Category Archives: Libertarianism

He was repeating a point already made in 2002 to the Scottish Socialist Voice (a publication with which Musk and Bezos are potentially unfamiliar). Nothing and nobody is exploited, and the opportunities for fun are pretty much unrestricted, Banks said of the Culture. I like to think of it as a society that anybody could be happy in.

Those in charge of his legacy may have felt similarly. In 2018, plans for an Amazon adaptation of Consider Phlebas were suddenly shelved. The timing wasnt quite right, said the authors representatives. In the end, I just think the estate didnt want to go through with it, said Dennis Kelly, the Utopia writer who was working on the script for Amazon. They hadnt seen anything [Kelly had written], it was just because I think they werent ready to do it, for whatever reason. Im a little mystified, to be honest.

For Banks, the Culture was a best-case scenario for mankind provided that we could overcome our most toxic instincts. The Culture, he told Roberts, represents the place we might hope to get to after weve dealt with all our stupidities. Maybe.

I have said before, and will doubtless say again, that maybe we that is, homo sapiens are just too determinedly stupid and aggressive to have any hope of becoming like the Culture, unless we somehow find and isolate/destroy the genes that code for xenophobia, should they exist.

As he prepares to bend Twitter to his will, Musk will no doubt see himself, like the Culture, as being on the side of the cyber-angels. His detractors, however, fear that hes about to turn the platform into a libertarian cesspit and a crucible of hate speech. However this online drama plays out, it seems obvious Bankss idea of a peaceful future in which technology and humanity live in harmony is still some way off.

What would Iain M Banks have thought? Most likely that Musks social media empire-building has nothing to do with his vision of an egalitarian future and may in fact militate against it.

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Does Elon Musk really understand the books he claims inspired him? - The Telegraph

Russia has ultimately collapsed foreign academic, human rights and media operations in the Russian Federation. It has crippled and ridiculed their work with civil society. Long before the start of the special military operations aimed at what is officially described as demilitarization and denazification in the post-Soviet republic, Russian authorities have been on the neck of these organizations, consistently accusing them of being biased and anti-Russian.

The battle of biased reporting (including issues relating to misinformation and disinformation and propaganda) has resulted on the shutdown of foreign media organizations, accreditation of foreign correspondents revoked over the past years. Social media including Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram have come under scrutiny and designated as extremist organizations. It is still getting worse as the United States, European Union and Russia constantly lock horns about reporting ethics and information war.

As already known, Russian authorities have unleashed an unprecedented, nationwide crackdown on independent journalism and dissenting voices following Russias military operation in Ukraine. Roskomnadzor, Russias media regulator, blocked access to Facebook and Twitter, and so also the most popular critical media outlets, closing independent radio stations and forcing dozens of journalists to halt their work or leave the country, the authorities have almost completely deprived people in Russia of access to objective, unbiased and trustworthy information.

For two decades, the Russian authorities have waged a covert war against dissenting voices by arresting journalists, cracking down on independent newsrooms and forcing media owners to impose self-censorship. Yet, after Russian tanks entered Ukraine, the authorities switched to a scorched-earth strategy that has turned Russias media landscape into a wasteland, said Marie Struthers, Amnesty Internationals Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

On 28 February, Roskomnadzor blocked Nastoyashchee Vremya(Current Times), a subsidiary of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for spreading unreliable information about the invasion. On 1 March, almost all Ukrainian news outlets were inaccessible to internet users in Russia.

That was followed by the Kremlin ruthlessly censored a swathe of independent media, including broadcaster TV Rain, the Echo of Moscow radio station, Latvia-based Meduza, critical Russian news outlets Mediazona, Republic and Sobesednik, grassroots activism portal Activatica and the Russian-language services of the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.

The blocking of news sites and the threat of criminal prosecutions has also led to an exodus of journalists from Russia. According to Agentstvo, an investigative journalism site now inaccessible in Russia, at least 150 journalists have fled the country since the beginning of the war.

TV Rain chose to suspend broadcasting amidst fears of reprisals. Znak.com, a significant regional news channel, halted its operations citing censorship fears. The Echo of Moscow radio station was taken off the air; shortly after, its state-aligned owners decided to liquidate the company. Even Novaya Gazeta, a beacon of independent journalism led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, announced on 4 March that it would remove articles on Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has closed the British Council, the American Educational Council with its Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) programme, and Alliance Franaise and Geothe Institute. These are the largest cultural networks of Britain, the United States, France and Germany. While Russia struggles with it non-profit NGO Russkiy Mir primarily tasked to popularize Russian language, literature and Russian culture around the world, it found it necessary to halt non-political and non-profit educational branches of western ones that operated under their diplomatic missions in the Russian Federation.

The FLEX programme, created as the best way to ensure long-lasting peace and mutual understanding between the U.S. and the countries of Eurasia, enables young people, over 35,000 students who compete annually, to learn about the United States, and to teach Americans about their countries, mostly from the former Soviet republics.

These educational and cultural centers have practically helped thousands of Russian students, with government-sponsored grants, to acquire comparative knowledge in various academic fields abroad. While some, after the training programmes, still remain abroad, others returned to contribute their quota in sustainable development in Russia.

Early March 2022 perception survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, the results of an opinion poll, the majority of Russians reported that they feel negatively about the United States (71%). On the other hand, Russians are generally obsessed by American and European dreams, wealthy Russians have bought the most expensive mansions along the coast of Miami et cetera, placed their thousands of kids in western educational institutions.

In addition, Russian academics throughout the year run forth and back under the umbrella of conducting research. Alexey Khokhlov, the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Telegram channel early April that the decision made by the worlds largest publishers of science magazines to suspend access for Russian organizations would make 97% of scientific information unavailable to Russian researchers.

Khokhlov said that legal access to the full-text collections of articles published by Elsevier, Springer/Nature, IOP Publishers and others, and in addition, the Web of Science and Scopus reference data bases in Russias territory would soon be terminated.

The publishers who signed this statement believe that in this way they punish not scientists but research organizations. This sounds very strange, because the above-mentioned services are used by scientists and not administrators. This statement is a serious challenge because Russia accounts for a tiny 2.5% of the worlds science products. This means that 97.5% of information is blocked, Khokhlov said.

Russia is experiencing a massive outflow of scientists from the country amid the foreign sanctions, which can only be stopped only by adopting a system of special measures, including an increase in financing, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) President Alexander Sergeyev suggested, speaking at the media conference late March.

In general, what can be done here is to provide better conditions for the development of science than exist abroad. Then, the scientists wont leave. What else can you do? Certainly, theres a need for a system of measures for our researchers and to stop this outflow. Its hard to estimate the scope of the losses, but I think they are high. Its necessary to offer benefits and increase the financing so that, apart from prestige, there should also be a proper material basis for it, he said.

The RAS has a major package of proposals submitted to the government as to how to organize the work of institutes and offer them more freedom. It is difficult to compete for science with the whole world. It is necessary to unshackle initiative and the creativity of scientists and give them a chance to work conveniently in the country, according to Sergeyev.

On April 8, the Russian Ministry of Justice delisted Amnesty Internationals Moscow Office from the register of the representative offices of the international organizations and foreign NGOs, effectively closing it down alongside with offices of Human Rights Watch, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Friedrich Ebert Foundation and other organizations. This decision was taken in connection with the discovered violations of the Russian legislation.

Reacting to the news, Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said: The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by closing down our office in Moscow they will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations. We continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. We will redouble our efforts to expose Russias egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad.

Callamard added: We will never stop fighting for the release of prisoners of conscience unjustly detained for standing up for human rights. We will continue to defend independent journalisms ability to report facts, free of the Russian governments intervention. We will continue to work relentlessly to ensure that all those who are responsible for committing grave human rights violations, whether in Russia, Ukraine or Syria, face justice. Put simply, we will never give up.

Since February 24, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Rights Without Borders and many independent Research Organizations and Think Tanks have monitored and documented step-by-step developments, chronicled the global effects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Monographs and books have already published around the world. For instance, Amnesty International has released well-written reports that Russian military forces have extra-judicially executed civilians in Ukraine in apparent war crimes published in new testimony following on-the-ground research.

In recent weeks, we have gathered evidence that Russian forces have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, which must be investigated as likely war crimes. Testimonies shows that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality. The intentional killing of civilians is a human rights violation and a war crime. These deaths must be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be prosecuted, including up the chain of command, said Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

To date, Amnesty International has obtained evidence that civilians were killed in indiscriminate attacks in Kharkiv and Sumy Oblast, documented an airstrike that killed civilians queueing for food in Chernihiv, and gathered evidence from civilians living under siege in Kharkiv, Izium and Mariupol. Russian militarys siege warfare tactics in Ukraine, marked by relentless indiscriminate attacks on densely-populated areas, are unlawfully killing civilians in several cities.

The Kremlins ruthless crackdown stifles independent journalism, anti-war movements, human rights and other non-profit organizations. The Justice Ministry has created a unified register of individuals designated as foreign agents, and for NGOs. It choosesto persecute all kinds of foreign NGOs, considered as undesirable and providing any kind of financial support for civil society organizations and activists.

Earlier for instance, NGOs such as the Future of Russia Foundation (UK), European Choice (France), Khodorkovsky Foundation (UK), and Oxford Russia Fund (UK), the Civic Assistance Committee and the Memorial Human Rights Centers Migration Rights Network, the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Citizens Rights Protection Foundation (FBK and FZPG, and many others were listed as foreign-agent NGOs in the Russian Federation.

As matter of facts, contemporary political history shows the level of degradation of the civil society in Russia. These have practically raised much public concern especially for academics, experts and the civil society.

The U.S. based Freedom House says that democracy is under assault and that the effects are evident not just in authoritarian states like Russia and China, but also in countries with a long track record of upholding basic rights and freedoms around the world. According to the report by the Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2020, assesses the political rights and civil liberties of 210 countries and territories worldwide.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation, after both the Federation Council and the State Duma (legislative chambers) approved the implementation of the presidential decision that has since sparked debates, analysis and criticisms throughout the world. It has resultantly pushed the United States and Canada, European Union members, Australia, New Zealand and many other external countries to impose stringent sanctions against the Russian Federation.

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Personal Freedom: Libertarians, the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, and a Crisis of Ideology - Modern Diplomacy

In our column last Monday we presented a public opinion poll conducted by DAlessio IROL Berensztein on the libertarian phenomenon and, in particular, on Javier Mileis emergence on the political scene. Due to the scale that this phenomenon is acquiring, it is worth returning to some of the conclusions that we arrived at based on these data, to deepen them, and introduce some new concepts that allow us to build a more exhaustive analysis and begin to think what can happen with Javier Milei in 2023.

Pushed by the visible hand of a State that systematically fails to provide public goods and that generates inflation, restlessness and uncertainty in the citizenry, Liberal and libertarian ideas gain ground in Argentine society. The leaders of related spaces had a timid electoral representation with Jos Luis Espert in 2019 (he obtained a meager 1.5%) and a much more relevant performance in 2021, when they added four national deputies, including Espert himself and Javier Milei.

The latter gains more and more prominence on the scene of the national economic debate while increase in voting intention: From the aforementioned survey it emerged that a third of the electorate would consider it as an option in the 2023 presidential elections.

I also read: In search of more collection, the Government advances with the regulation of investments in cryptocurrencies

A good part of the voters of Together for Change and independents feel attracted by a counter discourse of innovative characteristics and with footprint antiestablishment. This process shakes the ideological foundations of a country in which the consecrated ideas turned to the left after the 2001 crisis and deepened in that same terrain during the last two decades, even during the Macri interregnum.

Why Javier Mileis counter-discourse caught on in young people

The wave hits harder among the young. In the ideological spectrum, the rebellion seems to have remained on the right margin, if that scale is still valid. For this reason, a set of simplistic ideas, bordering on the Manichaean, seduces this segment of the electorate that is not characterized by seeking great explanations or subtle nuances. On the contrary, it demands answers to concrete questions and a new story that is not necessarily applicable to public policies. Feasibility takes a backseat, the what matters more than the how.

This narrative fills a void of thought in terms of political economy in relation to the great problems facing Argentine society: inflation, lack of growth, informality, lack of competitiveness, lack of prospects. The traditional leaders (the Political caste in terms of Javier Milei) not only does not find answers, but often seeks to avoid discussion regarding these issues.

In some sense, Milei and Espert do not compete with another space: on the other side there is hardly a government that insists on old ideas, imaginary wars and sarasas (despite the disastrous results it has obtained) and an opposition that fails to complete mourning for the failure of the Macri administration. What is the overall response of Together for Change to end inflation? So far nothing concrete only some timid, incomplete and uncoordinated proposals, that do not achieve a minimum of internal consensus.

In fact, the repudiation of ideas from the space itself sometimes goes much further: Gerardo Morales, president of the UCR, said that it was clowny and one stupidity the project of dollarization of the economy presented by a deputy Alejandro Cacace, who is also radical. For this reason, the presence of libertarian leaders grows exponentially in public spaces (the media, social networks, conferences) and their voice is amplified.

I also read: Francisco was already born, and when was Albertism?

To what extent are we facing a new alternative, capable of revolutionizing the foundations of the Argentine political system? Or will Milei be a new one-hit wonder (one hit singer)? In Argentina we had experiences of this type, such as the UCD, Cavallismo or even Recreate for Growth by the also liberal Ricardo Lpez Murphy, who obtained 17% of the votes at the national level in the 2003 presidential elections, but less than 1 .5% four later.

To gain permanence, he does not reach his leadership capacity or the strength of his speech: success will depend largely on the political and territorial construction that he manages to deploy in the year and a half that remains until the population goes to the polls again. Argentina is very unique: it presents enormous entry barriers for political competition, which prevent the construction of electoral alternatives.

Milei can get financing, structure an unforgettable campaign, bet on the best possible running mate and even turn slightly towards the center to expand its voter base, but without a presence in all the provinces and in all the cities and without a network of prosecutors, can hardly establish himself as a political leader that lives up to the noise it generated.

In addition, there is a factor that remains outside its orbit: what are the other forces going to do to prevent its growth? Until now, no one seriously attacked him. Together for Change, which concentrates the largest number of voters who identify with the libertarian phenomenon, continues to be entropically involved in its internal problems and has not defined any strategy to contain or reverse this advance, something that it could solve more or less simple: it would suffice to point out that Mileis proposals were never applied in any country.

I also read: Patricia Bullrich winks at Javier Milei and shakes the intern of Together for Change

Anarcholiberalism has a great discursive arrival, it is true, but when it competes, it loses: in the United States, to reach a seat, libertarians usually join the Republican Party. Otherwise, an unfailing defeat would await them. Perhaps it is enough for the current opposition to point out how impractical and utopian Mileis ideas are to generate a decline.

In this way, they would reduce him to the testimonial candidate model, as they were at the time Chacho lvarez or Lilita Carri: characters that people vote to express their anger, but that they would not choose if they had concrete chances of winning.

The other big question is whether, even going through all the previous challenges and setting himself up as president, he will be able to govern. For something Argentina did not have a Bolsonaro until now. Perhaps, it is destined not to have it.

Source

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The libertarian phenomenon towards 2023: strengths and challenges - Zyri

Despite redistricting favoring Democrats, some feel that this area's history of Republican leadership could win out.

Washington County has shifted a lot politically over the past two decades.

Its conservative rural roots, built on the backs of farmworkers and loggers, have given way to a highly urbanized, technological hotspot of innovation. Current and former politicians say it's this change that has led to a shift toward Democrats over Republicans despite a long history of Republicans being elected from Washington County to state and local elected offices.

It wasn't that long ago that Washington County seats in the Oregon House of Representatives and Oregon Senate could be considered reliably Republican. But today, Democrats dominate Washington County's legislative delegation.

Some say the days of competitive legislative races in Washington County are gone altogether, which they attribute to changing demographics, economic factors, and redistricting.

But Republican control over this area is by no means ancient history, and some say a return to the red is not as big of a long shot as some may think.

In the 2010 wave election, Republicans picked up six seats in the Oregon House, including two in Washington County. Republicans also picked up two Senate seats, one of which was SD 20, including northern Clackamas County.

This result was an evenly divided House and a narrow 16-14 Democratic Senate majority.

House District 29, which had been represented by Hillsboro Democrat Chuck Riley, was won by Republican Katie Eyre Brewer. She defeated Katie Riley, wife of the retiring incumbent, who instead tried for an unsuccessful bid for Senate District 15.

Neighboring House District 30 saw Hillsboro Republican Shawn Lindsay defeat Democrat Doug Ainge.

In both of those cases, the Democrats lost by more than 1,000 votes.

Lindsay says he lost re-election in 2012 only because of Libertarian Kyle Markley running in race. Markley got 1,441 votes, while Lindsay lost by about 1,200, and he thinks that since Libertarian votes tend to tilt conservative, he would have eked out a win if they'd gone his way instead.

"But for a conservative running and taking votes away, I think I would have held my seat," Lindsay said.

He also said Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, lost his re-election for the same reason in 2014, when Libertarian Caitlin Mitchel-Marley pulled 9% of the votes and Starr lost by less than a percentage point.

The person Starr lost to? Democrat Chuck Riley, successful in his second attempt to win election to Senate District 15.

Republicans like Lindsay point to these cyclical factors for why this area is still competitive for his party.

"I believe it's still winnable for a Republican in this area," he concluded. "I believe that Republicans could still be holding these seats but for some base consolidation."

Looking back a bit further, local seats were more firmly Republican. The party held a majority in both chambers of the Oregon Legislature heading into the 2002 general election. But that year, Democrats took control of the Senate, and they haven't relinquished it since.

Aloha Democrat Jeff Barker, who represented District 28 in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2003 to 2021, said that he was among the first legislators to benefit from Washington County's leftward shift.

"I ran in 2002 and then (this area) was all Republican men," he said. "That was kind of the first year that Washington County started to shift toward Democrats. But that was very competitive."

Barker won by just 40 votes in fact, the tightest election in the state at that time. He defeated Keith Parker to represent District 28. A Democrat has held that seat ever since. Before Barker won election, the seat was held by a Republican.

Politicians who ran for office and who saw the changing landscape at that time all point to similar factors: urbanization, diversification of the voting base and economic changes.

"I've lived in Hillsboro for over 30 years," said Joe Gallegos, a Democrat who represented HD 30 from 2013 to 2017. "When I first got here, it was about 40,000 people. Now it's over 100,000."

"I used to come out here as a kid to do migrant work," he recalled. "It was the place you'd come out to pick berries. But with that shift away from agriculture you're seeing more service industry-type jobs. That goes in with the suburban shift."

Gallegos and others point to the influx of highly educated workers drawn particularly to the growing semiconductor industry built up by major corporations like Intel as a predominant reason for Washington County's blue shift.

Urbanization also leads to more connectivity between the suburbs and the city, so people can work in Portland and live in Hillsboro, or vice versa meaning the previously isolated and rural population that surrounded Hillsboro in decades past is now more blended with the urban spillover from Portland.

As for diversification, the results of the latest U.S. Census have made clear that Washington County is the most racially diverse in the state. About 40% of the county's population is non-white, with the largest share of that being Hispanic.

The Hispanic population grew by more than 20% compared to the previous census. The Asian population grew by slightly less than that.

However, don't make the mistake of thinking that people of color always vote blue, politicians say. Some Republicans feel the party hasn't done enough to attract minority voters, particularly Hispanic ones, who could be persuaded to vote red.

"I personally think the Republicans have missed the boat, particularly on securing Hispanic votes," said Paul Phillips, a Tigard Republican who served for 14 years in the Legislature. "The Hispanic community is not necessarily uniform and leaning Democrat. People assume that, but it's a false assumption. The older generation of Hispanic voters is very Catholic, very conservative religious-wise."

If Washington County shifted to the left, what's to stop it from shifting back to the right? Some say there's nothing stopping that from happening. Some others mention one word: redistricting.

During the past two redistricting efforts, which follow every decennial census based on population growth, district lines have been redrawn largely to favor Democrats. In both 2011 and 2021, districts surrounding Portland were redrawn in many cases to draw more of the population of Portland proper into districts that represent the suburbs.

House District 28, for instance, which currently comprises central Washington County and predominantly covers West Beaverton, will shift much further to the east come Jan. 9, 2023. The new district includes more of Portland, and a district that once rested squarely in Washington County will now span the urban parts of three counties, Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas.

Even some Democrats have called out the redistricting process as unfair. Democrats had full control of the process last fall, 10 years after a bipartisan redistricting effort nonetheless produced maps many Republicans have criticized as unfair.

"I would like to see somebody that's not involved be able to draw those lines in the future," said Barker. "Democrats won't always be in charge, and when someone else is, they will use it as a way of getting even. It just makes a mess of the whole thing."

Barker said he volunteered to be the sole Democrat on a commission set up in 2017 by then-Secretary of State Dennis Richardson, a Republican, to come up with a new process for redistricting.

"I caught some flak for that," Barker said, "But I said, 'Well, it's just a matter of fairness.'"

Lindsay, a co-chair of the bipartisan redistricting committee back in 2011, also talked about the uneven playing field of that process.

"We were fighting with our hands tied behind our backs," Lindsay said. "Yes, we were tied 30-30 in the Legislature, but if we failed, then it automatically gets kicked to the Democratic secretary of state. The Dems had that leverage."

Even being out of the Legislature for a decade, Lindsay remains involved in Republicans' redistricting battles. He was the chief counsel for the lawsuit brought to the Oregon Supreme Court last year that alleged partisan gerrymandering by Oregon Democrats.

Republican lawsuits over redistricting last year were thrown out of court, but Lindsay says the legal battle demonstrates how contentious and important the redistricting process is every time.

Lindsay pointed out, too, that the Oregon Supreme Court associate justice who wrote the opinion dismissing the lawsuits out, Christopher Garrett, was the Democratic co-chair of that same 2011 redistricting committee that Lindsay sat on.

"It's interesting that 10 years later, the same players are still at it," Lindsay said.

Despite these factors, the Washington County Republican Party thinks that the area is due for a shift, and that a tilt back to the middle is likely. Some are predicting a red wave this year, a reaction to the dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden's handling of the pandemic, school closures and the economy. National polling consistently shows Biden's approval rating in the 30s to high 40s.

"With Democrats holding complete power in Washington and Oregon, and with the lockdowns I think there are a lot of voters that are not too happy with Democrats' choices," Lindsay said. "I think some of those seats that Democrats thought were out of reach for Republicans, based on the redistricting they did in 2021, I think some of those will even be recaptured, surprising a lot of people."

Gallegos counters that voters have reason to be fed up with Republican leadership, too, particularly in Oregon, where the minority party has walked out in the middle of a legislative session three times in the last four years, grinding the business of government to a halt.

"I think the average citizen just gets so disheartened by the fact that even as a minority, the Republicans are able to walk out and all of this kind of stuff," he said. "All of that antagonism in Salem is more and more disheartening to the average citizen."

Gallegos noted that with Oregon's largest share of voters registered as non-affiliated, both parties have to appeal to independent voters, rather than just their own base.

As for Washington County specifically, he feels like the urbanization of this area ultimately has a larger impact on its political representation than whatever gerrymandering may have accomplished.

"It's those sorts of factors that all kind of add together to make the change," Gallegos said. "It was gradual, but clearly, it was a steady march."

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Will Washington County shift back to its conservative roots? - Portland Tribune

"The Biden administration is preparing to scrap aTrump-era rulethat allows medical workers to refuse to provide services that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs," Politico reported Tuesday, citing "three people familiar with the deliberations." The exact scope of the prospective update isn't clear, but the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed it's coming.

In one sense, the change is irrelevant. Introduced in 2019, the rulein question would have denied federal funding to health-care organizations that don't allow staff to opt out of participation in abortions, procedures related to gender transition, assisted suicide, and the like. But it was blocked in federal court before it took effect and so has never been implemented. The Biden administration's "change" would merely confirm the status quo. Moreover, cases where health-care workers are forced to perform services they believe to be immoral (or fired for refusing to do so) seem to be relatively rare. They do happen, but most states already have laws on the books providing at least some conscience protections for medical professionals.

Still, the federal reversal is a step in the wrong direction on two counts. One is a matter of principle: The government technically isn't forcing doctors who believe abortion is murder to perform abortions. This isn't a straightforward mandate, because the doctors can, of course, quit their jobs instead. But federal endorsement of organizational policies that require employees to choose between conscience and livelihood does not exactly evince a civil libertarian spirit. It isn't a clear-cut state violation of freedom of conscience or religious liberty, yet it does give the government's blessing (and dollars) to private rejection of very serious claims of conscience.

Then there's the practical side of things. Politico quotes Jacqueline Ayers of Planned Parenthood, who says the change would "help ensure people can access the health care and information they need when they need it." If this revocation of a rule, again, that never took effect and is already broadly echoed at the state level changes anything, I suspect the opposite would be true.

Were medical professionals widely required to work in violation of their consciences, many would leave their fields, change their specialties, or outright refuse to take on certain patients something doctors, in particular, will always be able to do by citing facially neutral concerns like workload. In the worst case, I can imagine situations where a medical worker forced to act against conscience would deliberately misdiagnose or mistreat a patient, rationalizing that this is the lesser sin.

Compelling any violation of conscience is a very grave proposal. Compelling it of medical staff is uniquely risky, too.

Originally posted here:
The risk in a Biden reversal of medical conscience protections - The Week

Despair, he signed off, serves the regime.

Part of why people have trouble describing this New Right is because its a bunch of people who believe that the system that organizes our society and government, which most of us think of as normal, is actually bizarre and insane. Which naturally makes them look bizarre and insane to people who think this system is normal. Youll hear these people talk about our globalized consumerist society as clown world. Youll often hear the worldview expressed by our media and intellectual class described as the matrix or the Ministry of Truth, as Thiel described it in his opening keynote speech to NatCon. It can be confusing to turn on something like the influential underground podcast Good Ol Boyz and hear a figure like Anton talk to two autodidact Southern gamers about the makeup of the regime, if only because most people reading this probably dont think of America as the kind of place that has a regime at all. But thats because, as many people in this world would argue, weve been so effectively propagandized that we cant see how the system of power around us really works.

This is not a conspiracy theory like QAnon, which presupposes that there are systems of power at work that normal people dont see. This is an idea that the people who work in our systems of power are so obtuse that they cant even see that theyre part of a conspiracy.

The fundamental premise of liberalism, Yarvin told me, is that there is this inexorable march toward progress. I disagree with that premise. He believes that this premise underpins a massive framework of power. My job, as he puts it, is to wake people up from the Truman Show.

We spoke sharing a bench outside in the dark one evening, a few days into the conference. Yarvin is friendly and solicitous in person, despite the fact that he tends to think and talk so fast that he can start unspooling, reworking baroque metaphors to explain ideas to listeners who have heard them many times before.

Strange things can happen when you meet him. Id gotten in touch with him through a mutual friend, a journalist I knew from New York who once had a big magazine assignment to write about him. The piece never came out. They wanted him to say I was really evil and all that, Yarvin told me. He wouldnt do it and pulled the piece. And I thought, Okay, thats a cool guy. This friend has now made a bunch of money in crypto, works on a project Yarvin helped launch to build a decentralized internet, and lives hours out into the desert in Utah, where hell occasionally call in to New Rightish podcasts. He recently had dinner with Thiel and Mastersboth Masters and Vance have raised money by offering donors a chance to dine with Thiel and the candidate.

Yarvin has a pretty condescending view of the mainstream media: Theyre just predators, he has said, who have to make a living attacking people like him. They just need to eat. He doesnt usually deal with mainstream magazines and wrote that hed been ambushed at the last NatCon, in 2019, by a reporter for Harperswhere I also writewho made him out to be a bit of a loon and predicted that the NatCons populist program would soon be stripped of its parts by the corporate-minded Republican establishment.

But the winds are shifting. He told me about how hed gone to read poetry in New York recently, at the Thiel-funded NPC fest. A bunch of lit kids showed up, he said, grinning. I had grown into adulthood in the New York lit-kid world; even a few years ago, there was no question that anything like this could have happened. But now Yarvin is a cult hero to many in the ultrahip crowd that youll often hear referred to as the downtown scene. I dont even think antifa bothered showing up, Yarvin said. What would they do? It was an art party.

Yarvin had asked his new girlfriend, Lydia Laurenson, a 37-year-old founder of a progressive magazine, to vet me. The radical right turn her life had taken created complications.

One of my housemates was likeI dont know if I want Curtis in our house, she told me. And Im like, Okay, that makes sense. I understand why youre saying that.

Laurenson had been a well-known blogger and activist in the BDSM scene back when Yarvin was the central early figure in a world of neo-reactionary writers, publishing his poetry and political theory on the Blogger site under the name Mencius Moldbug.

As Moldbug, Yarvin wrote about race-based IQ differences, and in an early post, titled Why I Am Not a White Nationalist, he defended reading and linking to white nationalist writing. He told me hed pursued those early writings in a spirit of open inquiry, though Yarvin also openly acknowledged in the post that some of his readers seemed to be white nationalists. Some of Yarvins writing from then is so radically right wing that it almost has to be read to be believed, like the time he critiqued the attacks by the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivikwho killed 77 people, including dozens of children at a youth campnot on the grounds that terrorism is wrong but because the killings wouldnt do anything effective to overthrow what Yarvin called Norways communist government. He argued that Nelson Mandela, once head of the military wing of the African National Congress, had endorsed terror tactics and political murder against opponents, and said anyone who claimed St. Mandela was more innocent than Breivik might have a mother youd like to fuck.

Hes tempered himself in middle agehe now says he has a rule never to say anything unnecessarily controversial, or go out of my way to be provocative for no reason. Many liberals who hear him talk would probably question how strictly he follows this rule, but even in his Moldbug days, most of his controversial writings were couched in thickets of irony and metaphor, a mode of speech that younger podcasters and Twitter personalities on the highly online right have adopteda way to avoid getting kicked off tech platforms or having their words quoted by liberal journalists.

He considers himself a reactionary, not just a conservativehe thinks it is impossible for an Ivy Leagueeducated person to really be a conservative. He has consistently argued that conservatives waste their time and political energy on fights over issues like gay marriage or critical race theory, because liberal ideology holds sway in the important institutions of prestige media and academiaan intertwined nexus he calls the Cathedral. He developed a theory to explain the fact that America has lost its so-called state capacity, his explanation for why it so often seems that it is not actually capable of governing anymore: The power of the executive branch has slowly devolved to an oligarchy of the educated who care more about competing for status within the system than they do about Americas national interest.

One man raised his hand to ask how Masters planned to DRAIN THE SWAMP. He gave me a sly look. Well, one of my friends has this acronym he calls RAGE, he said. Retire All Government Employees.

No one directs this system, and hardly anyone who participates in it believes that its a system at all. Someone like me who has made a career of writing about militias and extremist groups might go about my work thinking that all I do is try to tell important stories and honestly describe political upheaval. But within the Cathedral, the best way for me to get big assignments and win attention is to identify and attack what seem like threats against the established order, which includes nationalists, antigovernment types, or people who refuse to obey the opinions of the Cathedrals experts on issues like vaccine mandates, in as alarming a way as I possibly can. This cycle becomes self-reinforcing and has been sent into hyperdrive by Twitter and Facebook, because the stuff that compels people to click on articles or share clips of a professor tends to affirm their worldview, or frighten them, or both at the same time. The more attention you gain in the Cathedral system, the more you can influence opinion and government policy. Journalists and academics and thinkers of any kind now live in a desperate race for attentionand in Yarvins view, this is all really a never-ending bid for influence, serving the interests of our oligarchical regime. So I may think I write for a living. But to Yarvin, what I actually do is more like a weird combination of intelligence-gathering and propagandizing. Which is why no one I was talking to at NatCon really thought it would be possible for me to write a fair piece about them.

More here:
What Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and Others Are Learning From Curtis Yarvin and the New Right - Vanity Fair

Mr. Musk has objected when politicians have tried to characterize his views as in sync with their own, insisting that he would rather leave politics to others, despite ample evidence on Twitter to the contrary. When Mr. Abbott last year defended a strict anti-abortion law that made the procedure virtually illegal in Texas by citing Mr. Musks support Elon consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of Texas, the governor said Mr. Musk pushed back.

In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness, he responded on Twitter. That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.

If thats the case, he often cant seem to help himself. He heckles political figures who have taken a position he disagrees with or who have seemingly slighted him. Mr. Musks response to Senator Elizabeth Warren after she said that he should pay more in income taxes was, Please dont call the manager on me, Senator Karen.

After one of Mr. Musks Twitter fans pointed out that President Biden had not congratulated SpaceX for the successful completion of a private spaceflight last fall, Mr. Musk hit back with a jab reminiscent of Mr. Trumps derisive nickname Sleepy Joe.

Hes still sleeping, he replied. Several days later, he criticized the Biden administration as not the friendliest and accused it of being controlled by labor unions. These comments came just a few weeks after his insistence that he preferred to stay out of politics.

Few issues have raised his ire as much as the coronavirus restrictions, which impeded Teslas manufacturing operations in California and nudged him closer to his decision last year to move the companys headquarters to Texas. That move, however, was very much symbolic since Tesla still has its main manufacturing plant in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Fremont, Calif., and a large office in Palo Alto.

Over the course of the pandemic, Mr. Musks outbursts flared dramatically as he lashed out at state and local governments over stay-at-home orders. He initially defied local regulations that shut down his Tesla factory in Fremont. He described the lockdowns as forcibly imprisoning people in their homes and posted a libertarian-tinged rallying cry to Twitter: FREE AMERICA NOW. He threatened to sue Alameda County for the shutdowns before relenting.

Here is the original post:
The Elusive Politics of Elon Musk - The New York Times

Candidates file to run for governor of Oklahoma

Some of the candidates hoping to win the 2022 governor's race spoke after filing at the Oklahoma state Capitol.

Addison Kliewer, Oklahoman

Four years ago, a relatively unknown Tulsa businessman with no political experience jumped into the governor's race with little fanfare and an unlikelypathto victory.

Now, Gov. Kevin Stitt, 49,must fend off sevenchallengers to win a second term in office.

With the political playing field set after last week's candidate filing period, threeRepublicans,twoDemocrats, one Libertarian and one independentare vying to unseat the first-term Republican governor.

Most of Stitt'schallengers have come out swinging with criticism of the incumbent.

More:Trump-era EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt joins race to replace Jim Inhofe in U.S. Senate

But in an interview Wednesday, Stitt seemedunperturbed by his field of challengers.

Four years ago, there were 10 Republicans in the gubernatorial primary, he said.

"The more the merrier," Stitt said. "Let's have honest conversations about our past experience and how we want to lead the state."

In the June 28 Republican primary, Stitt will face Joel Kintsel, 46, Mark Sherwood, 57, and Moira McCabe, 40.

The winner of the primary will face either Democratic state schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister, 57, or former Democratic Sen. Connie Johnson, 69, in the November general election. Former state Sen. Ervin Yen, 67, an independent,and Libertarian Natalie Bruno, 37, also will be on the general election ballot.

The director of the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs, Kintsel recently took a leave of absence to launch his first bid for public office. He also is a a lieutenant colonel in the Oklahoma Air National Guard.

Kintsel said he first started contemplating running for governor after seeing Stitt's "abuse" toward Oklahoma's Native American tribes.

"We're all Oklahomans, we're all part of the same family," Kintsel said."I'm not from a tribal background, but I will treat all Oklahomans with civility, and respect."

Kintsel has alleged the Stitt administration is rife with corruption and cronyism. In a recent interview, he alleged the Office of Management and Enterprise Services is steering state contracts to specific contractors.

He also saidthe Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department's contracts with Swadley'sBar-B-Q to operate restaurants at some state parks are suspect. The contracts have come under scrutiny from state lawmakers and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

More: Was Swadley's state parks deal with Oklahoma too lucrative? We dive into records

In response, Stitt, who referred to Kintsel as a career bureaucrat, said he's not a fan ofname calling.

Stitt said he's not afraid to fight bureaucracy and special interest groups. He also touted his calls for audits of various state agencies, including the State Department of Education.

"A good CEO welcomes transparency," Stitt said. "That's why I've been asking for audits all over state government. We're trying to expose anything that's going on that'snot right forall fourmillion Oklahomans."

If elected, Kintsel said he would focus on public safety and improving the state's roads and bridges, although he expressed opposition toa controversial turnpike expansion in Norman that's part of the $5 billion ACCESS Oklahoma plan backed by Stitt.

Kintsel also said he plans to focus on courting support from veterans and their families.

"I have a different vision for Oklahoma," he said."It's one that's based on values, integrityfirst, service before self, excellence inall we do. Those are the values that I've lived under in the military."

Sherwood, a minister, retired police officer and naturopathic doctorwho owns a Tulsa wellness-based medical practice, is challenging Stitt from the far right.

He has criticized the governor for closing"nonessential" businesses at the start of the pandemic and said Stitt, who just signed a near-total abortion ban into law, hasn't gone far enough to abolish abortion.

McCabe is a stay-at-home mom who supports the Second Amendment, opposes abortion and has vowed to stand against federal overreach.

Although Hofmeister was a registeredRepublican up until early October, she's already the likely frontrunner in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. She's been highly critical of Stitt since launching her campaign.

Like millions of our neighbors, I am guided by faith, family, and the commonsense Oklahoma values Ive taught my four kids," she said in a statement. "But there doesnt seem to be much common sense guiding our state right now.

"Instead of working together, our governor stirs up division, pitting neighbor against neighbor. He prizes politics over people and his own self-interest over the public good."

The first Democrat to jump into the governor's race, Johnson has touted her progressive bona fides on the campaign trail. She is a longtime proponent of legalizing cannabis and has pushed for Oklahoma to abolish the death penalty.

Johnsonran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 and for U.S. Senate in 2014.

My policy positions are clear, and I've been transparent about them my entire career," Johnson said."My entire life basically is built on Democratic values that that I hold dear."

Former state Sen. Ervin Yen, who is challenging Stitt as an independent, continued lastweek his criticism of the governor's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.An anesthesiologist and former Republican, Yen used to represent Oklahoma Cityin the state Senate.

He said Oklahoma is a top 10 state for COVID-19 cases because "our terrible vaccination rate and our state governments lack of proclaiming a statewide maskmandate ever."

'We never made that investment': Oklahoma mass release report prompts call for program funding

While most governors imposed temporary mask mandates when COVID-19 cases spiked, Stitt never imposed a statewide mask requirement.

Bruno said it's important for Oklahomans to have a third-party option this election cycle.

She also criticized the governor's rocky relationship with the tribes, and said she would have vetoed legislation to make it a felony to perform most abortions.

"I really feel like the current establishment, the current parties aren't putting forth good quality candidates that we can vote for," said the Edmond Libertarian. "We need more options."

Staff writers Ben Felder and Chris Casteel contributed to this report.

See original here:
'The more the merrier': Who looks to unseat Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2022 election? - Oklahoman.com

A periodic update about the 2022 campaign for public office.

Notices about public campaign appearances in the Sauk Valley should be sent to news@saukvalley.com. The news and notes will run periodically during the election season.

The Lee County Electoral Board unanimously voted April 12 to deny all objections against three Lee County Board members running for re-election.

Dixon resident Jennifer Lawson made formal election objections to County Board District 1 Republican incumbents Mike Koppien, Chris Norberg and Jim Schielein, arguing that they should be stricken from the June 28 primary ballot because their nomination papers were held together using paper clips.

Attorney Tim Zollinger, appointed by the Electoral Baord to oversee objection hearings and file a report to the board, made recommendations that all three objections be denied because the objector failed to meet her burden of proof. Both sides were given the opportunity to issue exceptions to the recommendations, and none were filed.

The Libertarian Party announced its slate, which includes Carbondale resident Gabriel Nelson as a candidate for state treasure the same office sought by statehouse Deputy Republican Leader Tom Demmer of Dixon and incumbent Democrat Michael Frerichs, office-holder since 2019.

Nelson was last a candidate for the U.S. House in 2020, running against Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat from Schaumburg, for the 8th District seat, which represents parts of Cook, DuPage, and Kane counties. Nelson founded the Southern Illinois Libertarian Party in 2014 and has since had public relations duties with the Libertarian party.

Yes, he was. The stop on Tuesday was not political, but within the duties of his office. Frerichs visited Smoked on Third and talked to workers about their enrollment in the state retirement savings plan, Secure Choice.

Petitioning began Wednesday for third-party candidates. Independent or new-party candidates must gather 25,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

The other announced Libertarian candidates are Deirdre N. McCloskey for state comptroller, Daniel K. Robin for attorney general, John Phillips for lieutenant governor, Scott Schluter for governor and ... Jesse White for Secretary of State.

Photos of Libertarian Jesse White and Democrat Jesse White.

Just to be clear, the Libertarian candidate for secretary of state isnt the same person as Jesse Clark White, the 87-year-old Democrat who has held that office since 1999 but is not seeking re-election.

Steve Suess, the chairman of the Libertarian Party, told the Springfield State Journal Register its a total coincidence their candidate has the same name. The party is not trying to defraud voters and that its Jesse White is a serious candidate, he added.

Libertarians espouse the the right to life, liberty of speech and action and the right to property. As policy, this is expressed as the need for greatly reduced regulation and taxation, promotion of civil liberties including freedom of association and sexual freedom, gun rights and self defense and the elimination of state welfare and most business regulation.

The party has eight office-holders statewide, including River Valley Library District board trustee Brody Anderson in Port Byron and Paw Paw village President John Prentice. The Stateline Libertarians of northern Illinois meet monthly at Big Os in the Hollow in Freeport.

In 2020, the Libertarian presidential ticket got 65,544 votes, about 1.1% of the electorate.

Meet and greet for Mike Lewis, Republican candidate for Whiteside County sheriff, 8:30 a.m., As Kitchen, Rock Falls.

Read more:
Campaign Notebook: Keeping tabs on paper clips and the two Jesse Whites - Shaw Local News Network

Those are the 26 words that created the internet, says Jeff Kosseff, an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the United States Naval Academy, who wrote a book with that title that came out in 2019. The fruitful words come from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That brief passage fueled the growth of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook by protecting them from lawsuits over content posted by users of their platforms.

Nearly three decades later, conservatives and liberals are equally unhappy with Section 230, but for opposite reasons, says Mary Anne Franks, a professor at University of Miami School of Law.

Liberals, for the most part, dont like those 26 words because they feel they have permitted the platforms to host and even promote hate speech, unfounded conspiracy theories, racism and other objectionable content that attracts eyeballs and makes money.

Conservatives and libertarians, for the most part, dislike the next section, which protects the platforms when they take down objectionable material. It says the platforms cant be held civilly liable if in good faith they remove content they deem obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected. The conservatives and libertarians argue that platforms such as Twitter are using Section 230 to suppress their freedom of expression.

Now comes Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, with an offer to buy Twitter at a valuation of about $43 billion. (The company on Friday moved to make it more difficult for any single investor to amass a large stake.)

Its difficult to know anything for sure about Musk, but if he does buy Twitter its a good bet hell reduce content moderation. I think its very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech, Musk said Thursday at a TED conference. He might also end the permanent suspension of former President Donald Trump, which was imposed after the invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But no matter how smart and rich he is, Musk cant rid the web of the problems that Section 230 was meant to address. It would be crazy, and counterproductive, for Musk to end all content moderation. Twitter would soon fill up with not-quite-illegal sexual material, deceptive sales pitches, trolls and other garbage that would drive away users and wreck Twitters market and consumer value.

No platform can reasonably promise unadulterated free speech. Trumps faltering Truth Social platform, which claims to be a big tent, threatens to ban users whose contributions are, borrowing from Section 230, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, violent, harassing, libelous, slanderous, or otherwise objectionable. (Otherwise objectionable is a capacious phrase.)

So a Musk-owned Twitter would still ban content it would just ban less of it. I can imagine more tweets falsely claiming that the Capitol invasion was a media invention or a false-flag operation. Franks, the law professor, speculates as others have that Twitter under Musk would actually be more likely to restrict content that angered one particular person Musk himself. Likewise, Trumps Truth Social platform is unlikely to become a home for critics of Trump.

Kosseff, of the Naval Academy, said conservatives and libertarians are making a mistake to call for ending Section 230 because they dont like the protections it gives to platforms that they feel discriminate against them. If they didnt have legal immunity, the platforms would most likely play it safe by banning even more content to avoid being sued, he said.

Meanwhile, the mostly Democratic lawmakers who want tighter controls on content have fallen short. The Safe Tech Act sponsored by Democratic Senators Mark Warner of Virginia, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota would remove immunity from paid material on social platforms and expose them to lawsuits based on civil, human rights and antitrust law, among other things. It hasnt reached the Senate floor.

And a law proposed and ultimately signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, to prohibit social media sites from barring any content from political candidates was blocked by a federal judge last year.

Matt Stoller, a foe of Big Tech and monopolies in general, wrote Thursday that Section 230 should be done away with entirely so the platforms become fully responsible for all content posted on them.

Thats a big step and probably unlikely.

For now, the fight over what to do about Twitter and other platforms is at a stalemate. Whether or not its owned by Musk, Twitter cant overcome the deep divisions and mistrust in society, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. It can turn the content moderation up and please liberals or turn it down and please conservatives and libertarians, but theres no place on that slider that will make all the partisans happy, he said.

The New York Times

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Peter Coy - The Law That Shaped the Internet Presents a Question for Elon Musk - Asharq Al-awsat - English