Agency Dictatorship or Freedom?
This is the history of our time, and one does wonder: if this court decision had taken place five years ago, would all of this have been actionable in some way?
BY BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE
The Supreme Court has finally put a limit on agency-made law. It’s vexed us for many decades but never more than from 2020. Agencies about which we knew nothing suddenly imposed strange new rules about whether we could go to church, visit our parents, host parties in our own homes, send kids to school, plan weddings, hold funerals, or even engage in normal retail.
It was a level of totalitarian control we had never seen before, all passed off as a method of virus control. The dance to comply went on for two and three years. It was never clear if this was law, legislation, recommendations, guidances, much less who or what was generating all this nonsense.
When the shot came along, matters became deadly serious. Millions were professionally displaced. Countless others were harmed from shots they neither wanted nor needed.
This is the history of our time, and one does wonder: if this court decision had taken place five years ago, would all of this have been actionable in some way? We shall never know. But one does hope that this new precedent will restrain the crazy ones next time.
And yet, all the powers to do it again survive, and so do the plans. Nothing has changed in that respect. In fact, in most countries the people who did all this last time are being promoted, rewarded, and enjoying huge book royalties. They host ongoing conferences on their grand plans to lock down for the next great pandemic in order to administer whatever new shot comes along.
Alongside this, however, is tremendous political turmoil the world over. People are working in whatever possible ways to take back control of their governments from industrial interests and privileged elites. This is called the new “populism” but it is more properly seen as simple Enlightenment thinking: no people should be ruled by forces they cannot control.
As a young institution that arrived just in time, Brownstone Institute struggles to keep up with the demand for its programs, including its journal, Fellows program, books, and events. Resources are scarce even though we run on a shoestring budget. It’s a fantastic time to support this work, especially as the list of needs continues to grow.
We have so many important research projects to fund, including one on faulty economic data that is crying to be done, and many worthy fellows – people with the best minds and insights who need a home for community and publishing. We hope to support them in the coming year. We would like to embrace them all.
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Registrations for our November 1-2 conference and gala, at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, are open. Secure your spot.
On July 11, the Philadelphia supper club welcomes American legal scholar and neurologist Amy Wax, who will discuss Penn’s case against her with as much detail as she can, the problems in our K-12 education system, and the general tide of censorship and corruption that is sweeping nearly all of the academy. Register here.
Here is some content since our last email.
Albania Triumphs over Hoxha’s Tyranny By Scott Sturman. Albanians are staunch anti-Communist and recoil at the suggestion that Hoxha’s excesses were justified. It is their wish that the world becomes aware of the sacrifices of the Albanian people and the importance of resisting tyranny at all costs.
Court Ruling on Murthy Misses Point Entirely By Thomas Buckley. In her majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett bent over sideways to avoid judging the case on its merits and focused instead on whether or not the plaintiffs had the right, or standing, to ask for and be granted relief.
Supreme Court Punts on Technicalities By Aaron Kheriaty. We will continue to fight the government’s censorship leviathan in court. As the case goes back to the District Court for trial, we anticipate more discovery. Perhaps we will uncover communications that meet the Supreme Court’s impossibly high traceability standard.
The FDA Cut Corners By Maryanne Demasi. Peter Gøtzsche has many years of experience reviewing regulatory documents. He ridiculed the idea that a “thorough” review could be completed in that timeframe. “There’s no way the FDA carried out a ‘full analysis’ in only 22 days.”
Self-Inflicted Harm: The Persecution of Assange By Ramesh Thakur. The WikiLeaks document dumps caused embarrassment to some governments. However, for all the repetitions of the charge against Assange that he put the lives of US and allied soldiers at risk, no credible evidence has been produced that this happened.
Climate and Public Health: A Two-Headed Inquisition By David Bell. International public health operates around a clear set of dogmas, protected by maintaining taboos on discussion of subjects that might undermine them. The growing narrative around climate and health promises to be the apogee of this approach.
Eradication Fantasies Don’t Come Free By Thomas Harrington. Over the years, I have come to fear people who suggest they are above hate, and its correlates like prejudice and anger, more than I fear people who quite openly assault me with their hostility.
Life among Anti-Life Forces By Haley Kynefin. If anti-life philosophy threatens our most sacred values, then what exactly are those values which it threatens? How can we make sure that we do not lose sight of all the positive actions we can take to nourish their seeds?
Resist the Powerful Old and the Insouciant Young By Thomas Harrington. We must begin to stick to our guns when both the powerful old, and the insouciant young, spring the “Agree-with-my-sound-bite-version-of-the-truth-or-be-banished” gambit on us. We need to be conflictive with them in ways that we never believed we could be.
It Was Biodefense, Not Public Health: UK Edition By Debbie Lerman. In this article I will discuss the British Covid pandemic response: the national public health agency was replaced at the helm of the response by military/intelligence entities, and the response switched from public health to lockdown-until-vaccine.
Heroic Nurses in Horrible Hospitals By Bruce W. Davidson. During Covid, responsible nurses were unable to perform their advocate role in many hospitals. Under the cover of a medical emergency, many hospitals devolved into inflexible institutions paying more attention to orders from above than to the well-being of patients.
How to Protect Your Food and Medical Freedoms By Tracy Thurman. If we fight now, we can build a future where local farm-to-table networks feed us, and where we choose for ourselves what we want to put in our bodies. Your health and your family’s health are at stake.
We Forgot Merle Haggard’s Warning By James Bovard. How many Americans have learned the bitter political lessons of the pandemic? As long as most people can be frightened, almost everyone can be subjugated. In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses.
Assange and the Whistleblowers That Could’ve Been By Bill Rice. The world desperately needs far more whistleblowers. We need an active and robust WikiLeaks…or more organizations that perform the vital work of WikiLeaks. The people who could disclose important information about government crimes are simply terrified to do this.
Pandemic Preparedness: Arsonists Run the Fire Department By Clayton J. Baker and Brian Hooker. The arsonists must be fired from the Fire Department. The whole fear-driven and deception-based operation that is “pandemic preparedness” must be stopped. If it isn’t, the Covid-19 experience will be converted from a once-in-a-lifetime trauma to a recurring man-made disaster.
Our Version of a Theocratic State By Filipe Rafaeli. Brazil is the only country in the world mandating Covid-19 vaccines for children aged 6 months to 5 years. In the end, the arguments of those who support this are similar to those of Islamic State members.