Friday Hodgepodge
Friday, March 05, 2021
Blog Roundup
1. Philosopher Harry Binswanger has written a pandemic port-mortem in which he very clearly lays out his case that:
This was a nature-made disaster. But its harm was so magnified by government that one has to view the bulk of the suffering and deaths as due to disastrous government policy.On that score, Binswanger elaborates on five things that exacerbated the pandemic:
- The FDA as such;
- The [abrogation by the] FDA [of the patient's right to make his own conclusions] on efficacy;
- The panic over hospital overcrowding;
- Capitalism non, socialism sÃ; and
- The FDA and testing.
Nature produced the virus. The philosophers and intellectuals preached the collectivism that barred free individuals -- patients, doctors, researchers, pharma companies -- from taking rational action to defeat it.I think this essay deserves a full reading and wide dissemination: Please consider doing the former and passing the word.
2. At How to Be Profitable and Moral, Jaana Woiceshyn passes along a particularly stark demonstration of what "equity" means in practice:
And what heinous deed overrode this kind of record and regard?The recent abrupt resignation [under pressure --ed] of the CEO of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Mark Machin, came as a surprise to many. As reported by Financial Post, the 54-year-old Briton had achieved stellar performance for the $475+ billion pension fund since becoming its CEO in 2016. Machin was praised for "outstanding leadership" by the CPPIB. [link omitted]
The left makes the version of Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass look like a paragon of reasonability. It's well past time to stand up to this folly. (Image by John Tenniel, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)
[Machin] had the audacity to travel to Dubai, for personal reasons. While there, he got vaccinated against COVID-19. (The U.A.E. is among the top three countries in vaccination rates, while Canada trails all developed countries at less than 5% of people vaccinated).It may seem incredible, but the egalitarian anti-concept of "equity" really is an attempt to elevate what sensible people would call the crab-bucket mentality to a moral ideal.
3. One notable economic consequence of our government's tyrannical actions during the pandemic has been increased persecution of housing producers. To get an idea of what I mean, refer to this blog post at the Texas Institute for Property Rights, which notes in part:
Moratoriums on evictions are only one example. Landlords are prohibited from evicting tenants for non-payment of rent, yet those same landlords must pay their mortgage, insurance, property taxes, and maintain the property while receiving little or no revenue. Fueled partially by Bernie Sanders' call for national rent control, municipalities around the country are enacting or considering restrictions on what landlords may charge. Groups like Black Lives Matter harass and demean those who bring economic investment into previously impoverished communities and gentrify neighborhoods.The blog post provides a link to a a white paper that details this growing problem and elaborates on the methods being deployed against those who provide this essential good.
4. Over at Thinking Directions, Jean Moroney looks deeply at some common productivity advice that applies to taking on new commitments.
The standard advice we are given is, "Just say no." But when should you say no?Moroney breaks this down into three broad "reality checks," including being okay with something being more difficult than you expect. I'll excerpt from that part since I let that happen to me recently:
How do you figure this out in advance? The Cold Test. Would you commit to doing this task even if you had a bad cold? If not, don't commit.This is turns out to be the most memorable of the three, but all are good advice.
...
If a task fails the Cold Test, yet it's something you'd like to do, you can always make it a maybe. Maybe you'll fit it in if all goes well. A maybe is something you will do opportunistically if you have time and energy. It's not a commitment. That makes it easy to drop without breaking your promises to yourself or others when you need to adapt to unforeseen events.
-- CAV
4 comments:
Hi Gus,
While this particular instance of ‘crab bucket morality’ is beyond the pail (Sorry, I just can’t help myself!) there are plenty of instances in the last 9 months where the self-appointed elite crabs should be pulled down into the squirming mass.
The distinction is, of course, the difference between private action and that of individuals wielding public power and then ignoring their own decrees in their own private actions.
What angers me, and what should see criminal punishment, is where the self-annointed elites make rules by gov’t fiat, enforce those rules against hoi polloi with the power of the state and criminal charges – in many cases destroying lives and livelihoods - then blithely ignore the rules and act as if their own pronouncements do not apply to them and their cronies.
When this hypocrisy and lawlessness is called out, folks on the Left decry this as ‘Whataboutism’ and folks on the Right, particularly Establishment types say that this is nothing more than the tu quoque fallacy. I beg to differ.
If the ideal of the Rule of Law and the related ideal of Equality Before the Law is to have any meaning, it is that even those who promulgate and enforce laws should be subject to them. While exempting members of Congress from enforcement actions by the Executive has a valid historical basis harking back to English Monarchs targeting Members of Parliament to remove them from opposition, nowhere was this supposed to turn into a blanket immunity brought on by a Congress in perpetual session. And if the courts were doing their jobs, any law passed by Congress that exempted them, their staffs, or adjuncts from that law, would be declared null and void as a violation of Due Process.
So when Gubnor Newsome hangs out with his cronies in violation of his own ukase, he should be subjected to arrest, booking, indictment, trial, and punishment in exactly the same fashion as he has enforced on other citizens. And, as an added bonus, anyone so targeted by Newsome should have standing to sue him and associated gov’t actors in their own persons for damages relating to the enforcement actions Newsome mandated and then chose to ignore for himself.
It’s time we set aside all forms of immunity for gov’t actors. If they cause harm in the form of individual rights violations, let them stand in the dock, civil or criminal, and answer for their malfeasance at the hands of their (theoretical) peers, other members of the citizenry.
c andrew
Yo, Gus, speaking of interesting reading, I was recently apprised of this graphic novelization of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. The looks inside I have seen suggest it is very well done.
And speaking of well done, I recently also encountered Kane Mathis's recordings; he studied the kora (a West African lute-harp) in the Gambia and the oud in Turkey. I'd say he learned pretty well.
C.,
By coincidence, I was listening to Yaron Brook on "equity" this morning. Choice line, paraphrased: Calling the left "communist" is too good a term.
Snedcat,
Thanks for the two neat referrals.
Gus
Oh, and speaking of amusing reading, I was recently reminded of the story you told me that you read in Latin, I think, of the Roman teacher whose students stabbed him to death with their styli. Now there is a Baptist pastor seeking a similar martyrdom by church-lady hatpin, or at least that's what would have resulted in my grandmother's church.
Oh, and in other reading, I might have mentioned to you some time ago that Madness published memoirs of sorts en masse; the saxophonist, Lee Thompson, has a book coming out in a few months. Might be interesting, given what I know of him; for example, this video tells the story behind one of his angrier songs.
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