Mark P writes that

Upon reading this:

“NYPD will deploy officers around the City … to be certain no voters are intimidated”

Two thoughts came to mind:

1 – NYPD conducting ‘Stop, Question and Frisk’ of voters (or perhaps TSA will be onsite, too?)

Good gracious, either one alone is way more than enough—but both? What a dystopian nightmare!

2 – Having to walk through hordes of NYPD officers who have nothing better to do than make sure mask  and social distancing diktats are being adhered to.

Yep, no intimidation here.

And that’s why New Yorkers pay the big bucks in taxes.

A tailor’s shop on our block features a large, plate glass window through which we glimpse the tailor—a cheery and maskless soul who smiles at us each day from his empty store (we usually stroll past during the morning rush; I doubt many folks stop for alterations on their way to work). I haven’t spotted a mask around his neck, either, and the ubiquitous signs demanding muzzles that adorn all storefronts are absent from his. Could he be a dissident refusing to cooperate with the plandemic?

When he waved to me this morning, I turned in at his door. And to my vast disappointment, a mask instantly materialized in his hand.

“No, no!” I grinned at him. “You don’t need to put that on for me, for heaven’s sake, I was stopping in to say how much I appreciate your naked face!”

His eyes crinkled above the muzzle; I’m sure he was beaming. But his gaze never left the window behind me.

“So nice to see your smile every day,” I babbled as he stepped from behind his counter and herded me towards the door, eyes fixed on the window.

And then I understood: he very much feared someone would see a maskless woman in his shop and report him.

What have we become?

Last week, the New York Post reported,

The NYPD is preparing for protests in the city as the presidential election nears …, according to a memo obtained by The Post.

To police the expected protests, the department will require most cops to report for duty in uniform and “be prepared for deployment” starting Oct. 25, the memo states.

“This November 3rd will be the one of the most highly contested presidential elections in the modern era. There is also a strong likelihood that the winner of the presidential election may not be decided for several weeks,” the memo states.

For whatever reason, New York’s Marxist NPR station (but I repeat myself; why, in the age of internet radio and Bluetooth, do Our Rulers still rip us off to subsidize NPR?) broadcast this news today. As nearly as I recall, the talking head announced: “The NYPD will deploy officers around the City during the upcoming elections, to contain any protests and to be certain no voters are intimidated…” There was also the obligatory slander of Trump, something along the lines of his refusing to leave office.

“Intimidate voters”? But wait: this is Moscow on the Hudson, a thoroughly Marxist town. Who’s left, so to speak, to intimidate the commies queuing at the polls? I mean, come on, all two Republicans in New York City couldn’t intimidate much of anything, not even Biden if they stormed his basement.

Here’s this month’s most inspiring video! A fearless restaurateur in Pennsylvania has continued hosting her customers despite “lockdowns.” Such heroism has apparently upset the gubernatorial despot, Tom Wolf, and he’s now indulging in a “vendetta” against her.

Does she take his abuse lying down? NO!!!!

Watch and listen as she courageously castigates Wolf, denouncing him as a liar, murderer, and sociopath (my word; her description is far more colorful!). And if you don’t cheer as she confidently and calmly boasts that she has God on her side (the only bragging the Lord wants to hear from us), well, check for a pulse.

Thanks to Vinnie Terranova for sending me the link to this heroine’s thrilling stance against tyranny! And when next you find yourself in Penn’s Woods, hie yourself to Taste of Sicily in Palmyra. 

UPDATE: Bill Martin also forwarded an article on Taste of Sicily; the restaurant had refused to pay $10,000 in fines  for its defiance of COVIDidiotic regulations. Turns out that “Wolf’s and the Department of Health’s Orders couldn’t be punished under Pennsylvania criminal law…” Meanwhile, the victors advise other businesses in the same quandary, “When you get these fines from these agents do not pay them. Plead not guilty, and take them to court. As you can see we won because they had no legal right to fine us for those mandates and guidelines the governor and Levine implemented.

“You have to stick together and go to court.”

The most powerful, concise, and persuasive reasons why people will vote for

Trump — in less than one minute.  This is destined to go viral. Truly epic.

If your corner of the world resembles mine, propaganda screams at you everywhere you go, “VOTE! Make your voice heard!” and “EVERY VOTE COUNTS!” 

And here just a few months ago, we were non-essential.

Read this informative article, Lincoln Project RINOs Lie About Trump and John Birch Society, setting forth perceptive analysis of the latest round of venomous attacks on the president by the Lincoln Project. Look carefully at the unregistered pedigrees of the mongrels in the Lincoln Project while perusing the article. Almost from the day of its founding, establishment conservatives led by William F. Buckley Jr. of National Review magazine (now the spearhead of #NeverTrump neocons), and the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), have waged a savage disinformation campaign against the John Birch Society.

This early phase of attack peaked in the mid 1960s with the plethora of books of the period such as The Strange Tactics of Extremism, The Paranoid Style in American Politics,  Danger on the Right, or Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and innumerable libelous mainstream media articles which attacked both the JBS and GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, culminating with the spurious GOP Convention resolution (devised by Goldwater’s Rockefeller Republican archenemies, the forerunners of today’ RINOs) denouncing as “extremists” the CPUSA, the KKK, and the JBS. The Communists and the Klan had never been a Republican problem, but over the decades many prominent (and not so prominent rank-and-file) Democrats had been covert Communists and Klan members. Democrats who were unbridled collectivists then, as they do now, get a free pass by the media on belonging to such seditious groups.

I clearly remember watching these debates unfold on the convention floor because 1964 was the first time I became actively interested and engaged in watching  TV, focusing upon politics. During coverage of the Convention, CBS News reporter Daniel Shore did a broadcast from Germany trying to link Goldwater with neo-Nazi groups there.

The best book on the attacks upon Goldwater and his campaign remains With No Apologies: The Personal and Political Memoirs of United States Senator Barry M. Goldwater, by Goldwater himself (or at least by Goldwater and his ghostwriters).

This latest tiresome round of attacks features some of the same type of disinformation agents desperately trying to link President Trump, the JBS, the KKK, and neo-Nazis. A one-trick pony to accompany the Democrats’ jackass.

. . . hejust proved you right.  What is it with these aging Clintonistas?

A friend writes,

We can deduce a rough local Liberty/Freedom Meter from the allowed attendance at professional sports events.  Professional sports are generally wildly popular so it takes a special kind of tyranny to disallow fans at the local venues. The percentage of capacity of allowed fans in the city’s stadium gives us the liberty percentage(L), and then the disallowed percentage gives us the tyranny percentage(T).  Judging from the NFL and MLB games this weekend here are the results:

Arlington –         27 L, 73 T

Tampa Bay –      24 L, 76 T

Jacksonville –    21 L, 79 T

Miami          –    17 L, 83 T

Indianapolis –    20 L, 80 T

Nashville –         15 L, 85 T

Pittsburgh   –      8 L, 92 T

Charlotte   –        7 L, 93 T

And in a 6 way tie for last place at 100 % T are Minneapolis, Foxboro (MA), East Rutherford, Philadelphia, and of course Santa Clara, CA and San Diego, CA.

There will be 2 games today.  One in Arlington, TX where fans will be allowed at probably 27 %, and one in Buffalo, NY where unsurprisingly no fans will be allowed.

Interesting to note that Pittsburgh allowed a few, but in the same state Philadelphia barred all.  It may be that Pittsburgh and Charlotte at those low numbers only allow family and friends of the participants, but I am not able to confirm that.  If true that would be very generous of those local tyrants, wouldn’t it ?  And finally it generally appears – aside from Indianapolis – that the tyrants in the South are somewhat more lenient than those in the North, and that the Northeast, California, and Minneapolis are the ground zeroes of tyranny.

Hey, don’t forget DC!

Mr. Anonymous disagrees that lawsuits against Our Rulers will vanquish COVID’s tyranny: 

It would most likely be a waste of time to sue over Covid. They would be judged in the rulers’ courts. And it would be covered by the rulers’ networks/media. Much better to use the resources to march on the state Capitol building with energy and with demands from the free people. Civil disobedience is an underestimated tactic. It often scares the pants off the state rulers. Lawsuits play into their hands.

Anyone up for a vigorous hike in this lovely autumn?

. . . that was used to “justify” the worldwide lockdowns, including in the U.S. by the U.S. government.  The lockdowns are being used to “justify” what wealthy European socialists are calling a “great reset,” a eupemism for the abolition of economic freedom in favor of worldwide central planning of the Soviet variety (with themselves in control).  Now, Koch-Funded Tyler Cowen (possibly the biggest recipient of Koch grants of any scholar) is trashing the Great Barrington Declaration by hundreds of epidemiologists all around the world that criticizes the lockdowns.  Cowen goes full totalitarian in his Bloomberg article in which he warns against “dangerous” libertarianism.

Does Charles Koch think Biden is going to win?  Is his boy Cowen angling for a job in the Biden administration or at least a seat at one of the Biden Great Reset committees?

Letter 1

From: Jim Lloyd

Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2020 6:31 AM

To: wblock@loyno.edu

Subject: The disinvited

Hi Walter,

Congratulations on being uninvited from speaking to still-developing

minds, which all of us could probably benefit from having.

The list inspired a question for me, as “commencement” and “campus

speaker/debate” are treated the same.

I have been to a few university graduations, never my own which is an

indicator, and actually had a restraining order that prevented me from

attending my high school coronation [obviously a story there, but who

doesn’t have one?], and it seems to me that unless those students who

would disagree with the speaker at a once-in-a-lifetime-experience can

express themselves peacefully but fully or obviously to those around

them, they are being misrepresented.?? If that’s true, ther than the

cap & gown I have seen in movies & on TV, what would a university

allow that satisfies the student’s desire to oppose the commencement

speaker on whatever grounds without disrupting the ceremony for

everyone else, ie a different color cap & gown?

Sincerely,

Jim Lloyd

(more…)

From: Ronald Ayers

Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 3:23 AM

To: wblock@loyno.edu

Subject: opinion on ethical dilemma needed

Dear Dr. Block,

A lively discussion has recently taken place on Wonderhussy’s youtube channel regarding an ethical dilemma she is facing.

I would be grateful if you could give a libertarian perspective.

Her 30 minute video offers a full explanation. The youtube info box describes it briefly.

In a nutshell, she filmed a video of a natural feature on “public lands” (administered by BLM, I believe). However, a group went in and made changes to the feature, improving it with their labor and possibly materials. They had no government permission to do this. They asked her to kill the video so that it’s never seen by the public. They fear vandalism.

She considered their request, which means the hours of work she put into making her video of the spot will be wasted, and decided to honor it.

Her followers have their opinions, but offer no theoretical justifications for them. Some say she’s too “nice” for not showing the video. Others believe she did the right thing by keeping the location a secret by not posting the video. Vandalism on public lands of ghost towns and geological features is a problem.

Is there a libertarian principle that would apply in this situation?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this issue? In general, she keeps the locations of ghost towns, etc. a secret in her videos anyway since she’s worried about vandalism.

Ronald M. Ayers, Ph.D.

(more…)

From: Jens S

Sent: Sunday, August 23, 2020 1:01 PM

To: Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu>

Subject: The peaceful bum problem

Hello Walter,

many people (for example Ben Shapiro) claim that it is not acceptable to just do enough to get by. Instead, they claim, you have a duty to go out of your way to benefit the society around you as much as you can.

In a Libertarian society, this would be nonsense, because only the NAP is a firm boundary.

However, many people have “sinned” by cooperating with the Gov., so they better make up for it before the Libertarian Nuremberg Trials start.

Does this make sense or am I off?

Best Regards

Jens

(more…)

From: Madlovics Bálint

Sent: Friday, August 07, 2020 4:59 AM

To: Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu>

Subject: Question about environmentalism and homesteading

Dear Walter,

I hope all’s well with you.

I and a group of libertarian friends here in Hungary were talking about homesteading, and a puzzle came up which we couldn’t solve. Homesteading theory says we need to “mix our labor” with the unowned thing to homestead it. But what if I want to have something precisely to protect it from intervention? Consider a rainforest. Let’s say I’m a free-market environmentalist and I want to own the rainforest so I can preserve it in its natural, unmolested form, free from any intervention. I can certainly do this by trade: if someone already owns the rainforest, I can buy it from them, and then leave it on its own. But can I do this by homesteading? Can I claim ownership of an unowned rainforest without molesting it, or I must give up my environmentalist ideals and interfere with the rainforest’s natural state in order to homestead it? (The rainforest is one example; maybe there is some unowned land I want to own to keep people from messing with its natural beauty.)

Best wishes,

Bálint

(more…)

From: Corey J. Jones

Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 3:09 PM

To: Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu>

Subject: Question

Good afternoon Walter,

I hope you’re doing well.

Question – do you believe there is any libertarian case for Joe Biden for President? Have you done any writing on this, or the upcoming election in general. Curious about your thoughts on Biden vs. Trump from a libertarian perspective (excluding Jorgensen in this scenario).

Corey J. Jones

(more…)

I can’t help it: I reflexively despise anyone “working” for the State.

But sometimes, when a heroine like Paula Copenhaver comes along, it’s tough to maintain my contempt.

Ms. Copenhaver is the clerk of Indiana’s rural Fountain County; she and “her poll workers … [are] overseeing early balloting” at the county courthouse. 

And why am I wasting your time on this?

Because Ms. Copenhaver refuses to don a muzzle or force others to do so.

Even better, she’s principled about it: 

“There are exemptions to the governor’s mandate,” Copenhaver said Friday. “If someone qualifies for an exemption, it is none of my business.” … She’s part of the government, the clerk said, “but I’m not going to be part of the government overreach.” 

Whoa! And this despite the immense pressure from Indiana’s Secretary of State to fall in line with the COVIDCon as well as infuriating propaganda mask-erading as news coverage from the local rag.

It’s almost enough to convince me to vote!

Responding to A Liar and Sociopath By Any Other Name, Roger Mitchell alerted me to a column on his blog regarding Jaws:

Fauci is an Italian word which is commonly interpreted in English as ‘jaws, mouth, or maw’. It is often used in the sense of a carnivore or a predator capturing, tearing, or destroying its prey, i.e., the mouth of a lion. The term, ‘the jaws of death’ is from the Italian, ‘le fauci della morte’.

It’s interesting that one of the most famous men in the world today is Anthony Fauci, who is the spokesman for the medical/pharmaceutical/state collaboration on the Covid-19 episode. Fauci, the mouthpiece of the elite establishment. Fauci, the jaws of the group which is seeking to force all common people into wearing face masks, muting and muzzling their own voices. Fauci, the maw of the organization which is trying to destroy and devour all others.

Fauci, who speaks for the beast.

Is this a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that the one villain James Bond was never able to defeat was also named Jaws?

Does God have a sense of humor?

Isn’t Biden proof that He does?

See Psalms 2: 4 for corroboration. While you’re there, read the whole doggone chapter and relate it to the time we are living in. My guess is that God is done laughing.

May all of us kiss the Son now, in these few seconds He’s mercifully granted before nightfall.

William Barr‘s appointment as Attorney General was another one of those highly problematic appointments that Trump has made from the very very beginning of his administration. There is also a book by Terry Reed titled “Compromised” with insight on Barr. It’s a problematic appointment from the standpoint of projecting Trump’s agenda of draining the swamp and putting into positions of power a different breed of appointees.

Presenting Trump with a list of 5 people to choose from, all of whom are covert anti-Trumpers in their beliefs, or neocons, or deep state bureaucratic veterans, but all of whom will easily be confirmed by the Senate, results in an administration that works as much against their boss’s policies as for them.

The political problem here is very challenging for Trump. No president in one or two terms can clean up pervasive corruption that goes back 60 years. Many of his appointees are vulnerable to exposure of their own misdeeds. Many hold to ideologies that are hostile to Trump’s desired policies. The same goes for key Congressional politicians.

Trump often has been choosing the least worse person to fill a post. Later he goes back and forth in criticizing and praising the decisions of his underlings in order to get them to support his agenda without their killing off their own reputations, families and careers. How well Trump has done this juggling and prodding act is something that’s beyond the scope of this blog. Clearly, he has often chosen the utterly wrong people. It appears that Trump would have gained more support for his agenda to have chosen at random from people entirely outside the usual establishment ranks; but it must be borne in mind that such appointments would have had to face the intense hostility of major media and major House and Senate powers.

Lately, in addition to the older media, Trump has been facing the hostility of Facebook and Twitter, where he cannot even find open channels to spread information about present and past corruption in order to generate the public support he absolutely requires in order to clean the Washington stables.

Little by little, Trump has found and appointed a few more people who are in line with his programs. He has made numerous appointments of judges. He could do a great deal more for his agenda if re-elected and if Congress were filled out with some people more sympathetic to his ideas.

As bad as the Biden/Harris program is, and it’s enactment really would be a disaster for America, this does not mean that the re-election of Trump gets us out of the woods. Not at all. Trump has been exceedingly bad on fiscal and monetary policy. He has been bellicose on China. Trump is bad on COVID vaccine and he has not been good on lockdowns.

Director of America’s Forgotten, banned from Facebook and Amazon, on some of the problems with open (state) borders.

Farr’s Law holds, herd immunity is how all pandemics end. “I’m shocked that this man (Fauci) has any sort of podium anymore…”

The international, class-action lawsuit “against those responsible for implementing the economically devastating lockdowns around the world, as well as using fraudulent testing to engineer the appearance of a dangerous pandemic” is steaming ahead. One of the legal team, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, says the defendants “[include] everyone from local policy makers all the way to the World Health Organization and drug companies. … more than 50 other countries will be following suit,” so to speak.

This case

would also open the door to pretrial discovery, which requires all relevant evidence to be presented to the other party. Destruction or withholding evidence has serious consequences, as “the party withholding or … destroying evidence loses the case under these evidence rules.”

May God bless the efforts of these lawyers as they try to wrestle the world back from the brink of totalitarianism and barbarity.

But Dr. Fuellmich errs when he says,

To the politicians, who believe those corrupt people [the public-health bureaucrats and the corporations in league with them], these facts are hereby offered as a lifeline, that can help you readjust your course of action and start the long overdue public scientific discussion and not go down with those charlatans and criminals.

WRONG. As the good doctor admits just a few sentences before throwing Leviathan this rope, Germans 

“Are currently experiencing the most serious encroachment on their constitutional rights since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. In order to contain the corona pandemic federal and state governments have intervened, … massively and in part threatening the very existence of the country, as it is guaranteed by the constitutional rights of the people.”

It’s the same here. The federal and state constitutions, the ones that politicians and bureaucrats swear to uphold, prohibit precisely those crimes that governors and the public-health Marxists have committed over the last eight months. Moreover, protestors and dissidents warned them, loudly and often, that they were violating their oaths of office as well as the highest law of the land.

So no, absolutely no mercy for these enemies of all mankind. They created and then exploited hysteria to enhance their power over us, regardless of how many lives, hopes, fortunes and small businesses they smashed. Rather than trying them, string ‘em up, every last one, for they deserve far more informal and rougher justice than a court dispenses. 

Ditto for the Parson Goats out there. Each one who genuflected to Caesar willingly broke basic Biblical commands and principles, exactly the pillars to which we should cling in times of uncertainty and panic. For these pastors now to plead that they substituted their best judgement for Scripture… They condemn themselves out of their own mouths.

Principles matter. Exceedingly. But both rulers and, even more damningly, clergy abandoned them.

The bill for such wickedness is coming due. Let it ruin them as thoroughly as they did us.

Well, yes, if his or her school uses certain books on display at Barnes and Nobel Booksellers in the Kids section.

Who Was Fidel Castro?  informs the kids that the brutal, mass-murdering communist totalitarian dictator who destroyed his country as a puppet of the Soviet Union was “A boy who loved sports, especially baseball”; “a lawyer for the poor”; and “the leader of a revolution in Cuba.”  What Catholic School child would not like Castro?  “He’s just like me,” the lads would say, “he liked sports and he helped the poor.”

Who Was Che Guevara? describes Castro’s mass-murdering henchman and enforcer as “A young medical student from Argentina”; “a leader of the Cuban revolution”; and “a man who has become a symbol of youthful rebellion.”  Again, since all youths rebel in one way or another, “he’s just like me,” the kids would say

Thanks to Kevin Duffy for the pics of the books.

Earlier this year, before Bill Gates and Co. unleashed the shamdemic, New York City’s rulers had decreed that their serfs could no longer benefit from “free” plastic shopping bags. They forbid entrepreneurs to dispense plastic ones at all; paper bags were still available at 5 cents apiece. This expense would supposedly encourage customers to rely on reusable totes. (At the time, I strongly doubted this ploy would succeed, as highly as New Yorkers prize convenience. But their wholesale surrender to masks has me rethinking that assumption.)

Then along came the plandemic, with rulers forced to confess that reusable sacks transmit disease—specifically the dreaded COVID. The ban went on ice.

It’s now back, taking effect on Oct. 19—a tacit admission that bubonic–sorry, COVID has run its course (presuming it had one to run). Will the parasites also rescind their “mandates” on masks, anti-social distancing, restaurants at 25% capacity, and the myriad other lunacies with which they’ve ruined New York City?

Ha! Is the Pope Lutheran?

The travels of the Hunter Biden laptop are important, or to be more accurate the travels of copies of data on the laptop’s hard drive. The repairman’s name is John Paul Mac Isaac, and his account carries major weight, because he has placed his own life in danger by his disposition of the laptop and hard drive data. See also this account.

The Hunter Biden “data”, of which there are now several copies in circulation, include thousands of e-mails, and some of them incriminate the Biden family in high-level bribery schemes. Biden himself and his campaign have issued only the weakest of denials about the reality of what the so far published handful of e-mails reveal about his extensive corruption. They have trotted out the tired allegation that it’s Russian disinformation, but they have no proof or corroboration of that. On the other hand there is extensive corroboration of Biden’s actions to end investigation of Burisma. In a famous video clip, Joe Biden brags about it. There is already the evidence of all the money paid to his son through Ukraine and China, etc.

Mr. Isaac sent a copy to the FBI in December of 2019. What the FBI did with it is unknown, except that we know that no acknowledgment of its receipt or announcement of a subsequent investigation have occurred in the intervening 10 months. This looks like an FBI coverup. To explore the FBI’s actions, 19 House Republicans have sent a letter to Director Wray.

This is a first mild or weak step, but it is a step in the right direction. It’s mild because it makes requests. It doesn’t subpoena information. It doesn’t even demand any and all FBI communications, records, knowledge of meetings, notes, etc. relating to the data. Furthermore, these Republicans are acting on their own, without the backup of a House committee or the House as a whole.

With the House in the hands of corrupt Democratic leadership, the FBI can go its corrupt and politically-biased ways without being properly monitored or reprimanded or punished when its members abuse their powers or fail to do their duties. This is where the U.S. system of government has a severe weakness, but a weakness that can be partly overcome and put right in time. The Swamp can be drained, but never turned into a beautiful garden. No one has ever solved the problem of making a government incorruptible or making it work only in the interest of the general welfare.

The Republicans ask for answers by October 22 to these questions. Was the FBI in possession of the Hunter Biden “laptop and hard drive”? (They should have asked about copies of the data.) Did the FBI try to authenticate the materials in their possession? Since obtaining the data, over the past 10 months, did the FBI inform officials at the DOJ or the White House of the material?

Dumb, dishonest, corrupt, lying, plagiarizing, senile D.C. dinosaur Joe Biden, as I explained in a March 10 blog, shortly after the Sage of Delaware was awarded the Democrat nomination.