Thoughts for the Week

"Modern science was fixing it so that anybody can do anything but nobody can know what the hell is going on." - Rex Stout

Censorship is tyranny. They are the death of liberty and the death of science. Free speech with factual, rational and respectful debate is both the foundation of science and the surest path to truth, liberty and enduring peace.

"When nations rush blindly towards destruction, Liberalism must try to enlighten them. But even if they do not hear, whether because they are deaf or because the warning voice is too feeble, one must not seek to seduce them to the right mode of conduct by tactical and demagogic artifice. It might be possible to destroy society by demagogy. But it can never be built up the that means." -- Ludwig von Mises, about 1930.

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine

"Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don’t know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields.” -- Thomas Sowell

With one exception, all forms of government restrict Liberty and are therefore tyrannical to some degree because one or some people hold unjust power over the rest. The sole exception: self-government by equally sovereign individuals. America's Constitution embodies this principle and makes America exceptional. The corruption of our government makes America tyrannical.

How do you spoil a child? Do not hold him accountable to the reality that his actions have consequences. Spoiled children bully, cheat, lie and worse. We have spoiled our country. We have not held our leaders, media, educators, or each other accountable to reality. Spoiled adults steal, murder, start wars and destroy freedom. Fortunately the cure is simple: Accountability.

Every law restricts someone’s freedom. No exceptions. Some freedoms should be restricted: the freedom to steal, to murder, to bribe… Yet the more laws we have, the less freedom we have. No exceptions. Governments make and enforce laws. So as government power rises, freedom falls. No exceptions.

"Not the Russian armies, but the communist ideologies threaten the West. The Russians know it very well and place confidence not in their own army, but in their foreign partisans. They want to overthrow democracies from within, not from without." -- Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, 1951.

Maybe our most important duty as free people is to speak the truth as we see it. When we fail at this--when our silence condones lies about gender, race, science or anything--we break the bonds of truth which hold us together in freedom and peace. Free speech is our right and our responsibility.

Freedom comes with responsibility. This means individual responsibility. We have a duty as individuals to fight for liberty and to hold each other accountable to the truth.

The most important question we must answer coming out of COVID has nothing directly to do with the virus, the vaccine or even policy. It is, "Can we trust our health and government authorities?" When more of us see the corruption and betrayal of trust, we will have to rebuild those authorities and restore that trust. That is an immense challenge. For any hope of success, we must unite in seeking the truth and work together.

"Individual liberty" is redundant. All freedom resides in the individual. A society or country can be considered free only if its individuals are free.