Category Archives: Libertarian

In 2014 Zephyr Teachout contested Andrew Cuomo in his bid for reelection and the WFP was divided over the question of whom to back. They went with Cuomo. | Hans Pennink/AP

NEW YORK Labor unions, leaders from the now defunct New Party, powerful non-profit advocacy groups, and community organizations formed the Working Families Party (WFP) of New York in 1998. It has always upheld this labor-community alliance though the strengths of its various pillars have changed.

Every movement for social change experiences major and minor disruptions, internal differences on certain issues, and changes in membership. Member organizations (affiliates) can change their leadership, and the new administrations might not be sympathetic to the larger movements to which they belong. For a party that was formed from such diverse sources, such as the WFP, these truths can be magnified.

Unions that help found or were prominent players of the WFP included the United Auto Workers, Communication Workers of America (CWA) District One, Hotel Trades Council, Greater New York PAC Laborers District Council, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), Local 1199 SEIU (Service Employees International Union), Local 32BJ SEIU, United Steelworkers, United Federation of Teachers, Amalgamated Transit Workers Union, Transport Workers Union (TWU), and UNITE Amalgamated NE Joint Board.

It is practically impossible for union leaderships to ignore even halfway decent incumbents running for reelection. Progressive challengers nearly always have a slim chance of success, and going against a sitting governor or other executive officeholder is typically not forgiven after the predicted reelection victory. Moreover, union leaderships are elected, often by large memberships, and if they cannot deliver victories in struggle or legislatively, they can be easily voted out. In contrast, leaderships of non-profit agencies never face the difficulties of elections by their mass memberships. Finally, trade unions have a firm understanding that social change is often glacial in pace, something community organizations comprised of very different memberships might not realize.

Earlier departures of trade unions from the WFP included the teachers and transport workers unions. After intense intraparty discussions over the 2014 and 2018 gubernatorial elections, other unions left.

Fordham University professor of law Zephyr Teachout contested Gov. Andrew Cuomos first reelection in 2014, and the WFP was divided over whom to back. After some negotiations, Cuomo pledged to support various progressive policies and to actively campaign against renegade Democratic state senators (the Independent Democratic Conference members) who were caucusing with the Republicans and thus preventing the Democratic Party from exercising its elected majority.

At the WFPs contentious nominating convention, the compromise to back Cuomo over Teachout won with only 58 percent of the floor vote. Supporting Cuomo over Teachout and soon leaving the WFP were Local 1199 SEIU and the Hotel Trades Councils.

Prior to the elections, the IDC claimed it would end its alliance with the Republicans, who regained their majority after November 2014 but lost it after the arrests of several senators and accompanying special elections. The IDC then reversed course and remained partners with the Republicans, again preventing a Democratic majority.

Over the next two to four years, Cuomo did sign into law some worthy reform legislation but many progressives charged him with dragging his feet. He did not campaign vigorously against the IDC in 2014 and indeed seemed to later hide behind it, blaming it for his own reluctance at more robust reform. After the 2016 legislative elections, the IDC grew its membership and Cuomo ignored calls to help bring it back to the Democratic Party caucus. Furthermore, he was the leading force behind the 2014 founding of the so-called Womens Equality Party (WEP), deliberately named similarly to the WFP.

Those developments set the stage for yet more disruption within the WFP for Cuomos second reelection bid in 2018. Activist actor Cynthia Nixon opposed him, and there was more support within the WFP to finally revenge the governor. There were meetings between leaders of the WFP, its former and then-current affiliated unions, and the governors office. At one of these, Gov. Cuomo told all WFP-affiliated trade unions to lose my number if they gave money to non-profit and community organizations most critical of the governor. These were Citizen Action, New York Communities for Change, and Make the Road Actionall affiliated with the WFP.

The WFP backed Nixon in the primary. Opposing the Nixon primary endorsement and thus leaving the WFP were the RWDSU and the two largest union affiliates: Local 32BJ SEIU and CWA District One. Cuomo won that round, and the WFP, to retain its ballot status, had no choice but to support Cuomo in the general election. This was a tactical necessity that was probably lost on many WFP-sympathetic voters.

It is too easy for progressive individuals not connected to the union movement to trash the departing unions. Likewise, left or progressive organizations that spend most of their time outside of todays real, existing unions might be too quick to criticize.

Aware of the tactical difficulties facing unions, the WFP has never spoken in hostile terms after member union departures. For example, after 2018, then WFP State Director Bill Lipton said he respected the unions decisions and acknowledged they were in a tight spot. He added, The Working Families Party has always fought for the rights of unions and for all working families and that will never change. He continued, We will stand up for workers, tenants, commuters, homeowners, immigrants, people of color, studentsand every other New Yorker who needs a voice. We will continue to fight for a New York that works for all working families.

Important unions remain. Among them are the United Auto Workers PAC Council, New York State Nurses Association, New York Professional Nurses, New York State United Teachers, and the Profession Staff Congress. Smaller Teamsters locals and the quite militant members from the Laundry, Distribution and Food Service Joint Board are also present.

It is true that non-profit organizations and community groups are playing an increased role within the WFP. ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and Citizen Action helped cofound the WFP. ACORNS successor organization, New York Communities for Change, and the latter group are still prominent. So is Community Voices Heard Power, Make the Road, Metropolitan Council on Housing, New York Political Action Network, and VOCAL-NY Action Fund as well as others.

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From 1938 until 2020, a third party in New York State could obtain ballot status if it won at least 50,000 votes in a gubernatorial election. Meaning, in the four years following a successful campaign, the third party could run candidates on its party line and not have to gather 15,000 valid signatures for its name to simply appear on the ballot.

Obtaining 50,000 votes was made easier because New York is one of eight states that allows fusion voting. (California is a ninth, but only for presidential elections.) Fusion means that more than one party can nominate the same candidate for office. Seemingly odd today, it was common throughout the country until the late 1800s.

State ballots list each party, so voters can pick a candidate on any line under which he or she is running. For example, in 1998, Peter Vallone, Sr., ran for governor and won over 1.5 million votes on the Democratic line and 51,325 votes on the WFP line. The two were combined for his total of 1,570,317, but the WFP had credit for its gathering of over 50,000 votes. Thus, the new WFP won ballot status for the next four years.

Third parties can run their own candidates instead of fusing with others but risk becoming spoilers. Some parties tactically accept this dilemma and fuse with the major party that is ideologically closest. However, other third parties are blind to the spoiler possibility and instead barrel ahead on principle. The Green Party is the strongest example.

Most trade unions and the best of democratic movements seem to separate goals from tactics. Progressive and liberal lawmakers legislatively improve the positions of unions and the lives of the working class, all people facing racial and national discrimination, all women, LGBTQ communities. From this view, how these legislators get into office is a tactical issue, especially given the restrictions of the two-party system. In areas in which third parties are an unviable option, running as a minor party sounds heroic but arguably wastes valuable energy, time, and resources and might throw the election to the opposite side of the spectrum.

Gov. Cuomo was outraged by the 2014 and 2018 primary challenges. Also, the WFP, other progressive organizations, and key labor unions routed the IDC senators in 2018. All of this seemed to push Cuomo over the edge in his hatred of his opponents, especially the WFP. In late 2019, the legislature had agreed to a commission to sort out publicly financed campaigns. Commissioner Jay Jacobs, a Cuomo ally and chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, led efforts to link that reform with much tougher ballot status requirements. The states Supreme Court struck down the law, but the legislature voted for the same restrictions in the state budget in April 2020 amidst the panic of coronavirus.

Under the new law, public financing was progressively expanded. However, ballot status regulations went in the opposite direction. Third parties now had to win 130,000 votes in gubernatorial as well as presidential elections. If 2 percent of all votes cast was greater than 130,000, then the threshold would be the 2 percent figure. The Working Families and other third parties sued, but without success.

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Back to 1998. Five minor parties had ballot status. Of these, the Independence Party (formed in the early 1990s) outperformed all others when running their own candidates (instead of endorsing either the Democrats or Republicans). Politically, it has swung wildly depending on internal power struggles.

The Conservative Party was founded in 1962 based on far-right dissatisfaction with the state Republican Party, which at the time was more liberal than the nations Southern Democrats. Though it ran its own candidates in its early years, Conservatives subsequently cross-endorsed Republicans. The Right to Life Party was founded in 1970. It won ballot status in 1978 and maintained it until the 2002 gubernatorial election, never fusing with Republican candidates for the governors office.

The Liberal Party reached back to 1944 as an anti-Communist alternative to the American Labor Party. It continued as a right-wing social-democratic party until the 1990s, when it further deteriorated and backed Rudy Giuliani for mayor and Betsy McCaughey, conservative critic of President Bill Clintons health plan, for governor.

The gubernatorial election graphs below show the third parties by order of votes. Since the Democrats and Republicans are excluded, each graph shows the third, fourth, fifth, etc., line on the ballot for the following four years.

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In its infancy, the WFP cross-endorsed Democrat Peter Vallone for governor in November 1998. Since it gathered over 50,000 votes (51,325), it won ballot status for the next four years. So did the Green Party (52,533 votes), which ran its own candidate. (It has never fused with the Democrats.)

Four minor parties maintained their ballot statusthe Independence, Conservative, Liberal, and Right to Life parties. Of these, only the Conservatives cross-endorsed (Republican Gov. George Patakis first reelection).

The graphs show each partys percentage of the total vote below the party name. It wasnt relevant in 1998 but would become so in 2020 when the qualifying rules changed (and winning 2 percent became a possible hurdle).

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Four years later, parties that cross-endorsed were again the WFP (Democrat Carl McCall) and Conservatives (Republican Gov. Patakis second reelection). A power struggle within the Independence Party had one side favoring Pataki but the other side, which favored Rochester billionaire Tom Golisano, took the day. The Right to Life, Green, and Liberal parties all fell below the 50,000-vote threshold. The Green Party would come back in 2010, but the RTL and Liberal parties never regained significance.

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In 2006, the same three parties maintained ballot status. The Independence Party, after more internal fighting, fused with the Democrats (Eliot Spitzer), as did the WFP. The Conservatives again cross-endorsed the Republican (John Faso). The vote total for the Independence line plunged more than 460,000 while the WFP gained considerable ground on the Conservatives.

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Four years later, the Green Party regained ballot status while the Libertarian Party (LP) nearly won it. The Independence Party fell to fifth place on the ballot (third on the graph) behind the advancing Conservatives and WFP.

This time, the Independence Party fused with the Republican candidate (the bombastic Carl Paladino), as did the Conservatives, again. The WFP fused with the Democrats (Andrew Cuomo), while the Greens, Libertarians, and all other parties ran their own candidates.

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As mentioned above, different sides within the WFP reached a compromise and backed Democrat Gov. Cuomo in 2014. So the WFP fused with the Democrats. The Conservatives (backing the Republican candidate Rob Astorino) again drew the most minor party votes. The Green vote rose dramatically, and the Independence Party switched back to cross endorsing the Democrats. Its considerable drop in vote is decent evidence of its right-of-center voting base. The WFP vote fell by roughly 30,000 but its share of the total vote stayed at 3.3 percent.

More drama came from the Womens Equality Party, a hostile creation of Cuomos, given the WFP compromise. There was now a WEP and a WFP line, both endorsing him, and the WEP won over 50,000 votes in the ploy. On a line created by Astorino and fusing with the Republicans, the Stop Common Core Party also won ballot status. The Greens did not cross endorse.

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Four years later, again competition against Cuomo was followed by an offensive against the WFP. Actor Cynthia Nixon was running, and there was movement within the WFP to pick her. After endorsing her in the primary, the WFP fused with the Democrats to pick Cuomo in the general election.

The Conservatives again did the best, maintaining their 250-something thousand total (though their percent of the overall vote fell from 6.6 percent in 2014 to 4.2 percent). The WFP overtook the Green party though its number and share of votes declined from 2014. The Libertarians achieved ballot status for the first time, as did a new party, the Save America Movement. Failing to win the necessary 50,000 votes were the WEP and the now-named Reform Party (previously known as Stop Common Core).

The WFP, Independence Party, and WEP fused with the Democrats and supported Gov. Cuomo. The Conservatives and Reform parties fused with the Republicans (Marc Molinaro). The Greens, Libertarians, and SAM ran separate candidates. This was the last qualifying election under the old rulegather 50,000 votes for a candidate for governor, enjoy ballot status for the next four years.

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Presidential elections were not relevant for third-party ballot status until 2020. Regardless, it is interesting to review them. Gov. Cuomo must have studied the old returns as he sought ways to eliminate the WFP.

The black dotted line in the presidential election graphs, at 50,000, is the old number of required votes, needed only in gubernatorial elections. These graphs red line at 130,000 shows the new threshold, needed in each gubernatorial and presidential election beginning in 2020. If 2 percent of the total vote is larger than 130,000, then the 2 percent figure is the threshold. Parties appear according to their ballot position. (This was the order of their votes from the gubernatorial election two years prior.)

In 2000, only two parties won more than 130,000 votes and 2 percent of the total vote: the Conservatives and the Greens. Two parties fell below the 50,000 vote barrier: Independence and RTL. Liberals and the WFP won more than the old hurdle but less than the 2020 mark.

The Conservatives cross-endorsed the Republican (George W. Bush), Liberals and the WFP fused with the Democrat (Vice President Al Gore), and the Independence, RTL, and Green parties ran their own candidates.

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Only three third parties qualified to be on the 2004 ballot. The Conservatives won more than 130,000 votes and 2 percent of the vote total. The WFP surpassed 130,000 votes, but their 133,525 was only 1.8% of the total. The Independence Party outdid the old but not the 2020 standards.

The Conservatives endorsed the Republican (Bushs reelection) and the WFP backed the Democrat (Sen. John Kerry), but the Independence Party did not fuse.

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Four years later, the same three third parties with ballot status. The WFP cross-endorsed Democrat Barack Obama while the Conservative and Independence parties fused with the Republicans (Sen. John McCain). All three parties passed the 2020 barriers of number of votes won and percent of total votes.

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Though it had ballot status, the Independence Party did not run its own or fuse with another candidate in 2012. The Conservatives (backing Republican Mitt Romney) and the WFP (endorsing Pres. Obamas reelection) crossed the 2020 obstacles. The Green Party, regaining ballot status two years prior, ran its own candidate but did not surpass the then-existing 50,000 threshold.

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A crowded ballot in 2016 due to the chaos in the 2014 gubernatorial election. The Conservatives, backing Donald Trump, towered above all others. The WFP cross-endorsed Sec. Hillary Clinton. Like in 2004, its votes were greater than the future 130,000 barrier (140,043), but still below 2 percent of the total. The WEP also fused with the Democrats but its 36,292 votes were under the 50,000 mark.

The Independence and Libertarian parties endorsed Gary Johnson, and both fell short of the future 130,000 threshold. The Stop Common Core Party become the unaffiliated Reform Party, was sued by the national party, became affiliated, witnessed a hostile takeover, and then unaffiliated from the national. It did not appear on the 2016 presidential ballot.

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The presidential election in 2020 was the first test of the new ballot regulations. The Conservatives fused with Republican Donald Trump while the WFP cross-endorsed the Biden-Harris Democratic ticket. The Greens, LP, and Independence Party ran their own candidates.

Only two parties won enough votes to stay on the ballot for the next two years. The WFP had its best showing ever and won nearly 5 percent of the total vote, to be listed as the third party on the state ballots. By backing Trumps reelection, the Conservatives had their strongest finish since the 1998 governors race. Coming up short were the other parties with ballot statusthe Libertarian, Green, and Independence parties. The SAM party did not run a presidential candidate.

Next year will be the first test for third parties to gather the higher required vote total in a gubernatorial election. It will be a midterm election, and those are rare wins for the major party that holds the presidency. Meaning, the Conservative Party might have an easy path to hold its state ballot status. Conversely, the WFP might have a rough time doing the same.

On the other hand, Gov. Cuomo resigned in disgrace due to multiple sexual harassment accusations. Had he clung to power, the WFP would have either been practically forced to cross endorse or face playing a spoiler role by not fusing but risk throwing the election to a Republican. One truth is certain: losing ballot status puts a third party in a completely different situation.

Read more from the original source:

Labor History: A brief history of the NYS Working Families Party - People's World

As some K-12 school districts are removing books from established curriculum, Gov. Bill Lee sees an opportunity to add curriculum with an emphasis on civics.

Lee announced in his State of the State address on Monday he is working to formalizea partnership with Hillsdale College, aprivate institution in Hillsdale, Michigan, that has become widely known for its politically and religiously conservative values.

Lee's office said it plans to outline more details about the partnership in the coming weeks. But details from Hillsdale indicate the partnership will be an opportunity to further the K-12 education initiatives the college has been exporting outside Michigan.

"When Governor Lee visited Hillsdale College, he was impressed with the College's ongoing efforts in supporting charter schools with its K-12 curriculum and teacher training," Kathleen O'Toole, Hillsdale's provost for K-12 education, said in a statement.

Lee's State of the State: Billions of dollars and no COVID talk: Takeaways from Gov. Bill Lee's State of the State

There are about 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled at Hillsdale, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, a database of information thatcolleges and universities report to the federal government.

The college was founded by Baptists and has preserved its Christian identity, which ithas infused with intellectual, cultural and political conservatism, said Adam Laats, a history professor at Binghamton University and an expert on institutions like Hillsdale.

The college has positioned itself as "a sort of libertarian or 'fusionist,' is what the nerds call it, type of conservative alignment," said Laats, author of "Fundamentalist U: Keeping the American Faith in Higher Education."

In the past decade,Hillsdale hasgrown its multifaceted K-12 program, most notably defined by the 21 charter schools it helped establish throughout 10 states.

There is oneset to openin Williamson County for the 2023-24 school year, USA Classical Academy, according to the academy's website.Whether the school has applied to the Williamson County Board of Educationfor approval of a charter is currently unknown.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County School Systemalso recently received an applicationfor a Hillsdale-affiliated charter school, according to Main Street Clarksville.

"The college's curriculum and teaching support helps classical schools to provide the type of education that all Americans both need and deserve one that is rooted in the liberal arts and sciences, offers a firm grounding in civic virtue, and cultivates moral character," O'Toole said in the statement.

In addition to the charter schools it helps establish, Hillsdale has produced, "The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum," that includes lesson plans for teachers.

Latest on school choice push: New Tennessee school voucher bill clears key Senate committee

Those includes a list of "Hillsdale College-vetted books" and other resources to guide the practice of teaching. About 30 schools, all seemingly private or charter, have officially partnered with Hillsdale to download and use the free curriculum, according to the website. Only one Tennessee school, Ivy Academy's Skillern Elementary, a charter school in Soddy-Daisy in Hamilton County, is on Hillsdale's "curriculum schools" list.

Both of Hillsdale's major K-12 initiatives are part of the governor's plans.

"Hillsdale is involved in a number of initiatives that align with our priorities in Tennessee," Lee spokesperson Casey Black said in a statement Tuesday. That includes expanding "high-quality education options for Tennessee students" and developing new charter schools, Black said.

Hillsdale President Larry Arnn met with Franklin parents in the fall and alluded to a conversation with Lee about developing 50 new schools in Tennessee in six years, according to a recording published by Hillsdale.

Partnerships between states and colleges and universities for K-12 education initiatives is common, Laats said. But he said there seems to be uniqueelements withtheprospective Tennessee-Hillsdale partnership.

"What strikes me as the unusual takeaway is that the governor is intentionally wheeling the state into this very ideologically loaded and electorally loaded civics education," Laats said.

The college promotesconservative Christian values and has close ties with former President Donald Trump's administration. Some Hillsdalealumni served in the Trump administration.

The school is popularly known for rejecting federal government financial aid, meaning it is not subject to somefederal regulations that many colleges and universities are.

The college also publishes Imprimus, a free monthly digest founded in 1972focusing on speech and religious liberty issues that is well-read among conservativethought leaders. In December, it hired its first executive director for the new Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers, Connecticut.

The prospective partnership with Tennessee aligns with two efforts Lee has prioritized since taking office. The governor has pushed for expanding school choice in Tennessee, including passage of his hallmark education savings account program that is now tied up in state court and establishing the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

The states current efforts to revamp how it funds K-12 schools also has a charter school component, with additional funding proposed for charter schools.

Teeing up the announcement of the Hillsdale partnership in his State of the State, Lee quoted former President Ronald Reagan whom Hillsdale has a statue of on its campus talking about teaching the "basics."

Referring toReagan's words, Lee said, "Some 30 years later, these words are more true and now more than ever, its important that we teach true American history, unbiased and nonpolitical."

Reporters Meghan Mangrum and Melissa Brown contributed to this report.

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter @liamsadams.

The rest is here:

Civics, charters and classical ed: What to know about Hillsdale College's K-12 efforts in Tennessee - Tennessean

If you want to vote by mail, you have to request a mail-in ballot.The Maryland State Board of Elections is mailing ballot request forms for mail-in ballots to more than 3 million registered Maryland voters in advance of the state's 2022 primary election. Ballot requests forms will begin arriving in mailboxes later this week. Maryland's 2022 primary election is on June 28. This year, Maryland state law requires election officials send all voters a form to request a mail-in ballot. After filling out the request form, sign and seal it and return it in the postage-paid envelope that came with the form. To receive a mail-in ballot for the primary election, return envelopes must be received by June 21.Voters who want to vote in person should not fill out and return the form.Alternatively, voters can request a mail-in ballot online if they have a Maryland driver's license or Motor Vehicle Administration-issued ID card.Voters can also visit their local boards of election and fill out and return their ballot request form.This first phase of request forms for the primary election are addressed to registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Voters registered with other political parties, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, and unaffiliated voters will receive a request form in a second phase of mailers if there is a primary election in their school board district. Request forms for these voters will be mailed after the deadline for candidates to file for office, so that election officials will know where there are contested school board elections. There will be a final phase of mailers after the primary election for all other registered voters.To vote by mail, you must be registered to vote in Maryland. Visit elections.maryland.gov to register or update your voter record.

If you want to vote by mail, you have to request a mail-in ballot.

The Maryland State Board of Elections is mailing ballot request forms for mail-in ballots to more than 3 million registered Maryland voters in advance of the state's 2022 primary election. Ballot requests forms will begin arriving in mailboxes later this week.

Maryland's 2022 primary election is on June 28.

This year, Maryland state law requires election officials send all voters a form to request a mail-in ballot. After filling out the request form, sign and seal it and return it in the postage-paid envelope that came with the form. To receive a mail-in ballot for the primary election, return envelopes must be received by June 21.

Voters who want to vote in person should not fill out and return the form.

Alternatively, voters can request a mail-in ballot online if they have a Maryland driver's license or Motor Vehicle Administration-issued ID card.

Voters can also visit their local boards of election and fill out and return their ballot request form.

This first phase of request forms for the primary election are addressed to registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Voters registered with other political parties, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, and unaffiliated voters will receive a request form in a second phase of mailers if there is a primary election in their school board district. Request forms for these voters will be mailed after the deadline for candidates to file for office, so that election officials will know where there are contested school board elections.

There will be a final phase of mailers after the primary election for all other registered voters.

To vote by mail, you must be registered to vote in Maryland. Visit elections.maryland.gov to register or update your voter record.

Read the original:

Mail-in ballot request forms sent to Maryland voters ahead of primary election - WBAL TV Baltimore

Earthling Ed propped up a table and banner in White Plaza: VEGANISM IS A MORAL OBLIGATION: CHANGE MY MIND. Its provocative, all-caps claim drew a small crowd of bike-wheeling students. Ryan Loo 25 braked to a halt on his way back from class. Kawther Said 25 and Susan Ahmed 25, members of Stanfords People for Animal Welfare (PAW), came soon after Ed first propped up his table. Gerrit Van Zyll who doesnt go to Stanford is a digital marketing analyst whose lunchtime bike ride was interrupted by the sight of Ed, one of his favorite YouTubers.

Earthling Ed was talking to a philosophy major (Ed is not affiliated with the University). Their discussion, ranging from Kants ethics to the diets of Inuit peoples, was ripe with academic camaraderie. Eventually, the student stood up, shook Earthling Eds hand and revealed she is already vegan.

I just like to have these kinds of conversations, she shrugged. Eds videographer adjusted his camera on its tripod. Everything would be uploaded online. Except, perhaps, the parts to come.

Ed Winters became Earthling Ed while scrolling through BBC News in 2014. The headline Hundreds of chickens killed in M62 lorry crash drew his eye; by the end of the day, he had found a new conviction. He could no longer justify his complicity in the murder of animals. The leftover KFC in his fridge now carved caverns in his conscience.

A year later, Winters, who resembles a vegan Jesus in a Steve Jobs turtleneck, set up his YouTube channel. He began by uploading street interviews in his native United Kingdom, where he spoke to strangers about the ethics of eating animals. Since then, he has co-founded the Official Animal Rights March, a global event which drew 41,000 participants in 2019; released a documentary expos on U.K. land farming; taught as a guest lecturer at Harvard University; opened nonprofit vegan restaurants in London and Brighton specializing in tofish and chips; and written his debut book on veganism, released in January 2022.

But most people find him through YouTube. His most popular video, Coronavirus is just the start. Something far worse is coming, has 4.5 million views to date.

This Nov. 18 visit to Stanford University was part of a Northern California tour, sandwiched between stops at UC Berkeley and Davis. Winters goal is to get students talking about veganism and, in the most utopic outcome, convince them to make the switch. According to his website, 33,248 people have gone vegan thanks to his content.

The day before was a dream. Belinda Yu, a Bay Area animal-rights activist, could vouch for it. She loves Earthling Ed to the point of seeing him debate at not one but both rival schools. At Berkeley, according to witnesses, Winters faced a resistant but open-minded student who, at the end of their tte--tte, declared himself convinced. He was going to go vegan.

I think many of us are compassionate hearts, Yu said. We would make very different choices. Its the industry its just profit. Its capitalism.

But then again, yesterday there was no Leah Waites 23. As Winters readied himself for his next debate, Waites approached with two handmade posters. They were capitalized. VEGANISM IS FINE BUT JUDGING PEOPLE FOR NOT BEING RICH IS V V WACKY, she had written in black Sharpie on posters from the Stanford Bookstore. I GUARANTEE THESE MFS UPHOLD ANIMAL & HUMAN OPPRESSION MORE THAN YOUR AVERAGE JOE.

Waites, a philosophy major decked in transition sunglasses and lugging a water bottle, staked claim to a patch of grass near the bookstore. Winters asked her to sit and speak with him.

No! she yelled, raising her signs higher. I passed your sign earlier, and it was disgusting. And it was racist and classist, and Im not here for it!

Waites is a native of rural Alabama. Growing up poor in a food desert, there were times when dinner consisted of taquitos from the Dollar General, she said. When she first tried the vegan options at the Stanford dining halls, she said, she was shocked to find vegan food could taste good. There just wasnt any where she grew up.

Earlier that day, Waites, who is a white woman, opened Instagram to see several people of color posting about how Winters sign is offensive to Indigenous and African cultures that prepare meat in a respectful and sustainable manner. (She was not sure she remembered the specific details of the posts.) She called her parents, told them what she was going to do and went to buy her posters.

They worry about me, she told me. Its just me up against a lot of people all the time. Waites explained that these confrontations are not out of the ordinary for her. They were especially common back home, she said.

In White Plaza, Waites told Winters that being vegan would take a disproportionate toll on her as a poor person. But Winters challenged this why cant she be vegan at Stanford? There are abundant options at the dining hall.

I could be vegan, she said.

So, why arent you?

Because its not something that I feel I need to spend my time doing. Because I do a lot of other moral things that help humans more.

Waitess volume reached a level that drew stares. A middle-aged woman walking her dog stood and listened by the Claw. Waites was criticizing Winters, heatedly, for spending his time talking about veganism when there are workers at these dining halls who are being exploited right now, actual people of color. He tried to respond and was cut off.

Youre a white guy, Waites said. I can interrupt you.

And youre a white woman.

Well, youre copping out of the fact Im saying that youre racist, and youre not saying youre not a racist. Youre saying, how do you? Thats not an answer, right? Apparently because you wont even say you arent.

Ed turned to the audience. Anyone else here think Im a racist? he said. What about the people of color who arent white? Why is it only the white woman who thinks Im a racist?

The audience was silent. More students filtered into the crowd. The decibel of raised voices had proved magnetic.

Youre not worth it, Waites told Winters, but I hope people read these signs. She faced the gathered students, now almost 20 of them. Several iPhones had risen to film her.

Isnt it funny to hear him talk? she said to the cameras.

Its good to hear him talk, a voice in the crowd said.

Then Winters vied for the onlookers sympathy.

Who would have thought that asking someone not to kill an animal could be such a divisive scenario? But it enrages people. It makes them a racist because they say, Hey, if you dont have the moot to cut the throat of an animal

Awww, did your sign say that? Waites said.

Sideways glances in the audience. Ed looked lost, like he had been dropped into an alternate reality.

The only place Ive had people scream at me is here!

Im glad! Im glad people here have the guts!

A beat of silence until, finally, Waites said, Id like you to stop talking to me, and then she turned away.

For Said, one of the PAW members, this was an opening to pose a question. She asked Waites why she felt she could speak on behalf of people of color.

Why should the people who are affected most have to fight for things? Waites responded. If I have free time as a white woman to fight for shit because its easier for me to come here and stand up for people, shouldnt I fucking be doing that?

Youre just making them look bad, Said said.

Im making people of color look bad?

Yes, you are, because youre saying shit that doesnt make any fucking sense.

Okay. Thats one of the strangest arguments Ive ever

You are very strange. Youre a very strange person, Said deadpanned. You cant just throw around the word racist. How is he racist for saying to go vegan?

For the first time, Waites turned quiet and still.

Okay. Then, we see the world too differently for me to argue with you about this. Im sorry.

Waites turned on a Bluetooth speaker. Pop music swept into the scene, finding Earthling Ed with his palms up in disbelief, wearing a pinched look that appeared to be saying, Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Waites raised her signs above her head and swayed to the songs.

The crowd splintered. Friends turned to friends to discuss.

I understand the desire to want to be an ally for marginalized voices, Loo said. But I do feel as though its in poor taste to be unnecessarily hostile about it while also saying, Oh, Im doing this for this group of people.

Celeste Jupiter 22, a senior studying human biology, pursed her lips at Winterss behavior: His consistent reference to what do you people of color think today? was like Im not gonna be your representative for people of color today.

A new student sat at the table to debate Winters. He introduced himself as a libertarian. Their conversation was barely audible, its nuances washed away by Waitess music only feet away. She remained, signs up, rooted.

The next day, Winters would go to UC Davis. He anticipated negative reactions to his sign Davis is a big agricultural school. It hosts a poultry judging competition every year.

But here, in Palo Alto, the sun was inching to leave. Some 20 minutes later, Waites folded her posters under her arms. She told Winters he did not have permission to post the footage of her online.

It was nice to meet you, Winters called out, turning from his conversation with the libertarian, to which Waites replied her back shrinking from the foreground No.

As the videographer packed his tripod and the crowd dwindled to zero, White Plaza was left in a virulent whiplash of emotional reactivity, a dissonant mood of unconsciousness. The trees swallowed the sun. All that was left of Earthling Ed were four indentations in the grass where his table stood moments ago. The teachers left to learn from themselves, and White Plaza was left alone. Students biked like newsboys from corner to corner.

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The teachers of White Plaza - The Stanford Daily

On 23 January,The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)published Is Star Treks Dream of a World Without Money Utopian or Dystopian?, a piece does not serve the cause of Liberty well. Sure, the article is not written in bad faith. But it ends up justifying a parasitic form of capitalism that has less and less to do with entrepreneurship and increasingly colludes with and corrupts regulators and political authorities.

The issue of moneys disappearance has long been at the centre of heightened debates. Probably, some familiarised with the idea thanks to the cult sci-fi serial Star Trek. Yet, much earlier than that, classical Greek thinkers like Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle reflected on the function of money. And there are also more recent discussions on this issue: from political theorist Anitra Nelson to industrial designer Jacque Fresco. However, two millennia of debates have not yielded many results or anything resembling a consensus on the function/s money serves.

Against this background, unwarranted claims by eclectic billionaires become the unwitting target of misplaced defences of nowadays monopolistic, crony capitalism. Henceforth, this sort of capitalism or accumulation regime, as some economists label it is referred to as neo-feudalistic capitalism. Even paradoxically, perhaps, given that the authors of such articles really believe they are defending freedom and individual self-determination. Recently, the Foundation for Economic Educations (FEE) published a piece titled Is Star Treks Dream of a World Without Money Utopian or Dystopian?, which is a clear example of such misplaced defence of neo-feudalistic capitalism in the name of an enterprising, freedom-generating capitalism that does not exist.

Namely, the piece samples many of the libertarian fields weakest talking point and reflects a narrow-minded conception economic theory. First, the text creates a fake equivalence between capitalism as it is now, raising living standards and absolute-poverty reduction without observing the data critically and informing their readers correctly. Secondly, it oversimplifies most counter-arguments ignoring the many problems of neo-feudalistic capitalism and recent findings in behavioural economics.

Instead of merely criticising, deconstructing these arguments offers an occasion to imagine a wider front of liberty defenders. After all, Mises, Keynes, Marx, Sowell and Friedman disagree on the road towards, rather than notion of freedom. Hence, libertarian, conservative and progressive economics ought to reject the current form of predatory capitalism not to defend it.

One of libertarians, neoliberals, and conservatives most-often repeat argument in defence of capitalisms current form tackles the problem of poverty. In fact, the piece reads that capitalism has been successful at lifting most of humanity out of poverty. But, did it?

Indeed, this is true when considering UN data on absolute poverty; or the severe deprivation of basic human needs. And the UN lists these basic needs as: food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. In fact, the authors themselves use Our World in Datas (OWD) chart showing the reduction in absolute poverty since 1820. In addition, Figure 1 (below) shows also OWDs chart showing the share of the world population in absolute poverty. Still, it would be worth asking if is it possible for almost 90% of the world population to be extremely poor at any point in time.

Figure 1 Data on extreme poverty, (A) absolute numbers and (B) percentage. All data are before taxes and transfers. (Charts from: Our World in Data)

Looking at the methodological note on OWDs website, the solution appears related to the definition of absolute poverty. In fact, the charts count the people who lived in conditions that are similar to the living conditions of the very poorest in the world today. Therefore, OWD is assessing poverty as if the 20th centurys basic needs were universal or trans-epochal. Clearly, logically and rationally this is an econometric and statistical absurd. Conversely, it should be unsurprising that in the 19th century sanitation, education and information were of lower quality.

As a matter of fact, as countries get richer, the value of what they consider as basic needs increases. If anything, the reason lies in societys constant evolution, which ingenerates new needs and spurs new technologies also before modernity. Hence, the real success of an economic system lies in increasing the number of people who can live a decent lifeby their times standards. And economists gave a name to this measurement: relative or social poverty. According World Bank data in Figure 2, the current version of capitalism has achieved little or nothing in this respect. On the contrary: the total headcount of societal poverty is essentially at the same level it was in 1990 due to the increasing global population.

Figure 2 World Bank data on relative poverty between 1990 and 2015.(Data source: Jolliffe and Prydz 2017; Chart: Authors elaboration)

Table 1 Data on relative poverty from Jolliffe and Prydz (2017).

The second argument supporting the unquestionability of money derives from Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged:

Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. [] Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders.

For anyone with an up-to-date understanding of economic theory this is straightforward naivety. In other words, there should be is nothing in a monetary transaction besides the free will of the participants.

Yet, there are enormous conditionings that weight on the result of any transaction beyond ones free will. For instance, there may be regulations prohibiting the provision of certain services to specific individuals (e.g., international sanctions). Again, rules can fix certain goods and services minimum or maximum price (e.g., the US Office of Price Administration). More, indirect taxes, surcharges and subsidies alter prices leading some people not to buy and other to buy more. Finally, laws can impose a transaction (e.g., US law mandated covid-19 tests, but either employers or employees had to pay).

Even assuming no State intervention, one cannot disregard the power relations in the economic sphere mention one. In fact, neo-feudalistic capitalism is full of monopolies and oligopolies with stratospheric margins that dictate unreasonable prices and lobby regulators. Moreover, major corporations tend to develop predatory traits and annihilate any competition at first sight or even in the cradle. Additionally, behavioural economics shows that advertising and other practices alter preferences and behaviours surreptitiously, with the potential to generate inefficiencies.

Clearly, contrary statements prove that Kurt W. Rothschild was right when he wrote power is neglected in contemporary economic theory. Furthermore, they lead to a completely false reading of economic history. In fact, the authors strenuous critique of Marx and Marxism goes as far as saying that workers chose industrial jobs because they paid better than those in agriculture in 19th century England. Really, this reconstruction may appear rational to a libertarian but, as Karl Polanyi wrote, it is simply false. In fact, wealthy individuals began enclosing previously common plots of land, forced poor farmers out into the towns. And once there, disorientation, hunger, and other desperate peoples competition of dissipated any semblance of fair wage negotiations.

Admittedly, the aim of this article is not to prove that the abolition of money would create a utopia. Nor to support the authors claim that it would almost certainly lead to a dystopia. In reality, money is not a guarantee of freedom but neither is its abolition. Meanwhile, given that nowadays societies are already on the brink of a dystopic tomorrow, talented libertarians like the authors should refrain from pursuing counter-productive critiques of far-fetched speculations like a money-less society. Indeed, neo-feudalistic capitalism seems even unable to abolish cash let alone money itself.

Instead, it is high time for libertarians, conservatives and progressive to join forces to protect civil and economic freedoms. Each of these groups can contribute with a different, and differentiated, analysis of todays deep crisis. Yet, only forming a united front can they stop neo-feudalistic capitalisms mania for social control, monopoly and state capture. Essentially, no one supports an embryonic social-credit system, the death of small and medium businesses and reckless monetary policy. Yet, this is the direction in which neo-feudalistic capitalism is leading humanity at an accelerating speed.

Once this formidable adversary is no more, there will be plenty of time for libertarians to criticise some risk-prone progressives. As well as to serve an uppercut to some conservatives cultural traditionalism. But until then, everyones attention should be on stopping the current drift before it is too late.

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Freedoms and free-market capitalism beyond utopias and dystopias: A World Without Money revised - Modern Diplomacy

On Religious Freedom Day, we commemorate the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. The legislation was drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777 and eventually shepherded by James Madison through the legislature in 1786. Historians agree that it provided the basis for which the framers of the Constitution and later, the First Amendments approach to matters of religion and government and the rights of citizens. But religious freedom gets in the way of governmental, religious and economic tyrants and the wannabes. Certain interests didnt like all this at the time and they dont like it now.

Among these are certain wealthy libertarian conservatives who are busy undermining religious freedom. Their goal is the domination of society by mythical market forces. To get there, they are underwriting reactionary religious allies to undermine their common enemy: healthy democratic institutions that are dedicated to delivering for the common good, and able to thwart the best efforts of movements seeking religious supremacy of their beliefs over others. These same forces also funded elements of the January 6 Insurrectionist movement.

In a healthy democracy such as ours, faith often informs societal morality to a critical point. Pluralistic society should operate like a well-made clock. People of good conscience share certain basic values, notions of social behavior regarding such things as tolerance, as well as repugnance to theft and violence. These values operate like the finely tuned gears of a timepiece. As each cog operates within its own parameters, it fits with the next, all working together to tell the correct time of the day.

This is similar to the objective understanding of a moral good.

But there is also a type of moral good that is more subjective, and is not shared. Take for example, embryonic stem cell research. The official position of the Catholic Church is complete opposition and is considered a sin. Judaism and many Protestant denominations, however, approve of this life-saving research. Indeed, in Judaism it is considered a sin not to do such late potentially life-saving research. This is where one faiths particular belief may be contrary to consensus.

To use government to deny another individual access to a subjective good such as stem cell research or reproductive rights is not religious freedom but the elevation of the religious doctrines of some, over those of many if not most others. This also elevates certain religious doctrines over broadly accepted ideas of the common good.

As an American Catholic, I was disturbed to discover that reactionary elements of my faith are being underwritten by libertarian source of dark money:

DonorsTrust.

As Brian Fraga of The National Catholic Reporter explained:

Fraga reminded us of how Donor Trusts operates:

A lede to an article posted by The Daily Beast last November revealed a disturbing discovery: Efforts to overturn the election. Jan. 6 organizers. White supremacist groups. And more than a dozen private and public universities. Continuing directly, They all have one thing in common: They received anonymous funding funneled through a single conservative dark money behemoth.

That behemoth is Donors Trust.

Returning to the National Catholic Reporter piece, Fraga further points out:

Included in those receiving funds were the Diocese of Spokane, Washington; the Thomas More Society; the Acton Institute; and the San Francisco Archdiocese's Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship.

In total, nonprofits affiliated with the Catholic Church or that have worked closely with church officials on anti-abortion advocacy and other policy and legal matters received at least $10 million from Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that in 2020 doled out more than $182 million in grants to organizations like the VDARE Foundation and New Century Foundation, which the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League consider to be white supremacist groups.

The Diocese of Spokane, Washington is overseen by Bishop Thomas Daly who is known for his outspoken culture war rhetoric.

The Thomas More Society is essentially a law firm dedicated to culture war issues such as combating reproductive rights and anti-vax causes.

The Acton Institute is a libertarian think tank, led by Catholic priest Robert Sirico.

The San Francisco Archdiocese's Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship is led by Executive Director Maggie Gallagher, a well-known conservative commentator known for her opposition to reproductive rights, LGBT rights and single parenting. The organizations board of directors includes Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone who is well-known for his diatribes against President Biden and for his anti-vaxism.

What all of the above have in common is their desire to use public governing power to impose theocratic Catholic notions regarding LGBTQ issues, reproductive rights and potential life-saving medical research. To do so, they will go against Church teaching on economics by providing religious cover to libertarian conservatives.

Stephen Schneck, the former director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America noted, "It's clear that pure libertarianism cannot fit under a Catholic umbrella. He went on to warn, "Everybody should realize that by taking this money, they're opening the door to the far right's efforts to further politicize our church."

It all comes down to this: wealthy libertarian conservatives are willing to use religious conservatives who wish to impose a form of theocracy upon all Americans. These theocrats want to impose their subjective theological understanding upon the many of us who disagree with their various interpretations. In order to do so, they will close their eyes and take money from the very people who wish to subvert their faith in order to bring them about a libertarian fantasy world where many traditional government services become privatized, and never reach the poor, for which even the conservative Pope John II has expressed a preferential option.

And to do so, these libertarians are willing to destroy religious freedom.

Continue reading here:

The Libertarian Conservative Threat to Religious Freedom - Daily Kos

But then comes the complicating factor, the part of my experience that turned me more right-wing. Because in the second phase of my illness, once I knew roughly what was wrong with me and the problem was how to treat it, I very quickly entered a world where the official medical consensus had little to offer me. It was only outside that consensus, among Lyme disease doctors whose approach to treatment lacked any C.D.C. or F.D.A. imprimatur, that I found real help and real hope.

And this experience made me more libertarian in various ways, more skeptical not just of our own medical bureaucracy, but of any centralized approach to health care policy and medical treatment.

This was true even though the help I found was often expensive and it generally wasnt covered by insurance; like many patients with chronic Lyme, I had to pay in cash. But if I couldnt trust the C.D.C. to recognize the effectiveness of these treatments, why would I trust a more socialized system to cover them? After all, in socialized systems cost control often depends on some centralized authority like Britains National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or the controversial, stillborn Independent Payment Advisory Board envisioned by Obamacare setting rules or guidelines for the system as a whole. And if youre seeking a treatment that official expertise does not endorse, I wouldnt expect such an authority to be particularly flexible and open-minded about paying for it.

Quite the reverse, in fact, given the trade-off that often shows up in health policy, where more free-market systems yield more inequalities but also more experiments, while more socialist systems tend to achieve their egalitarian advantages at some cost to innovation. Thus many European countries have cheaper prescription drugs than we do, but at a meaningful cost to drug development. Americans spend obscene, unnecessary-seeming amounts of money on our system; America also produces an outsize share of medical innovations.

And if being mysteriously sick made me more appreciative of the value of an equalizing floor of health-insurance coverage, it also made me aware of the incredible value of those breakthroughs and discoveries, the importance of having incentives that lead researchers down unexpected paths, even the value of the unusual personality types that become doctors in the first place. (Are American doctors overpaid relative to their developed-world peers? Maybe. Am I glad that American medicine is remunerative enough to attract weird Type A egomaniacs who like to buck consensus? Definitely.)

Whatever everyday health insurance coverage is worth to the sick person, a cure for a heretofore-incurable disease is worth more. The cancer patient has more to gain from a single drug that sends their disease into remission than a single-payer plan that covers a hundred drugs that dont. Or to take an example from the realm of chronic illness, just last week researchers reported strong evidence that multiple sclerosis, a disease once commonly dismissed as a species of hysteria, is caused by the Epstein-Barr virus. If that discovery someday yields an actual cure for MS, it will be worth more to people suffering from the disease than any insurance coverage a government might currently offer them.

So if the weakness of the libertarian perspective on health insurance is its tendency minimize the strange distinctiveness of illness, to treat patients too much like consumers and medical coverage too much like any other benefit, the weakness of the liberal focus on equalizing cost and coverage is the implicit sense that medical care is a fixed pie in need of careful divvying, rather than a zone where vast benefits await outside the realm of whats already available.

Link:

Opinion | How Being Sick Changed My Health Care Views - The New York Times

As of Jan. 15, there were 2,218,374 people registered to vote in Oklahoma, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board. (Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash)

OKLAHOMA CITY Registered Republicans increased their majority among Oklahoma voters in the last two years, while Democrats lost ground and percentages of registered independent and Libertarian voters both increased, according to figures released Tuesday by the Oklahoma State Election Board.

The board released its annual voter registration report, which showed that as of Jan. 15 there were 2,218,374 people registered to vote in the Sooner State. That compared favorably to Jan. 15, 2020, when there were 2,090,107 Oklahomans registered to cast ballots.

Slightly more than half of registered voters in the state 50.6% identify as Republicans. In January 2020, some 48.3% were registered Republicans.

By contrast, 31.4% of state voters as of Jan. 15 identified as Democrats. That compared to 35.3% who identified as Democrats in 2020.

Some 17.2% of state voters identify as independents, while 1% identify as Libertarian.

Doing the math, there currently are 1,122,582 registered Republicans in Oklahoma, 696,723 registered Democrats, 381,088 independents and 17,981 Libertarians.

Oklahomas official voter registration statistics are counted every year on Jan. 15.

According to Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax, it is easy to register to vote in Oklahoma. Eligible applicants can fill out applications using the OK Voter Portal registration wizard or download a Voter Registration Application from the State Election Board website. Applications are also available at all 77 county election board offices in the state as well as at most tag agencies, post offices and libraries.

The next voter registration deadline is March 21.

Current voters who need to make changes to their registration can update an address within the same county and/or party affiliation online using the OK Voter Portal or by submitting a new Voter Registration Application to their county election board.

For more information on voter registration or to view historical voter registration statistics, online go to oklahoma.gov/elections.

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Report reveals more Oklahomans registered to vote - Journal Record

Its an issue that has long engaged my attention: Where do we draw the line between autonomy and subjugation, between when we should be left alone and when we must be made to conform for the common good?

I have strong libertarian instincts, so I have always argued for the minimum government necessary to protect us against threats to our lives and property, and that otherwise we should be free to pursue our own interests and flee our own demons. The laws should be few but well defined, clearly explained and enforced equally against all offenders.

That viewpoint gives us an obvious place to draw the line: If my actions would harm only me, let it be. If they could harm others, a case can be made for government intervention.

But we can see a problem with that simple demarcation just by looking at Indiana traffic laws.

Prohibitions against driving under the influence are entirely justifiable because the drunken driver endangers everybody else on the road. Mandatory use of seat belts and motorcycle helmets should be on the other side of the line, since we only risk our own lives with noncompliance.

Indiana, alas, cannot handle the distinction. Seat belts are mandatory; motorcycle helmets are not. And the reason is not complicated: politics. Motorcycle riders have an active lobby. Car drivers do not.

That dilemma the implementation of necessary and understandable law complicated by political considerations has been brought into sharper focus by the Covid pandemic and the response to it. We should now be thinking much more deeply about the relationship between governors and the governed.

That relationship may not have been broken, but it has certainly been sorely tested, because the government has squandered the faith of the governed without which we lack the trust civil society needs to exist.

Time and time and again, we have been misled about well, everything. Masks. Vaccinations. Social distancing. The chances of serious effects, hospitalizations, death.

It could be said that our politicians lied to us in a cynical attempt to curry favor with one group and demonize another group, or merely to savor the sense of power the emergency gave them.

Or we could be less cynical and say we have succumbed to a mistaken idea of science. Starting with global warming alarmism, we were encouraged to view the science as settled truth instead of a trial-and-error search for the truth. Now, with the pandemic, we expect the scientific answers to always hold instead of being subject to change as more data emerge. The pairing of politics, which is about short-term answers to immediate concerns, and science was always a bad marriage; we should be beginning to understand just how dysfunctional it is.

In either case, we keep repeating the same mistakes. Given the low threat level to everyone except the elderly and those with underlying conditions, the economy should not have been shut down, and incalculable damage was done to a whole generation of children by closing their schools. Yet, with every wave of new-variant infections, there are those who call for those same responses, and too many who willing accept them.

Early in the pandemic, I wrote that another crisis, similar to this but worse, would surely come, and we should learn from this episode to better handle the next one. Today I really wonder if we are capable of that.

As I write this, Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 tennis player in the world, has been kicked out of Australia and denied the opportunity to compete in that countrys Open tournament because he refused to get the Covid vaccine, despite the fact that he had suffered through the virus and thus had better immunity than the vaccine could give him.

They could have forbidden entry to the country in the first place, but they let him come and then jerked him around for 11 days before sending him on his way. Not for any valid medical reason but because, in the words of one analysis, he was seen as someone who could stir up anti-vaccine sentiments.

I feel for you, pal, I really do. A line was crossed here, but not by you.

Leo Morris, columnist for The Indiana Policy Review, is winner of the Hoosier Press Associations award for Best Editorial Writer. Contact him at leoedits@yahoo.com.

Read more from the original source:

Covid and the Djokovic line | Opinion | shelbynews.com - Shelbynews

Sam Bright unravels the ties between Conservative leadership hopeful Liz Truss and Westminsters network of opaque libertarian think tanks

Boris Johnsons premiership of the Conservative Party is dying. It is currently unclear how slowly or quickly the rot is taking hold, but there is little doubt that his political career is on a steep, downward trajectory.

His Downing Street team held multiple parties in breach of lockdown rules both this year and last, some of which were attended by the Prime Minister. The public backlash has been fierce, with focus groups telling former Downing Street pollster James Johnson that the Prime Minister is a coward.

There was something about him that made him a bit more personable to me, one voter in the focus group said, who backed the Conservatives for the first time in 2019. Its gone now, because weve lost that trust in him. Now hes just a buffoon He cant be trusted.

Scenting an opportunity, rivals to Johnsons throne are now encircling the Prime Minister preparing their campaigns for the moment when his leadership begins its final descent. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is a front-runner in this pack, by virtue of her popularity among Conservative Party members.

But Truss also has another crucial constituency of support that may bolster her efforts to seize control of the Conservative Party: for years, she has developed close ties to the Tufton Street network a group of libertarian think tanks and lobbying groups, many of which are opaquely funded, that for years have exerted considerable influence on the policy decisions and the operation of the Tories.

Several of the groups are currently or were formerly based in brick-clad offices along Tufton Street in Londons Westminster, creating an association between a political ideology and the address as well as suspicions that these libertarian organisations closely coordinate their work.

Tufton Street is much like Fleet Street the former habitat of the newspaper industry. While the titles that were once based there have now scattered across London, Fleet Street is still used as a shorthand phrase for the industry much like Tufton Street and the world of libertarian politics.

Indeed, Shahmir Sanni, a Brexit whistleblower who formerly worked within the Tufton Street network, says that these groups regularly held meetings at 55 Tufton Street to agree on a single set of right-wing talking points and to [secure] more exposure to thepublic.

These organisations are bound by their support for Brexit the Vote Leave campaign was originally registered at 55 Tufton Street and their vigour for low taxes, laissez faire economics, a smaller state, and seemingly close relationship with Liz Truss.

Attempting to institutionalise a right-wing political ideology, the Conservative Party has deployed the public appointments system to install sympathetic individuals in prominent government roles.

This strategy has been adopted by Truss, seen actively during her time as International Trade Secretary from July 2019 to September 2021, which involved the awarding of public positions to Tufton Street insiders.

In October 2020, for example, the radical, right-wing website Guido Fawkes gleefully reported that Truss had appointed a swathe of free market think tankers to her refreshed Strategic Trade Advisory Group a forum of businesses and academics, which meets regularly to consider the UKs international trade policies.

These appointments included:

Lord Hannan himself was also appointed as an advisor to the Board of Trade a commercial body within the Department for International Trade in September 2020. His Initiative for Free Trade was formerly based at 57 Tufton Street, sharing an office with Colviles Centre for Policy Studies, based around the corner from the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Following these appointments to the Strategic Trade Advisory Group, former Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake wrote to Truss, asking whether proper due diligence had taken place in the recruitment process. Brake asked her to explain what additional checks had been carried out on the organisations that employ these individuals which have a history of failing to declare their donors to ensure that they are not funded by those who might be deemed to be agents of a foreign principal.

Core members of Truss own team have also been drawn from the Tufton Street network.

Sophie Jarvis who previously worked as head of government affairs at the Adam Smith Institute has been a special advisor to Truss at the Department for International Trade and now the Foreign Office. Nerissa Chesterfield, former head of communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs, was also employed as a special advisor to Truss from August 2019 to February 2020 leaving to work for Rishi Sunak, one of Trusss main competitors for the Conservative leadership.

Truss has also recently been given responsibility for post-Brexit negotiations with the EU tasked with ensuring a diplomatic resolutions to various trade disputes. Assisting Truss in this task is Minister of State for Europe Chris Heaton-Harris who chaired the European Research Group, a network of hard-right Eurosceptic Conservative MPs, from 2010 to 2016.

In August 2019, Truss appointed eight advisors to recommend locations for new, post-Brexit freeports ports where normal tax and customs rules do not apply two of whom were senior members of Tufton Street think tanks. One was Tom Clougherty head of tax at the Centre for Policy Studies. Clougherty was previously executive director of theAdam Smith Institute, managingeditor at the libertarian Reason Foundation, and senior editor at the CatoInstitute co-founded and part-funded by the Koch brothers, two radical, right-wing American billionaires.

Truss has surrounded herself with Tufton Street figures, with her departments often relying on their policy advice. She and her ministers held a swathe of official meetings with representatives of Tufton Street think tanks and lobbying groups during her time at the Department for International Trade, departmental records show.

Controversially, two meetings between the Institute of Economic Affairs and Truss were removed from departmental records in August 2020 justified on the basis that they were personal rather than official meetings. Labour accused Truss of appearing to be evading rules designed to ensure integrity, transparency and honesty in public office, and the records were subsequently reinstated.

It was also revealed in December 2018 that Truss met with five American libertarian groups during a visit to Washington D.C. that cost taxpayers more than 5,000. The organisations included:

The majority of these organisations have been closely associated with climate change denial or policies that obstruct efforts to address climate change and its effects.

Americans for Tax Reform belongs to aninternational coalition of anti-tax, free-market campaign groups called the World Taxpayers Associations, according to DeSmog. This includes the TaxPayers Alliance an influential UK libertarian pressure group founded by Matthew Elliot, who was the CEO of the Vote Leave EU Referendum campaign.

Elliott, an authoritative figure on the right, reserved special praise for Truss after an event hosted by Policy Exchange in September 2021, in which they both participated. Truss was on great form, he said, outlining a bold, exciting vision for how boosting international trade benefits UK consumers and workers across the country.

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Truss, along with a number of her colleagues, recently signed up as a parliamentary supporter of the Free Market Forum a new free market project launched by the Institute of Economic Affairs and advised by Elliott.

The MP for South West Norfolk since 2010, she is viewed widely as a political chameleon a former Liberal Democrat and a supporter of the Remain campaign in 2016 but her libertarian convictions have been evident since entering Parliament in 2010.

At the September 2021 Policy Exchange event, the Oxford University graduate emphasised her desire to [champion] open markets and free enterprise, saying that protectionism is no way to protect peoples living standards. This could well have been a veiled swipe at her boss, Boris Johnson, who has been seen as an interventionist Prime Minister using state spending and powers to achieve his political objectives, and raising taxes as a result.

At this critical time, we need trade to curb any rise in the cost of living through the power of economic openness, Truss added.

These sentiments chime with the attitudes of the Tufton Street network, establishing Truss as the Thatcherite contender in the upcoming Conservative leadership contest whenever it may take place.

Johnson has authoritarian instincts, and is certainly not a moderate Prime Minister. However, whichever direction the Conservative Party takes in the post-Johnson era, it seems likely to be more radical particularly in relation to economics. Truss, as the Tufton Street candidate, represents the sharp end of this spear.

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