticized him. Converted him. Tried to change his heart. Cut him down to size. Even begged for his life.

Christ wasn't a church mouse. His voice his non-silence put him on death row. You don't challenge The Man like he did and get away with it.

He stood before Pilate the head of the region's systemic injustice.

Think of all he could have said. He could have gone viral.

Instead, he goes quiet.

What is truth?

Tell us.

Silence.

***

"Silence is violence," protesters chant.

This is true. The cold violence of silent complicity encourages hot violence to occur.

Picture the coward. He's afraid. He won't speak. His silence allows violence to remain unchallenged.

Yet also picture the monk.

Her silence is different. It's rooted not in fear, but contemplation and reflection.

By staying silent, does she also say something?

If silence can lead to violence, can it also lead to peace? Can silence become justice?

Or truth?

***

Years ago, my mind was so troubled, I began doing something strange: I sat in silence.

With my body.

My thoughts.

My emotions.

Not as they should be.

But as they are.

This is meditation.

My mind? I saw it is often like a housefly on acid: darting this way, that way, inventing, imagining, never resting.

My emotions? I want the world to be a certain way, but it was often another. The result? I feel anger, fear, rage, elation, excitement, deflation.

Oh, my opinions! My beliefs! I have so many, all of them connected to judgment, criticism, wanting the world to be like this. And not like that.

Sitting in silence, I began to see beyond opinions and beliefs.

"Go beyond right and wrong," my teacher says.

But how?

***

Think of a ping pong game. The ball goes back and forth, back and forth.

Now think of your opinions and beliefs.

And someone else's.

Your opinion.

Theirs.

Back.

And forth.

All opinions and beliefs create an opposite: you believe this, I believe that.

Right.

And wrong.

Beliefs and opinions can be beautiful things: they help us envision the world as it should be. Justice, fairness, love for neighbor and self all these come with a set of beliefs about how life should be.

If only Trump

If only my neighbor

If only my body

That's the allure. The trap.

We get lost in thinking, judging, wishing how the world should be.

We stop experiencing the world as it is.

Our lives become daydreams, fantasies, all giant desires: please, world, be like this and not like that.

What happens when we step away from the ping pong table?

What happens when we move beyond right and wrong?

***

I could tell you my opinions about privatized prisons, mask mandates or Confederate statues.

In doing so, I would pick up the ping pong ball.

Our game would begin all over again.

But the game isn't life.

It sure as hell isn't truth.

I'm so tired of megaphones. So tired of ping pong.

How do we speak about things that matter without adding to the noise?

How can silence lead to peace?

David Cook writes a Sunday column and can be reached at dcook@timesfreepress.com.

Read this article:

Cook: Megaphones, everywhere: how to find silence in loud times - Chattanooga Times Free Press

When Anthony Kennedy retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, he enjoyed the unique distinction of having been denounced by every major political faction in the country. For conservatives, Kennedy was the activist judge who "invented" a right to gay marriage. For progressives, he was the corporate shill who authored Citizens United. For libertarians, he was guilty of both enabling eminent domain abuse and squashing the rights of local medical marijuana users in favor of a national drug control scheme. At one point or another, it seemed like everybody had cause to hate on Anthony Kennedy.

John Roberts is the new Anthony Kennedy. As the Supreme Court's 2019-2020 term came to its dramatic close this week, the chief justice not only solidified his role as a swing vote in highly charged cases, but also managed to annoy practically everybody along the way.

Will the religious right ever forgive Roberts for siding with the Court's Democratic appointees to strike down an anti-abortion law? In Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016), the chief justice dissented when the Court overturned a Texas statute that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. But in this term's June Medical Services v. Russo, Roberts did the opposite, concurring in a decision that voided a nearly identical abortion regulation from Louisiana.

"I joined the dissent in Whole Woman's Health and continue to believe that the case was wrongly decided," Roberts wrote in a lone concurrence. However, "stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike," he continued. "The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana's law cannot stand under our precedents."

Plenty of progressives praised Roberts for that. But their cheers quickly turned to jeers when the chief justice delivered a huge victory just one day later for both school choice and religious liberty advocates in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. "A State need not subsidize private education," Roberts wrote. "But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious." The Court has "long recognized the rights of parents to direct 'the religious upbringing' of their children," he observed. "Many parents exercise that right by sending their children to religious schools, a choice protected by the Constitution."

And then there was Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in which the chief justice led the Court in declaring the single-director structure of the Elizabeth Warren-invented Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to be unconstitutional. "The CFPB Director has no boss, peers, or voters to report to," Roberts wrote. "Yet the Director wields vast rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory authority over a significant portion of the U. S. economy. The question before us is whether this arrangement violates the Constitution's separation of powers." Roberts held that it did. Not exactly a happy outcome for supporters of the so-called administrative state.

Libertarians, of course, were criticizing Roberts before it was cool. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), Roberts characterized his vote to uphold Obamacare as an act of conservative judicial restraint, invoking the early 20th century jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who once declared, "if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It's my job." Here's how Roberts put it: "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." To say the least, that deferential approach is the antithesis of the libertarian legal movement's vision of the proper role of the courts in our constitutional system.

To be sure, Roberts is not the only swing vote on the Supreme Court these days. Justice Neil Gorsuch actually had a record that was more "liberal" than Justice Kennedy's when the two sat on the Court together in 2017-2018. In this term's Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, Gorsuch led the Court in extending federal anti-discrimination protections to gay and transgender employees. That ruling was widely celebrated as a liberal victory, though Gorsuch did base his reasoning on the textualist principles championed by the late Antonin Scalia, a conservative legal icon.

Still, it was Roberts who was truly at the center of the SCOTUS storm, having cast key votes on some of the most contentious issues in modern American life, from COVID-19 lockdowns to the subpoenaing of President Donald Trump's financial records.

Like it or not, it's the Roberts Court now.

More here:

John Roberts Just Annoyed Everybody. Is He the New Anthony Kennedy? - Reason

Letter to the Editor:

The Choice

Since the 2008 election, American voters havent been choosing business as usual. We are fed up, sick of the status quo of the state and its never-ending hunger for more power and control.

Obama in 2008 and 2012 provided that choice. He was a community organizer and a young, inexperienced senator who campaigned on a platform of hope and change. I think Americans were desperate for this message after eight years of homeland terror, financial turmoil and foreign disputes.

After Obamas first term, and in my opinion not fulfilling his promises, I believe many voters deviated from him but could not vote for Republican Mitt Romney and were disaffected enough to become independent, third-party or nonvoters.

In 2016, Trump for many voters seemed to provide that choice. He was a rich businessperson and a blunt, transparent, red-blooded American with a platform of Make America Great Again. Americans were desperate after eight years of eroded individual liberties, soaring poverty in small communities and the amplified, continuing foreign entanglements.

Now, after seeing how Trumps policies have led to further erosion of liberty and justice for all, perpetual deficit spending, continuing foreign disputes and an authoritarian approach to everything, many are looking for another way.

This year, the Libertarian Party offers that choice. Dr. Jo Jorgensen a business and leadership psychologist, is intelligent, educated and rational. Her platform All Your Freedoms, All the Time aligns strongly with the core Libertarian principles of a smaller government held accountable for and by the people.

She stands with all people and communities, meeting with members of many of Americas most vulnerable communities to work toward better solutions together. We are desperate as a nation for all our voices to be represented and for all of us to live our best possible lives, free of oppression and arbitrary control. We are desperate for our government to respect our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Jorgensen offers everyone that chance. We can win this November, and together, we can take back our nation from those who have been deceiving us into submission for generations.

Tony Moen

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

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Letter to the Editor: The Choice - Door County Pulse

LOUISVILLE, Ky.A tax increase for schools appears poised to face Louisville voters this November.

A group behind apetition to put a Jefferson County Public Schools tax increase to a vote says it has nearly 5,000 more signatures than needed likely clearing the bar to get on the November ballot.

The Jefferson County clerk will validate the signatures within the next 30 days and ultimately determine if the petition was successful. JCPS then has 10 days to appeal.

The petition needed at least 35,615 signatures by Friday to force a vote. The group said itturned in 40,320 signatures.

School board members, on a split vote, approved a 7-cent property tax increase in May about an extra $70 a year for a $100,000 home.

Kentucky school boards can raise property taxes enough to boost property tax revenue 4%. Since the increase would raise district revenue past thatcap, it was subject to a voter recall an ultimately successful effort.

Other news: Colorado superintendent to be next Kentucky education commissioner

"We still have a lot of work to do, but I hope we will be able to look back on this effort and say this was a turning point, when the citizens of Jefferson County stood up and demanded that JCPS do the job it is paid to do, which is to provide a good education to every student," Theresa Camoriano wrote on the No JCPS Tax Hike Facebook page Friday. "No more excuses!"

Camoriano, who lives in Anchorage, spearheaded signature collection for weeks. She reserved the website NoJCPSTaxHike1.com ahead of the school board vote and managed multiple Facebook pages updating supporters and explaining their rationale.

In the weeks before signatures were due, libertarian advocacy groups including the Bluegrass Institute and Americans for Prosperity backed the petition. Kentucky Secretaryof State Michael Adams, who lives in Jefferson County, also encouraged voters to sign the petition.

JCPS, which has around a $1.65 billion budget, should better manage the money it already has, Camoriano and others opposing the increase said. Raising taxes during a pandemic is not ideal, they've said.

Reducing transportation spending by ending "busing" the district's practice of creating diverse classrooms by assigning West End kids to schools across the county would be one way to save money, some opposing the tax increase argued.

JCPS is proposing a student assignment model that would allow West End students to go to school closer to home effectively ending its lauded and criticized diversity plan but it said it would need about $139 million to build new schools in the West End to make it happen.

Read more: Mandatory masks could mean 'a shot' at schools opening, Beshear says

And that money is supposed to come from the tax increase, district officials have said.

In the final days before signatures were due, one of the most vocal pro-JCPS groups Dear JCPS said it also wanted the tax increase to be put on the ballot.

While understanding the money is expected to go to the district's high-needs students and classrooms, Dear JCPS said the coronavirus may have shifted budget priorities. The district needs more time to determine how the money should be spent, it said.

"Giving our community until November to have these necessary but difficult conversations will not only increase community buy-in as solutions are developed, but it will increase the likelihood that new tax revenues will be spent in the best ways possible," the group wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

New revenue would help the district provide more supports for its most disadvantaged students, who often find themselves on the losing end of academic gaps, and the schools they attend, JCPS said.

It could also help to make up for past opportunities in which school boards did not take the full tax increase they could, shortchanging kids in the process, officials argued.

JCPS' property tax rate, 73.6 cents for $100 of assessed value, is among the lowest in the area. An increase to 80.6 cents would bring it closer to peer districts like Fayette County that serve large groups of students living at or near poverty.

What dostudents want?Parents, teachers have been vocal about reopenings

Reach Olivia Krauth at okrauth@courierjournal.com or 502-582-4471, and on Twitter at @oliviakrauth. Support strong local journalism by subscribing: courier-journal.com/subscribe.

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JCPS tax hike likely to be on ballot after opponents gather thousands of signatures - Courier Journal

In a political first, Pueblo County delegates played a part in the Libertarian Party's first online convention recently.

This convention marked the first time that any American political party that is organized and active in all 50 states has held all or part of its national nominating convention online.

About 1,000 Libertarians from across America convened in the first 3-hour session to determine who will be the Libertarian presidential candidate in the November election.

I am John Pickerill, one of the registered Coloradans from the area who took part.

Some parts of this session were difficult since the whole online process was entirely new to all of us, but today, we established our schedule and procedures for the rest of the weekend and got to practice how to interact with each other online.

Everything was uncharted territory -- all of our partys previous 20 national conventions since 1971 were conducted face-to-face.

I am a Libertarian because I want people to be left alone to live their lives peacefully in whatever manner they choose. A vote for a Libertarian is a way to tell the world that you dont consent to the theft of your liberties or wallets by the parasitic political class.

Whenever our ideas are given a fair hearing, we win. Thats why the Democratic and Republican parties never allow Libertarians into debates -- because they know that on the day the philosophy of limited government is allowed to be heard, that is the day their grip on the American voter will slip away.

The daunting odds dont deter Libertarians. There are two times as many Libertarians now than five years ago. There are now almost half a million voters registered Libertarian across the country.

In another five, years we will be even bigger.

The big-government parties will eventually have to deal with us. And when they do, they will lose.

We will continue to persuade more of their supporters that less government is always better. The contributors and voters they depend on are going to continue abandoning them to join us.

In the last century, all of the ancient ideas for governing societies with huge, bloated, bossy, expensive governments have been tried. They have all failed.

Big governments dont protect their own people very well; nor can big governments and their teeming bureaucracies be trusted to mind their own

business. In the last century, governments were the biggest killer of people -- with about 200 million deaths to their credit -- most of those being their own citizens.

Its time to turn away from that Leviathan. Time has proven that only a frugal, limited government that is asked to do almost nothing is the only kind that brings about more justice, more peace, and more prosperity.

Only Libertarians are working toward those things.

Voters interested in learning more about the Libertarian Party are invited to visit the website at http://www.LP.org.

Those interested in finding out more about libertarianism in general can find several bibliographical resources at https://lpedia.org/wiki/List_of_Books.

Here are the top seven Libertarians who have been seeking the Libertarian Party nomination for president:

Jim Gray http://www.GraySharpe2020.com/

Jacob Hornberger https://JacobForLiberty.com/

Jo Jorgensen https://JOJ2020.com/

Adam Kokesh https://KokeshForPresident.com/

John Monds https://Monds2020.com/

Vermin Supreme https://VerminSupreme2020.com/

Arvin Vohra https://www.VoteVohra.com/

John Pickerill is a Pueblo County resident who has run for public office.

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Less government is the solution - Pueblo Chieftain