Category Archives: Libertarianism

As the super-contagious Delta variant of Covid rips across the country, in no small part due to the behavior of the millions of Americans who have so far chosen to remain unvaccinated, the question of whether to make jabs mandatory is becoming urgent. A lot of libertarians are still voicing opposition. What gives?

An expanding list of employers, universities, and businesses are now requiring vaccines and stipulating that those who remain unvaccinated undergo testing and other protocols, such as masking. As many as seven million federal workers have to show proof of vaccination or be tested weekly and wear masks. Defense Secretary Austin is indicating that will soon hold for the armed forces and military employees. North Carolina, New York, and California are asking the same of their state employees.

As of August 9, United Airlines, Tyson Foods, and Microsoft have mandated vaccines for workers, as have 1,500 health systems. The second largest U.S. teachers' union has also indicated that all teachers should be vaccinated to protect children. If you're a student wanting to attend classes in-person this fall, you'll need to roll up your sleeve and get vaccinated at over 500 colleges and universities, including several large state systems.

On August 3, New York City became the first big city in the country to require proof of vaccination at restaurants, gyms, and other businessesthough the verification system has proven buggy and easy to manipulate.

All this has many libertarians in a tizzy.

Libertarians, known for their free-market ideology and promotion of an idiosyncratic concept of individual liberty, are split badly on the issues. Some, especially in academia, are unwilling to ride on theoretical magic carpets that don't go very far in the real world when it comes to Covid. This group supports mandatory vaccines, admitting that it's not really okay to infringe upon the freedom of others to remain alive and healthy. But many, especially the activist anti-vaxxers and their enablers in the political sphere, argue vociferously against vaccine requirements no matter what the consequences to others. Even if that consequence is death.

These zealots shout: "My body, my decision!" But when it comes to your body and your risks, apparently that's your problem. People like babies and kids, vulnerable to Covid because they aren't eligible for vaccines (currently filling up children's hospitals in many parts of the country), and the immunocompromised, which includes cancer patients, people with diabetes, and pregnant women, are supposed to take all risks of exposure on the chin, including those created by recalcitrant caregivers. At hospitals still without mandates, a person undergoing chemotherapy is expected to accept being surrounded by unvaccinated medical workers whose choices put them in constant mortal danger.

Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, just signed one of the "medical freedom" bills currently circulating, which grandly asserts that people have a "natural, essential and inherent right to bodily integrity, free from any threat or compulsion by government to accept an immunization." Tellingly, it doesn't address state laws compelling children to receive various vaccines in order to attend school. That's because the citizens of New Hampshire are unwilling to let deadly diseases like measles and polio tear through their classrooms and disable or kill their kids. Some states allow controversial exceptions to this mandate, such as religious objections, but you don't get out of the requirement by making speeches about bodily integrity.

Let's be clear: Americans have all kinds of awesome rights as individuals. In the majority of cases, you get to decide what risks to take with your own life and property. If you'd like to win the Darwin Award and try to jet ski off Niagra Falls, you can do that.

But you aren't free to subject others to deadly harm. You're not allowed to drive your Corvette at 100 mph and spin donuts on the freeway, because you might hurt somebody. You don't get to fire your AK 47 into the air at a Fourth of July picnic. And you won't be lighting up a Marlboro on an airplane. Your personal liberty, in such cases, is curtailed in order to ensure the safety of others.

You may not like it, but the Supreme Court has supported intrusions on your body in a number of cases in the name of public and individual safety. These include things like blood alcohol testing and strip and body cavity searches. If you are having a psychotic breakdown and you are a criminal defendant, the state can force you to take medication to make you competent to stand trial.

For quite some time, American law has been clear that the bodily intrusion of mandatory vaccinations is necessary in order to shield citizens from harm.

In 1905, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court explained that people living in a civil society have obligations to protect one another from dangerous diseases: "In every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members, the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand."

In that particular case, Cambridge pastor Henning Jacobson had argued that he and his kids had experienced a bad reaction to prior vaccines and so should be given an exemption, but the Court said that he had no proof and would not be getting a pass. As a citizen and a parent, he wasn't permitted to expose anyone, including his own kid or anybody else's, to smallpox, which was raging at the time. The Court sent the message that your individual liberty is never absolute and can be subject to the police power of the state.

There is a teeny tiny risk in taking a vaccine for a disease like Covid, though it is far less of a risk than contracting the disease itself. But there are vastly more risky things a citizen can be required to do for what is determined to be the greater good.

Take national defense. Libertarians get uncomfortable on this subject, and many like to pretend that you can rely on volunteers to get the job done. Reality check: Though it's been almost a half-century since Americans were drafted into military service, the fact is that conscription has been necessary for every major war. Yes, it's often possible to find enough people to volunteer for military service during peacetime, at least if you pay them, but people are generally unenthusiastic about getting maimed or killed during wartime.

During the U.S. Civil War, trying to get anyone to fight was a nightmare. Wealthy people were paying poor people to be cannon fodder in their place. In 1863, New York City erupted in a 4-day deadly riot because people opposed the Civil War draft law which allowed rich men like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie to pay off substitutes. That racially charged riot, which saw whites attacking blacks throughout the city, was one of the bloodiest in U.S. history.

Certainly, you can argue that the U.S. conscription system is sexist and arbitrary because it only pertains to young men. But the fact is, when American men turn 18, the federal government requires them to register for the Selective Service. Doing so is a prerequisite for things like obtaining student loans or being hired for a federal job, and 41 states make it part of getting a driver's license. Failure to register is a felony offense.

In a 1918 opinion, the Supreme Court equated Congress's constitutional power to "raise and support armies" with the authority to force citizens into service.

The government appeals to fairness in stating why registration is necessary: "Selective Service's mission is to register virtually all men residing in the United States. If a draft is ever needed, the process must be fair, and that fairness depends on having all eligible men register. In the event of a draft, for every man who fails to register, another man would be required to take his place in service to his country."

Recently, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who presumably has registered for Selective Service, decided to refuse to be vaccinated for Covid. He states that he is willing surround himself with plexiglass in the team's quarterback room in order to avoid getting jabbed. Unfortunately, there's not much evidence that plexiglass barriers prevent the spread of Covid, because the aerosol particles move through the air like cigarette smoke. Therein lies the problem. There's really no way to seal yourself off from your fellow citizens unless you live alone in quarantine. And the frequency of asymptomatic transmission means you can't tell whether many people near you have the disease or not.

Even when the unvaccinated receive weekly testing, it's still not enough to protect other people, because the virus spreads exponentially, which means that it proliferates in much shorter periods of time. This is particularly concerning in medical facilities, where testing unvaccinated workers once a week risks exposing immunocompromised people to life-threatening conditions. The same goes for nursing homes.

The issue of twice-a-week testing opens yet another can of libertarian worms. Who is expected to pay the hundreds of dollars a week that multiple tests of the unvaccinated will cost in the case, say, of government workers or state university students? The taxpayers? Oh really? Among some libertarians, taxation is regarded as theft. Would they agree that the cancer patient can be taxed to support the constant testing of medical workers whose behavior threatens her life? Let's ask Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul about that.

According to Larry Brilliant, a prominent epidemiologist and part of the WHO team that helped eradicate smallpox, the Covid pandemic is nowhere near over, and the Delta variant may be "the most contagious virus ever seen." He believes that the likelihood of more variants arising due to lack of vaccinations is high, and there is even a possibility of a "super variant" emerging that vaccines don't work against. This possibility is currently low, he explains, but we must do everything possible to prevent it now. That means jabs for the unvaccinated ASAP.

John Stuart Mill, a philosopher oft cited by libertarians, wrote in 1859 about the "harm principle," which holds that the state can restrict the actions of individuals to prevent harm to others: "The liberty of the individual must be limited: he must not make himself a nuisance to other people the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant, and in the part, which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

Clearly, people electing to remain unvaccinated are violating Mill's harm principle.

Committing suicide by virus is one thing, but inflicting mortal harm on others is another. If libertarians wish to maintain their self-centered fixation on their own freedoms without considering how their behavior injures others, let them do soin indefinite quarantine from the rest of us.

Continued here:
Opinion | Libertarians and the Vaccine: Give Me Liberty and Give Them Death - Common Dreams

James Rainey and Seema Mehta| Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles He has on occasion fueled climate change skepticism, depicting global warming as a crock and a myth. He said the medical establishment and professional victims have overblown the danger from secondhand tobacco smoke.

He offered no pushback when a doctor called into his nationally syndicated radio show last month to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous and didnt object when the physician then implied that Bill Gates might have backed the experimental immunizations as a form of population control.

Larry Elder created a platform for those views in a more than 30-year career in the media, epitomizing the convention-defying persona that has helped him seemingly leapfrog other candidates in the race to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in next months recall election.

On issues like smoking, climate change and the best ways to treat COVID-19, he has sometimes given airtime to views outside the mainstream, simultaneously inspiring those who say he would be a maverick leader and alarming others who say his brand of libertarianism is too extreme for California.

Those conflicting realities have leapt to the fore, less than a month after the talk radio host entered the recall race and as journalists and rivals begin to dive into Elders three-decade record on the radio, as well as his books, newsletters and social media pronouncements.

Elder is being revealed as someone who has occasionally been comfortable standing outside the scientific consensus on issues like secondhand smoke and climate change, while fervently promoting dramatic measures to unravel some of the core policies and beliefs of liberal-leaning California.

He has called the U.S. Supreme Courts Roe vs. Wade decision, which creates a legal right for women to have abortions, one of the worst decisions that the Supreme Court ever handed down, called abortion murder and said abortion rules should be left to the states.

He said he would have voted against the law that requires employers to offer workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave to bond with new children or to care for family members with medical emergencies. He has rejected the notion that women confront a glass ceiling in attempts at career advancement and embraced the libertarian truism that citizens have become too reliant on an overbearing government.

A recent interview with the Los Angeles Times suggested that his introduction to the California electorate will create even more provocative fodder. Elder implied that he might declare a state of emergency in order to fire bad teachers, estimating they make up somewhere between 5% and 7% of the California public school faculty of about 300,000.

He added that he could declare another emergency to suspend the California Environmental Quality Act, the law requiring environmental review of building projects. He depicted the law, known as CEQA, as part of a bureaucracy that is treating contractors and developers like they are criminals.

Such measures would undoubtedly face monumental legal and political hurdles and almost certainly alienate a large number of Californians. But they would also be sure to thrill those who view Elder the self-proclaimed Sage from South-Central Los Angeles as a blast of fresh air in a state foggy with liberal political correctness.

But it appears that, on at least one topic, he wants to make clear he has moved away from a past view. Elder told opinion editors for the McClatchy newspapers last week: I do believe in climate change. I do believe our climate is getting warmer.

Elder would not answer detailed questions and a campaign spokeswoman insisted that many of the past statements and positions highlighted by the Times were not pertinent to the recall.

Some involve statements out of context, while others reflect prevailing notions of political bias, spokeswoman Ying Ma said. For instance, there is a clear inability (to) comprehend why a talk radio host might want to allow a caller to express views different from his own, or why anyone would consider unconventional assertions presented by reputable researchers.

Ma said that the central recall issues should be rampant crime, rising homelessness, out-of-control costs of living, water shortages, disastrous wildfires, rolling brownouts, and repressive COVID restrictions. The spokeswoman said the Times was conducting opposition research, with some topics dating back many years, in a way she said mimicked a (French) laundry list of attacks from the Newsom campaign.

Under the unusual ground rules of California recall elections where Newsom needs a simple majority of the vote to remain in office, while, if Newsom falls short, Elder needs only to defeat other would-be replacements, no matter how small his plurality experts said Elders provocative views actually could advance his cause, and Newsoms.

These kinds of statements and issues benefit both Larry Elder and Gavin Newsom, said Dan Schnur, a University of California, Berkeley and University of Southern California political scientist and previous adviser to numerous Republican candidates. Elder needs only one more vote from conservative voters to prevail over other recall challengers. And his supporters will love these ideas.

Meanwhile, its clear Newsom and his team have decided that rather than motivating progressives by telling them good things about this governor they are better off telling them frightening things about the person who might replace him.

Schnur noted that some politicians viewed as extreme by large numbers of voters like Donald Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left used their plain-spoken personas to push their way into the center of the political debate.

Elder, 69, jumped into the race in mid-July, months after some other candidates, and immediately changed the dynamic in the race. He became the front-runner in the polls and quickly raised significant sums of money, with a particularly strong showing among people who gave less than $100.

Between his entry into the race on July 12 and July 31, he collected nearly $4.5 million, according to fundraising disclosures filed last week with the secretary of state. Thats more than every other GOP candidate in the race except John Cox, who is largely self-funding his campaign.

A graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School, Elder leaves little doubt that he relishes a good debate. I can articulate these issues in such a way that Joe and Joan Six-pack can go, OK, now I get it, he told the Times in the recent interview.

He said the seed of his candidacy was planted by his talk radio mentor, conservative Dennis Prager. Elder initially demurred because he worried the state had become ungovernable. But further research convinced him he could make dramatic changes, partly by invoking emergency powers, he said.

Elder said he believes such an education emergency declaration would spur reform, particularly for inner-city schools. He said a tiny number of teachers have been fired annually, on average, from among the 300,000 who work in California public schools. Unions are protecting bad teachers, he said, to the point where the worst ones get in the areas where the kids need them the most.

Elder correctly notes that California removes fewer teachers than some other states, though the states practices around teacher performance and retention are complex.

Tenure offers strong protections for teachers against removal after two years on the job. But a significant number of teachers leave the profession anyway, sometimes under pressure because of substandard performance. Some experts argue the greater problem is the loss of effective teachers, many of whom protest a lack of support from their schools and communities.

Someone told me that between 5(%) and 7% of public school teachers need to be fired, Elder said, adding that the emergency declaration would provide the power to get rid of bad teachers faster than the system allows. He concluded: Once you did that, automatically, education would improve overnight.

Because Elder declined to field follow-up questions, it was impossible to know who had advised him on teacher terminations and exactly how he might weed out educators he judged to be underperforming.

Similarly, Elder said in interviews with the Times and opinion editors at McClatchy newspapers that he envisioned an emergency action on homelessness that would allow him to waive the states environmental review law so that I can unleash the developers and contractors who would be able to build low-cost housing and low-cost apartments.

He said many builders had moved their work out of California because CEQA allows almost anybody to stop anything for any length of time.

On the other most pressing issue of the day in California, the COVID pandemic, Elder subscribes to conservative view that the government and health officials should allow individuals to make choices about wearing masks. He has decried attempts to force people to get vaccinated.

He remained silent last month, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, when Kathy, a gynecologist who claimed no expertise in infectious diseases, claimed that vaccines could be a threat and asserted that unnamed individuals are going to specifically target the minority areas first and lower income areas.

When she spun out dark intimations about a Gates-organized plot to administer dangerous vaccines, Elder also did not respond. Instead, as first reported by HuffPost, a page on his website promoted the gynecologists pronouncements, saying, Youll Want to Hear This Physicians Take on the Vaccines.

But Elder has said he has been vaccinated (as an old man with co-morbidities, he told the McClatchy editors) and supports others who have done so. He added: A lot of people have made the choice, rightly or wrongly, not to get a vaccine. And I think in America, you want to have that choice.

As with other topics, Elder prefers to focus the COVID issue on Newsom, saying that the governor hadnt followed his own mandates, as when he didnt wear a mask while attending a party at the tony French Laundry restaurant. Elders website says COVID business shutdowns have gone too far and inflicted unnecessary pain on ordinary Californians, adding: I will govern as your governor, not as your tyrant.

Elders views on other issues, like climate change, have been equally provocative. He recently has contended that he has been either taken out of context or misinterpreted in the past.

He once maintained a page on his website devoted to debunking the Gore-Bull warming myth. (A reference to Al Gore, the former vice president who has made the battle against climate change his lifes work.) The webpage contained links to a list of stories, several rejecting the consensus of mainstream science: that the planet is warming to dangerous levels and that humankind is responsible.

In a 2008 CNN interview, Elder called global warming a crock and disparaged Republicans, such as John McCain and George W. Bush, who disagreed. He rejected Bushs contention that global warming is this big peril to the planet, concluding: It is not.

In his meeting with the opinion editors last week, Elder sounded a markedly different note, expressing his belief in a warming planet and adding, I do believe that human activity has something to do with it. He said he also believes that the warming is a factor in Californias worsening wildfires. But he added: What I dont believe in is climate-change alarmism.

His 2000 book suggesting the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke have been exaggerated puts his views outside the scientific consensus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. surgeon general have long warned of the magnitude of that threat. The CDC estimated in 2014 that 2.5 million people had died over the previous 50 years from health problems caused by secondary smoke exposure. That would average 50,000 deaths a year.

Elders provocative missives have been so frequent and over such a long span that many quickly blew over.

In 2017, he posted a picture on Twitter of three women attending the Womens March in Washington to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump, who faced serial accusations of sexual assault and misconduct. Above the picture, he wrote: Ladies, I think youre safe.

That drew immediate complaints that Elder was suggesting the women were too unattractive to be sexually assaulted. A member of the Nebraska state Senate retweeted Elders post, then, facing a storm of condemnation, resigned his post. The original tweet was apparently deleted.

In a 2000 column, Elder asserted that Democrats had an advantage over Republicans because they were supported by women and women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events. In the piece for Capitalism Magazine, he added that women could be misled because the less one knows, the easier the manipulation.

In the column, Elder cited research done at the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg Public Policy Center on gender gaps in political knowledge.

Surveys have detected such gaps and no clear explanation for them, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg policy center. She said related research has shown that women are factoring in other information and consistently making decisions at the ballot box that are consistent with their self-interests.

Elders late entry into the race, about two months before the Sept. 14 vote on Newsoms future, leaves relatively little time for voters to examine the candidate with arguably the most voluminous record of public policy pronouncements.

I mean, he has created his own opposition research for decades, said Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School. On the other hand, he does have a shortened timeline here. I think what a lot of people just know is that hes the Republican, leading in the polls, and a talk-show host. Theres not a lot of details that are filled in; its basically a sketch.

So has he been vetted? Levinson asked. Not in the way that were used to of candidates having to go through a process of showing up to town halls and press conferences, and respond to opponents, and provide answers and explanations for what theyve said in their public life.

Originally posted here:
Larry Elders outspoken conservative radio rhetoric under scrutiny in California recall election - The Detroit News

John Hoods July 14 opinion, What To Do When You Think Theyre Wrong, made me stop and think. In it he states as fact that poverty in the U.S. has fallen to less than 3 percent today.

The basis for his claim comes from a long-running calculation by Mayer and Sullivan. Figuring that Mr. Hood leans Libertarian (he is a board member of the John Locke Foundation) I took a look at the research he uses in support of his claim. It doesnt take long to establish that his facts are biased by his political leanings.

His research is supported and reported by The Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. The 3 percent number is based on assumptions of government handouts to the poor, not calculated in their earnings.

The 2019 Census Bureau states that 10.5 percent of the population lives at or below the poverty level, or 34 million people.

Thats a big difference. In 2021, an individual earning less than $12,880 a year, or $26,500 for a family of four, makes you poor. The average monthly rent in the U.S. is $997, or just under $12,000 annually, leaving a meager $14,500 for that family of four to live on for the year.

My point is not that Mr. Hood is necessarily wrong in his basic assumption. Regardless of whose numbers you believe, the number of poor in this country has dropped. Yet they are useless to those still left behind. Statistics hide the humanity and suffering of people who cant make ends meet.

Is a pat on the back in order if only 34 million adults and children are hungry tonight? The only good percentage of poor is zero.

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Letter: A Wrong Approach | Opinion | thepilot.com - Southern Pines Pilot

This article was written exclusively for Investing.com.

, , and other cryptocurrencies made a substantial comeback from their lows following the steep correction that occurred after the April and May peaks. Bitcoin dropped from $65,520 on Apr. 14 to a low of $28,800 in late June or over 56%. Ethereum reached its peak at $4,406.50 in mid-May and fell to a low of $1697.75 in late June, a decline of nearly 61.5%.

The market cap of the entire asset class of over 11,180 digital tokens more than halved from around the $2.5 trillion level.

While prices plunged, the speculative frenzy in the cryptocurrency asset class continues to attract new participants each day. On Sunday, Aug. 8, Bitcoin was back above the $43,800 level, with Ethereum at just over $3000 per token. The market cap for the entire class was nearly $1.775 trillion.

Stories of incredible wealth creation from those with the foresight to turn a $1 investment in Bitcoin at five cents in 2010 into over $2 million is a powerful catalyst. Moreover, technology companies continue to embrace the libertarian form of money, with Squares (NYSE:) Jack Dorsey leading the way.

At the recent B-word conference, the CEO of both SQ and Twitter (NYSE:) called cryptocurrency the internets form of money. As more businesses begin accepting tokens for payment, governments are not likely to stand by idly.

Governments have repeatedly challenged cryptos because of their nefarious uses. However, it is control of the money supply that is at the root of their concerns.

Control of the purse strings is the most significant factor in retaining power. Surrendering the money supply to any libertarian currency diminishes control.

The status quo means governments can expand or contract the money supply with the push of a button. The ideological divide between governments and a form of money that transcends borders creates a vast gulf.

Governments embrace Blockchain as it represents the technological evolution of finance. The speed and efficiency of fintech have broad appeal. However, the digital currencies themselves pose a massive threat to power.

China appears to be the first government to issue a digital form of its currency, the yuan. In preparation, the Chinese have cracked down on Bitcoin and other cryptos. It will not be long before the US and Europe roll out digital dollars and euro. Washington DC and the EU are more than likely to follow Chinas lead to retain control of the money supply and hold onto financial power.

Post-2008, in the aftermath of the financial markets crash, the stage was set for cross-border regulatory cooperation. Given the move towards globalism under the Biden administration, we are likely to see regulators in the US, UK, and EU work together to establish a framework for cryptocurrency regulation.

While they will present this as a regulatory environment to protect investors, traders, and the sanctity of money, the underlying factor will be control and maintenance of the monetary status quo.

I expect that fintech will bifurcate into two regulatory protocols. One will cover government-issued digital currencies and could include so-called stablecoins that reflect hard asset values.

These are likely to be the blue chips that will face a more lenient regulatory landscape as control will continue to come from governments, treasuries, central banks, and monetary authorities.

Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, could face far more regulatory hurdles to mitigate their threat to established power bases.

One of the most potent tools governments have at their disposal is taxation. A sign that cryptocurrencies are already in the US governments crosshairs are two competing crypto tax amendments in the Senates infrastructure legislation. The taxation comes down to defining the role of a broker in cryptocurrencies.

Ironically, Senators initially looked to impose stricter rules on taxing cryptocurrencies to help fund the infrastructure bill. The Wyden-Toomey-Lummis amendment would narrow the broker definition to exclude miners and validators, hardware and software makers, and protocol developers from the designation. The amendment would seek to keep the crypto business and market from moving overseas to less restrictive jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, the Portman-Warner-Sinema amendment would only protect proof of work (PoW) miners from the newly proposed reporting requirement. The amendment would not make proof of stake (PoS) developers, operators, validators, or liquidity providers from the reporting requirements.

The bottom line: strict taxation is on the horizon in some form. Taxation is the most significant device governments can use to maintain a grip on the asset class and exert control.

Under the umbrella of paying for infrastructure, the IRS and other government agencies would have the power to control money flows with complete transparency. Moreover, cross-border cooperation could be a silver bullet that drives the market away from cryptos toward government-issued digital currencies and stable coins that reflect the value of regulated assets.

Libertarian ideology shifts power from the state to individuals. Libertarians believe in free markets where prices come from transparent transactions without government interference. Ironically, many believe that libertarianism is a right-wing doctrine.

When it comes to money, it decreases the governments role. However, socially, libertarianism can also appeal to the political left. Right and left political ideologies embrace different forms of libertarianism.

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, neither the government nor proponents of the burgeoning asset class will be pleased with the outcome. In the US and Europe, the growth of technology companies that have created oligarchies sets the stage for an epic battle over the future of the money supply.

Government officials are on one side, with Jack Dorsey, Tesla's (NASDAQ:) Elon Musk, Amazon's (NASDAQ:) Jeff Bezos, and other titans embracing a fintech world that transcends government control on the other.

Both sides have vested interests. The governments will do anything to preserve their hold on power. The crypto market and technology companies seek to return power to individuals, but they stand to be financial benefactors.

The bottom line: regulations are on the horizon, and they are likely to create a class system where digital currencies and stablecoins are not subject to the same treatment as cryptos.

Two competing payment systems could become mutually exclusive, creating lots of volatility and an epic financial battle for control. Governments may have the right to taxation, regulations, and armies of agents at their disposal. However, the technology sector has know-how and skills that dwarf the capabilities of those looking to maintain the status quo.

Speculative interest is currently fueling the libertarian asset class, which is why Chinese regulators have put their foot down. China is an authoritarian system, making it easy to suppress anything that is not in the governments interest.

Expect the US and Europe to try to do the same. However, in social democracies, that task is far from easy.

Source: CQG

The monthly chart of , above, shows that the speculative frenzy is likely to continue. Nearly 11,200 cryptocurrencieswith more coming to the market each dayis another sign that the asset class has rising appeal. Moreover, the existence of Bitcoin and means the cat is already out of the bag, and the US and Europe will now seek to tax and regulate from a weakened position.

Many agree that Blockchain is the future of the payments system. However, the form of money is an issue that will continue to stoke controversy for years to come.

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Cryptocurrency Regulations On The Horizon; Expect 2 Sets Of Protocols - Investing.com India

Sen. Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulRepublicans are the 21st-century Know-Nothing Party CDC: Unvaccinated more than twice as likely to get COVID-19 reinfection Senate in talks to quickly pass infrastructure bill MORE (R-Ky.) has been suspended from YouTube for a week over a video claiming that masks are ineffective against COVID-19.

In a statement to The Hill, a YouTube spokesperson said theplatform "removed content from Senator Pauls channel for including claims that masks are ineffective in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19, in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies."

"This resulted in a first strike on the channel, which means it cant upload content for a week, per our longstanding three strikes policy. We apply our policies consistently across the platform, regardless of speaker or political views, and we make exceptions for videos that have additional context such as countervailing views from local health authorities," the spokesperson added.

If there is another policy violation during the 90-day period, Paul's channel will receive a second strike, and he will not be able to upload for two weeks.

Paul said in a statementthatthis kind of censorship is very dangerous, incredibly anti-free speech, and truly anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth.

As a libertarian leaning Senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, so in this case Ill just channel that frustration into ensuring the public knows YouTube is acting as an arm of government and censoring their users for contradicting the government, Paul added.

The move comes a week afterYouTube removed a video ofPaul being interviewed by a Newsmax journalist on wearing masks during the pandemic.

YouTube said at the time that it removed the video for falsely claiming that masks were ineffective against COVID-19.

But the video that led to the suspension was Pauls response to theYouTube removing the earlier video, his office said.

In that second video, Paul claimed that two different studies showed that surgical masks and cloth masks didnt protect against the coronavirus.

Paul madehis response video available on Rumble.

Earlier this week, Twitter took similar action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor GreeneMarjorie Taylor GreeneGOP efforts to downplay danger of Capitol riot increase The Memo: What now for anti-Trump Republicans? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she's meeting with Trump 'soon' in Florida MORE (R-Ga.), suspending her for seven daysafter she tweetedthat vaccines are failing.

Updated at 10:15 a.m.

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Rand Paul suspended one week by YouTube over COVID-19 mask claims | TheHill - The Hill

My father, of blessed memory, a stalwart civil libertarian who cut his teeth as a lawyer defending people accused of being communists by McCarthyite goons, used to say, Your rights end where my nose begins.

The aphorism seems particularly apt at a time when one of the greatest collective threats we face is a pathogen transmitted through the air into our nasal passages.

Anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers claim their rights, their freedom, is being violated by requiring them to don a mask or get a shot.

Former Vice President Mike PenceMichael (Mike) Richard PenceThe Hill's 12:30 Report - Presented by AT&T - Rafael Nadal spotted around D.C. during Citi Open Pence urges young conservatives to get COVID-19 vaccine Virginia couple gets home detention in Jan. 6 case MORE encouraged this ludicrous line of reasoning last year when he responded to a reporter who asked about maskless people at Trump rallies by asserting a nonexistent constitutional right: Even in a health crisis, the American people dont forfeit our constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court actually decided this issue more than a century ago when Cambridge, Mass., Pastor Henning Jacobson argued that a state law requiring him to be vaccinated against smallpox was unconstitutional. In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held mandatory vaccination laws were, in fact, wholly constitutional.

As Justice John Harlan wrote, in every well-ordered society, charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members, the rights of the individual, in respect of his liberty, may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.

Further, wrote Harlan, liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own [liberty], whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.

In other words, my father was correct the rights of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers end where everyone elses noses begin.

There is no freedom to seriously endanger, no right to infect, others.

If some refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated, the rest of us have the right to keep them away from our nasal passages at work, at school, in stores and elsewhere.

A majority of Americans agree.

Just as COVID-19s scourge was beginning in early March 2020, we had the privilege of working with a great team to defeat Maines Question 1, which would have made it easier for people to evade vaccinations (obviously before there was a COVID-19 vaccine). Seventy-three percent of Mainers voted for strong vaccine requirements. That included majorities in every county in the state.

More recent polls confirm widespread public support for both vaccination and mask mandates.

In a Morning Consult/Politico survey, 68 percent favored federal government officials making it mandatory to wear face masks in public spaces, with 32 percent opposed.

Last weeks Yahoo News/YouGov poll found a lesser but still clear majority, 55 percent, in favor of making it mandatory to wear masks in public, while 45 percent opposed.

On the other end of the spectrum, a Hill/Harris X survey asked about a mask mandate if COVID-19 cases spiked in your area. Seventy-four percent favored the requirement in those circumstances, while 24 percent were opposed.

Americans also favor a vaccine mandate. A Covid States Project survey in June and July pegged approval for government requiring everyone to get a COVID-19 vaccination at 64 percent, with 45 percent of Republicans supporting such action. Seventy percent of Americans approve of a vaccine requirement for air travel.

More than 60 percent support vaccine mandates for federal workers (including members of Congress), teachers, police officers and those working in health care, according to a YouGov survey last week.

Americans recognize our obligation to protect each other and the need for rules and restrictions to accomplish that objective. They know my father was right: Our rights end at the nasal passages of our fellow Americans.

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has helped elect 30 senators, 12 governors and dozens of House members. Mellman served as pollster to Senate Democratic leaders for more than 20 years, as president of the American Association of Political Consultants, and is president of Democratic Majority for Israel.

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Mellman: Your rights and my nose | TheHill - The Hill

Kyle Wingfield| Savannah Morning News

A look at shifts in Savannah's neighborhoods and housing market

Savannah Morning News reporter Zoe Nicholson talks about the changes she's been told about in local neighborhoods and what gentrification looks like.

Savannah Morning News

This is a column by Kyle Wingfield, president and CEO of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a Libertarian-leaning think tank.

Government has not covered itself in glory during the pandemic. Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than the eviction moratorium. Lawlessness, disregard for property rights, failure to deliver on government programs its all here.

The federal government has imposed several different bans on landlords evicting tenants for failure to pay rent during this pandemic. Congress and both the Trump and Biden administrations have all enacted constitutionally dubious moratoriums. Theres lots of blame to go around.

'This community is not prepared': Eviction moratorium extension delays inevitable pain for tenants, landlords

Stick with me as we go through the history:

The CARES Act of March 2020 imposed a 120-day eviction moratorium on landlords who accept federal assistance programs or loans. When that ban ended and Congress failed to enact a new one, then-President Donald Trump ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to weigh whether a new moratorium was reasonably necessary to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.

The CDC turned to the Public Health Service Act, which allows the secretary of Health and Human Services to provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human being, and wait for it other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

Theres quite a distance between ordering pest extermination and forbidding private property owners from evicting non-paying tenants. What couldnt the secretary do under the umbrella of other measures? Worse, the CDCs moratorium applied to all landlords, not just those involved in federal programs.

Resource Guide: What to know if you're facing eviction in Chatham County

That moratorium was to expire Dec. 31, 2020. Once again, Congress stepped in and approved a one-month extension. Once again, Congress declined to go further.

Once again, the CDC did so anyway. A few extensions later, and landlords were looking at July 31 before the moratorium would be lifted.

A group of plaintiffs sought an earlier end, and won in federal court. But when they asked the Supreme Court to enforce the order, it declined to do so.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the tie-breaking vote. He explained he was acting out of practicality, since the ban was already set to end, but there were limits to his forbearance: "In my view, clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31.

Fast-forward to Aug. 3. After weeks of Congress failing to act and administration officials admitting they had no legal authority to do so, President Joe Biden announced a new extension anyway, in counties with "substantial and high levels" of community transmission.

He acknowledged that the bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that its not likely to pass constitutional muster. … (and) the Court has already ruled on the present eviction moratorium.

But, he continued, at a minimum, by the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time while were getting that $45 billion out to people who are, in fact, behind in the rent and dont have the money.

In other words, the wheels of justice grind slowly, and he knows it.

More from Kyle Wingfield: Back to school issues renew calls for lawmakers to expand school choice options

But what about that $45 billion Biden mentioned? Thats the real kicker to this saga.

Its the amount Congress has appropriated for emergency rental assistance. You know, the kind of thing that might have helped any out-of-work tenants (versus those simply taking advantage of the moratorium) stay current on their rent, and kept landlords from having to borrow or fall behind in their own debts.

Its the kind of thing that could have obviated the need for a moratorium. But more than seven months after Congress approved the first $25 billion, much of the money has yet to be distributed.

So to recap, we have a Congress that has only intermittently decided to ban evictions, and two presidents who have done so despite lacking clear legal authority. We have a Congress that has approved tens of billions in rent assistance, but a governing apparatus nationwide that has proven incapable of distributing it with any efficiency or urgency.

And were supposed to give more power to this government?

Continue reading here:
How inefficient is the federal government? Check out the eviction moratorium saga - Savannah Morning News

Many scientific findings continue to be disputed by politicians and parts of the public long after a scholarly consensus has been established. For example, nearly a third of Americans still do not accept that fossil fuel emissions cause climate change, even though the scientific community settled on a consensus that they do decades ago.

Research into why people reject scientific facts has identified peoples political worldviews as the principal predictor variable. People with a libertarian or conservative worldview are more likely to reject climate change and evolution and are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

What explains this propensity for rejection of science by some of the political right? Are there intrinsic attributes of the scientific enterprise that are uniquely challenging to people with conservative or libertarian worldviews? Or is the association merely the result of conflicting imperatives between scientific findings and their economic implications? In the case of climate change, for example, any mitigation necessarily entails interference with current economic practice.

We recently conducted two large-scale surveys that explored the first possibility that some intrinsic attributes of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking. We focused on two aspects of science: the often tacit norms and principles that guide the scientific enterprise, and the history of how scientific progress has led us to understand that human beings are not the centre of the universe.

Sociologist Robert Merton famously proposed norms for the conduct of science in 1942. The norm of communism (different from the political philosophy of communism) holds that the results of scientific research should be the common property of the scientific community. Universalism postulates that knowledge should transcend racial, class, national or political barriers. Disinteredness mandates that scientists should conduct research for the benefit of the scientific enterprise rather than for personal gain.

These norms sit uneasily with strands of standard contemporary conservative thought. Conservatism is typically associated with nationalism and patriotism, at the expense of embracing cooperative internationalism. And the notion of disinterestedness may not mesh well with conservative emphasis on property rights.

Science has enabled us to explain the world around us but that may create further tensions especially with religious conservatism. The idea that humans are exceptional is at the core of traditional Judeo-Christian thought, which sees the human as an imago Dei, an image of God, that is clearly separate from other beings and nature itself.

Against this human exceptionalism, the over-arching outcome of centuries of research since the scientific revolution has been a diminution of the status of human beings. We now recognise our planet to be a rather small and insignificant object in a universe full of an untold number of galaxies, rather than the centre of all creation.

We tested how those two over-arching attributes of science its intrinsic norms and its historical effect on how humans see themselves might relate to conservative thought and acceptance of scientific facts in two large-scale studies. Each involved a representative sample of around 1,000 US residents.

We focused on three scientific issues; climate change, vaccinations, and the heritability of intelligence. The first two were chosen because of their known tendency to be rejected by people on the political right, allowing us to observe the potential moderating role of other predictors.

The latter was chosen because the belief that external forces such as education can improve people and their circumstances is a focus of liberalism. Conservatism, on the other hand, is skeptical of that possibility and leans more towards the idea that improvement comes from the individual implying a lesser role for the malleability of intelligence.

The fact that individual differences in intelligence are related to genetic differences, with current estimates of heritability hovering around 50%, is therefore potentially challenging to liberals but might be endorsed by conservatives.

The two studies differed slightly in how we measured political views and peoples endorsement of the norms of science, but the overall findings were quite clear. Conservatives were less likely to accept the norms of science, suggesting that the worldviews of some people on the political right may be in intrinsic conflict with the scientific enterprise.

Those people who accepted the norms of science were also more likely to endorse vaccinations and support the need to fight climate change. This suggests that people who embrace the scientific enterprise as a whole are also more likely to accept specific scientific findings.

We found limited support for the possibility that belief in human exceptionalism would predispose people to be more sceptical in their acceptance of scientific propositions. Exceptionalism had little direct effect on scientific attitudes. Therefore, our study provided no evidence for the conjecture that the long history of science in displacing humans from the centre of the world contributes to conversatives uneasiness with science.

Finally, we found no strong evidence that people on the political left are more likely to reject the genetic contribution to individual variation in intelligence. This negative result adds to the evidence that science denial is harder to find on the left, even concerning issues where basic aspects of liberal thought in this case the belief that people can be improved are in potential conflict with the evidence.

The two studies help explain why conservatives are more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals. This rejection is not only dictated by political interests clashing with a specific body of scientific knowledge (such as human-caused climate change), but it appears to represent a deeper tension between conservatism and the spirit in which science is commonly conducted.

Read the rest here:
Many conservatives have a difficult relationship with science we wanted to find out why - The Conversation UK

During the past four-plus decades that Kathi Wright has lived in Loveland, she has seen city councils come and go. That time includes 13 years spent as a staff member of the city of Loveland.

Wright is one of nine on Lovelands most recent council a regularly quarrelsome group, in which she and councilor Richard Ball occupy a shifting middle ground between the conservative majority and a left-leaning minority.

Kathi Wright

Ive watched cycles of council that work well together and cycles that dont, Wright said. I really think the next four years are going to be one of the positive cycles.

The Nebraska native and former executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County has announced she will run for a second four-year term representing Ward II on the City Council this fall.

One challenger, Doug Luithly, has already declared his candidacy for the seat. Wright represents the citys west-central ward along with Andrea Samson, who was elected in 2019.

The main thing Ill continue to do is bring positive, constructive leadership, Wright said. Ive had so many people ask me to stay in there, speaking about the need for balance and that they need me to stay on. I think my decision was just based on people whose opinions I value greatly.

When asked what she considered to be the highlights of her past four years of service, Wright mentioned the rollout of the Pulse municipal broadband utility; the citys Connect Loveland plan, Big Thompson River Corridor Master Plan and two-year communications road map; completion of the 37th Street bridge over Dry Creek; and the partnership to provide services for the homeless through Homeward Alliance.

She also took pride in her vote to remove a ban on flavored vaping and tobacco products from an anti-youth vaping rule passed by the council in April.

I feel like Im a progressive here, and Im a libertarian there. My vote on tobacco products was libertarian. It was about the liberty of a law-abiding adult to walk into a store a buy a product that they appreciate, she said.

During her second term, Wright hopes to direct more resources toward economic development, adding that she believed the city should double its investment in its Economic Development Department.

She also said she felt the incentives awarded to businesses by the city during her tenure, such as the $250,000 earmarked for Tharp Cabinet Co. in 2018, had a positive impact on Lovelands business community.

As part of the city effort to engage more citizens, she said she would like to see more education offered on the citys budget and how funds are committed currently. She also indicated she may support sending another sales tax question to the voters in the future.

The more I think about what Andrea (Samson) suggested about doing a sales tax just for one project, the more I like it, she said.

Wright said she would also like to see the city work with developers to encourage creative solutions to the problem of Lovelands sparse affordable housing market, such as homes built from hemp or 3D-printed components.

I think we have to get out of the box, encouraging builders and making sure our code is flexible enough to do it, she said.

Other priorities mentioned by Wright included reopening the Pulliam Community Building I want to see Norm (Rehme) dance in that ballroom, she said and bringing infrastructure in downtown Loveland up to date.

Wright has one adult son, Joe. She is a member of the Loveland Rotary Club and a past member and past president of the Loveland Philo Club, and has volunteered with United Way. She has also served on the Garfield Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization/School Accountability Advisory Committee and the Master Plan Committee of the Thompson School District.

The citys municipal election will be Nov. 2.

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Kathi Wright to run for reelection to Ward II seat on Loveland City Council - Loveland Reporter-Herald

The road to City Hall (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

With just three months to go, the November general election is looking increasingly one-sided as Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee, has an overwhelming fundraising advantage over Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and several independent candidates in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one.

Adams, who officially launched his general election campaign last week, has raised more than $5.1 million in private donations as of July 11, the latest campaign finance deadline. He has received more than $8.1 million through the citys campaign finance program, which matches small dollar donations with public funds. That includes an additional $367,000 in matched dollars which he was awarded in the latest round of payments last week. The payment was based on reported contributions through June 11 and Adams is the only mayoral candidate so far to qualify for additional public funds since the primaries concluded.

In total, Adams has spent $11.2 million and has a hefty $2 million on hand.

To qualify for matching funds, mayoral candidates must raise a minimum of $250,000 in eligible contributions from a minimum of 1,000 donors who are city residents. The first $250 of each qualifying contribution is eligible for an 8-to-1 match under new campaign finance rules that both Adams and Sliwa have opted for. Under that option, the maximum individual contribution is capped at $2,000 per donor. A second option has a smaller match ratio (6-to-1 of the first $175 of each donation) and higher contribution limits ($5,100 for mayoral candidates). On Thursday, the Campaign Finance Board (CFB), which oversees the city's voluntary matching funds system, awarded over $1.4 million to 45 qualifying candidates for citywide and local races.

Sliwa, the Republican mayoral nominee, has only raised about $592,000 for his campaign and had spent most of it, as of July 11. He had $62,000 remaining in his coffers. His campaign manager, Robert Hornak, told Gotham Gazette the campaign had hoped to qualify for public funds and believed Sliwa had met the necessary threshold, but the campaign's matching claims were not audited by the CFB in time for the latest dolling of public funds.

Sliwa's campaign has submitted $285,000 in matching fund claims higher than the $250,000 minimum which have to be reviewed by the CFB. He has raised about $373,076 from city residents and $218,758 from outside the city.

"There is absolutely no doubt that we will make it in our August filing," Hornak said over the phone Wednesday. "Our digital fundraising and mail response has been huge in recent weeks, and we'll probably be over by easily $50,000 or $100,000 in matchable contributions in our next filing." The next filing, covering activity from July 12 to August 23, is due August 27.

Sliwas fundraising will also determine whether there will be one or two official debates ahead of the election. By law, the CFB will sponsor an initial public debate for the general election (in partnership with media outlets) as long as two or more candidates in a mayoral race raise and spend $182,150 by October 1, which both Sliwa and Adams have already done. That debate is scheduled for October 20, hosted by WNBC. For the second leading contenders debate, scheduled for October 26, candidates must either qualify for public matching funds by the latest campaign finance deadline prior to the debate, which is October 22, or will have to raise and spend at least $2.25 million by then.

Under CFB rules, if Sliwa doesn't qualify for public funds there would be only one mandatory debate with candidates from the two major parties in October but a second voluntary one could still take place.

There are several independent candidates also competing in the general election but none appear to be running viable campaigns and are unlikely to appear on the debate stage.

Fernando Mateo, who lost to Sliwa in the Republican primary and is now running on the Save Our City Party line, is the only other mayoral candidate who has qualified for matching funds. He has raised $542,000 in private donations and received roughly $2 million in public funds overall. He has spent just under $2.5 million, according to CFB filings, and had about $113,000 left as of July 11.

Mateos fundraising and expenditure qualify him for the debate with Adams, and potentially Sliwa, though it is not clear that he is actively running or if he will terminate his campaign.

"Well, I'm on the ticket. Let's just leave it at that," he told Gotham Gazette on Monday.

Reigniting his campaign for the general election "is something that I am considering," he said. "I haven't ruled it out. I'm just waiting to see how the momentum is going between the two major parties."

The final list of candidates on the ballot will be posted in mid-August, according to Valerie Diaz, a spokesperson for the New York City Board of Elections. A number of other mayoral candidates are reported to be running, including Bill Pepitone on the Conservative Party line, potential Working Families Party candidate Deborah Axt, Libertarian Stacey Prussman, and independents Raja Flores, Quanda Francis, and Cathy Rojas. None of them appear likely to qualify for matching funds or the debate.

If Sliwa fails to qualify in the next round of public payments (due August 27), the CFB and broadcasters could still hold two debates with the two major contenders but participation in the second would be voluntary. Such was the case in the Republican mayoral primary in May where neither Sliwa nor Mateo met the legal criteria to trigger a debate.

A second debate could also be triggered if Mateo, who has raised and spent the requisite thresholds this election cycle, decides to maintain his campaign. "Absolutely, I would participate" in the debates he said, adding, "or I would at least consider participating. Let me put it to you that way."

Adams' campaign did not respond to a Gotham Gazette inquiry about whether he would participate in a voluntary debate with Sliwa.

Whatever debates are put in place by the Campaign Finance Board, Im going to do ads, we have a street team, we are going to do mailings, Adams said on PIX 11 last month in response to accusations from Sliwa that he is blowing off the general election. Im going to continue the flow we had during the Democratic Primary.

You dont win a baseball game in the eighth inning. No premature celebration. We have another inning to go, he said at the launch of his general election campaign on Monday. We have to make sure that our message continues to resonate.

It is unlikely there will be mandatory debates for the other citywide offices, comptroller and public advocate. Only one candidate for comptroller, Democratic nominee and current City Council Member Brad Lander, has received public funds. Republican candidate Daby Carreras, Conservative Party candidate Paul Rodriguez, and Libertarian John Tabacco did not qualify. No public advocate candidate has either. In that race, incumbent Jumaane Williams, a Democrat, will likely face off against Devi Nampiaparampil on the Republican Party line, Anthony Herbert on the Conservative and Independence party lines, and Devin Balkind on the Libertarian line.

Samar Khurshid contributed to this report.

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The Money Race in the Mayoral General Election - Gotham Gazette