I consider myself to be a radical libertarian.  Sometimes the word “radical” is seen as bad, but that depends on what you are being radical about.

If your child were kidnapped, would you “radically” demand a return of your child?  Or would you take a more “moderate” approach and request that you be able to see your child part of the time with certain restrictions applied?

The same goes with radical libertarianism.  I won’t apologize for being a radical.  I am radical in my philosophy of non-aggression.  I am radical in that I want peace and prosperity.  I am not demanding just somepeace and someprosperity.  While I may cheer some moves in the right direction, it doesn’t mean I accept that as the final result.  I will continue to promote all peace all the time, even if I know that won’t happen today and maybe never.

If you accept a certain level of authoritarianism, then don’t be surprised if you get it. This has been made especially clear in 2020.

The only way to beat back the lockdowns, restrictions, and other tyrannical measures that have come in 2020 is through radicalism.  I don’t mean radicalism necessarily in terms of taking action.  I mean radicalism with regard to what we are willing to accept.

We don’t need a large portion of the population to turn into radical libertarians in order to reverse all of the lockdown measures of 2020.  But we do need a large portion of the population to become radically libertarian on this one issue.

Let me give an example of how being a moderate can really hurt the cause.  A week or two ago, I was watching a California restaurant owner being interviewed on Fox News.  At that time, it had recently been announced that outdoor dining would no longer be allowed in many parts of California.

The restaurant owner stated that he understood why indoor dining had not been allowed.  But, he said, he had made accommodations for outdoor dining and he was following the protocols put in place by the governor. He said it wasn’t fair to ban outdoor dining and that his business was at risk of failing with the new shutdown.

I have heard similar stories from other restaurant owners.  I hear statistics about how very few coronavirus cases have been traced to restaurant dining.  I hear about how other businesses are not treated the same, or how an outdoor dining tent was allowed for another group of people.

I’m sorry, but this misses the point.  While I feel empathy towards these business owners, I also get really irritated with some of them.  I was particularly irritated when this one restaurant owner said he understood and accepted why indoor dining should be closed (by the state).

This business owner was signing his own death certificate.  He was making an argument in favor of the state’s lockdown powers, and I don’t even think he understood what he was doing.

This is the problem with too many people.  They try to compromise.  They try to be a “moderate”.  They try to sound “reasonable”.  That is what this guy was doing.  He was trying to sound reasonable.  But in the process, he was conceding the worst aspects of the whole thing. He was saying it is ok for the governor to control his business, as long as the measures put in place are reasonable.  But I’m sure the governor always can come up with a reason that is logical in his own mind.

The guy should have said that he owns the restaurant and that it is his property.  As the property owner, he should have the right to do as he pleases with it, whether that includes outdoor dining, indoor dining, or anything else.

I have talked about the issues of discrimination and voluntary association before.  I was a big critic of the state telling a baker that he had to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.  It had nothing to do with being for or against gay people.  It had everything to do with property rights.

I have also said that a property owner should be able to discriminate on any basis.  This includes race, sex, religion, age, or anything else.  There should be no interference from the state.  It’s not to say that there might not be consequences from customers, but the law itself should not prohibit discrimination.

The reason is because of property rights.  It is the property owner’s right to use his property as he pleases, so long as he is not using aggression against others.

This is really the only defense against the lockdowns.  It is a violation of property rights and voluntary association.  If someone is fearful of the virus, they don’t have to go to a restaurant.  If a restaurant owner wants to close all dining, that is his business. If he wants to be completely open, that is his business.  It is up to customers on whether they want to go there.

I think statistics can be useful.  They can be useful in persuading others that the virus is not nearly as serious as they have been led to believe.  They can be used to show that lockdown countries or lockdown states are not necessarily any better off in terms of lower coronavirus cases or deaths.

But even here, they should be secondary arguments.  The primary argument should be one of liberty, which includes property rights.

When a restaurant owner argues that the coronavirus hasn’t been traced much to outdoor dining, then he is conceding his own property rights.  Because the implication is that if tracing did show outdoor dining to be a problem, then it would be ok for the governor or other state officials to shut down outdoor dining.

This is why many libertarians have been frustrating to listen to in 2020.  It is why the Libertarian Party presidential campaign was so ineffective.  They should have been making a clear case for property rights in the face of lockdowns, even if it is more of a state issue than a federal one.  It was the federal government recommending the lockdowns in the first place.  While there may have been some mild criticisms here and there of the lockdowns, they were weak and seemed almost secondary.

There are hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States alone that have been shut down this year.  They need a voice. They need an example.  These business owners should all be libertarians by now.  They should be against government licensing now more than ever.  They should be against any state interference in business in any way so long as there is no aggression.

This is the moment libertarians have been waiting for.  People need a voice.  We have the right message that will resonate with people.  It does not lie in “moderation”.  We need radicalism more than ever.  We need a radical defense of liberty.  We need a radical defense of private property rights.  No business should be locked down for any reason ever so long as that business is not aggressing against anyone else.  This message needs to be repeated over and over again.  Even the business owners themselves need to hear it.

I saw reference to “Party Like It’s 1999” on CNBC on the morning of December 18, 2020.  They weren’t talking about a Prince song. They were talking about the boom in stocks.

I don’t know, seeing this caption, if there is irony there or not.  Was the implication just that stocks were booming?  Or was there an implication of a massive bubble ready to collapse?

I remember the tech boom of 1999 quite well.  All you had to do during that time was put a dot com after your company name and try to get it to go public.  Many of these companies boomed, even without having ever made a profit. Some of them barely had any revenue.

The tech boom in stocks came to an end in 2000.  Stocks in the Nasdaq plummeted.

It should be noted that the boom in technology never came to an end.  The ridiculous stock prices came to an end at that time. The profitable companies (or future profitable companies) survived.

Amazon

Amazon was part of the tech boom of the late 1990s.  It had started out as an online bookstore and quickly grew into the everything store.  While the stock price had its time of falling, the company moved ahead and the stock price went forward with it.

By the way, I had owned Amazon stock back then.  I believe it was actually my worst investment decision ever, looking back. The bad decision was in selling. I don’t remember exactly when I sold, but it was sometime in the 2000s.  I saw an old statement and I figured out that if I hadn’t sold, it would now be worth somewhere in the low six figures.  This was off an investment of maybe one to two thousand dollars.

Even though the profit margins are extremely low for Amazon, the massive volume makes it a profitable company.  There is some justification to its sky-high stock price.  It is important to note though that Amazon has benefitted consumers more than anyone.  We can talk about the billions Jeff Bezos has made.  We can talk about the many people who have become millionaires selling products on Amazon.  But there are hundreds of millions, maybe billions, who have massively benefitted from Amazon.

Consumers don’t always get cheaper prices, although that is one benefit.  It is a measuring stick for comparing prices and delivering competition.  Most of all, it has become a place of convenience, especially with the fast delivery.

Anyway, Amazon is the outlier.  I have no idea where its stock price goes from here.  But it has been a big beneficiary from the events of 2020, especially with many small businesses having been forced to close.

Nasdaq Up 42%

The other headline on CNBC that morning was that the Nasdaq is up 42% this year.  This would be ridiculous in any year.  It is especially ridiculous given what has happened in 2020.

The main thing that seems to matter in 2020 is the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet (which has skyrocketed).  The Nasdaq stocks have boomed more than other stocks because the lockdowns don’t impact tech stocks as much.  If anything, like the Amazon example, it has seemed to benefit some companies.

But we are at a point where nothing makes sense.  We have seen massive unemployment in 2020.  We have seen record deficits.  We have seen hundreds of thousands of small businesses shut down. And we were already at near record highs in stocks at the beginning of this in early March.

What the market is telling me is that the events of 2020 are good for stocks.  I don’t see how this can be true in the long term. Stocks investors are saying that the Fed’s massive monetary inflation has no ill effects.  It is all positive for corporate profitability.

Some people are spending more on Netflix and Amazon.  They are at home more and want entertainment.  Some people have more disposable income because they aren’t commuting to work and they aren’t going to the nail salon.  But on the other hand, you have millions of people who are now unemployed who previously weren’t.  You have many millions of more who have seen a reduction in pay or a reduction in hours.

I find it hard to believe that the events of 2020 are good for corporate profitability overall. Of course, this is assuming that profitability even matters, which it doesn’t seem to matter much these days.

However, there tends to be a reversion to the mean.  Profitability doesn’t seem to matter now, but if companies ultimately become unprofitable, this eventually gets reflected in the stock price. There is a reason we call them bubbles.  They aren’t supposed to make sense.

I wrote a post in January 2020 wondering when the Dow would hit 30,000.  I wondered the same about the Nasdaq hitting 10,000.  Once stocks started to fall in March, I didn’t think it would happen this year.  I was completely wrong.  It is incredible that the Dow has broken the 30,000 mark.

With the Nasdaq, not only did it break the 10,000 barrier, but it is now about 27% above that barrier.  I thought it was a bubble before it hit 10,000.  What we have now is a mega bubble.  There is a lot more to the Nasdaq than just Amazon.

When this thing blows, it is going to be devastating to a lot of people.  It could happen quickly too.  It takes a lot more time to inflate a balloon than it does to watch it pop.

The Fed will likely respond to such a crash with even more money created out of thin air. Believe it or not, there are limits here too.  We may get to see those limits.

Many of the lockdowns have not ended in the United States.  Some places are locking down harder.  This can’t be good for business overall.  We have barely begun to see the economic devastation.  It is hard to imagine that major corporations will not be caught up in this devastation. Stock prices can’t go up forever. At some point, we are going to see the correction of a lifetime.

With the approval and coming release of vaccines for COVID-19, there are questions on what the proper libertarian stance should be on this vaccine and vaccines in general. There is also a question of whether libertarians (or anyone else) should get the vaccine.

From a libertarian standpoint, it should obviously be voluntary on whether to get the vaccine or any other vaccine.  It is a personal decision.  Whether or not it is a good idea is a different matter.

There are a few self-identified libertarians out there who will argue that the state can compel vaccination because walking around unvaccinated can be seen as aggression. This is a major stretch at the very least, but I believe it is flat out wrong.

If you are walking around without a vaccine, then this is not aggressive behavior.  If you are sick and contagious and walking around trying to infect others, then this would be considered aggressive behavior. It is a little more questionable if you are sick but not purposely trying to infect anyone.

Even here though, a good libertarian stance would argue for strong property rights.  If most property is owned privately (i.e., not by the government), then it really becomes a question of the property owners’ policies and voluntary associations.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that every storeowner has to have an explicit policy for everything. We do rely on social norms. When you walk into a store, you don’t need a specific invitation.  The “open” sign is understood.  You also, hopefully, don’t cut in front of someone in line at the register.

If you walk into a store and sneeze on people on purpose, there may not be a specific policy against this.  But you will be infringing on others, and the store manager will likely throw you out.

The hard thing we are facing now with vaccines is that there is a threat of having your life made difficult if you are unvaccinated.  For instance, Ticketmaster has already suggested requiring vaccination to attend a concert or other event, or to get a negative COVID test right before the event.

It is not hard to imagine that the airlines might require something similar.  It is not hard to imagine many major corporations following suit, especially when corporate executives are quick these days to do the politically correct thing and to stay on the good side of the establishment.

As a libertarian, I don’t legally object to a company requiring vaccination in order to do business there.  I will personally object and complain, but I don’t want the government to force a company to not require vaccination.  Of course, if the government got involved, we know which side it would come down on.

The big problem is that the government is influencing these businesses to take these types of actions.  It is not all that different from mask policies.

Even worse, the government is heavily involved in many of these industries.  Again, we need to return to private property rights. If the government didn’t own and control so many things, then this would not be as much of a problem.

The government is heavily involved in medical care in almost every way.  So it is no surprise that hospitals and other medical facilities are likely to require or highly encourage vaccination.  The same goes with airlines.  In the realm of schooling, most schools are government-run and government-funded.

Even in industries where the government has less control, the threat still looms.  Every legal business is licensed by the state. If you are a hardware store owner, are you going to announce that vaccinations are unnecessary?  Are you going to say to your employees that you don’t recommend getting a vaccine?  You will be lucky if you can just ignore the vaccination issue. Again, threats loom.  This is more true now than ever after we have seen that governors and mayors can just deem your business as “non-essential” and shut it down without even going to the legislature.

So the root of the problem isn’t vaccination.  The root of the problem is a lack of respect for property rights.  It is a problem of government at all levels being able to interfere with businesses.

Vaccine Safety and Efficacy

Now there is the question of whether it is wise to get vaccinated.  There is certainly a lot of skepticism, which is good. I only wish there had been that much skepticism about the hyping of the dangers of the virus from the beginning.  I wish there had been more skepticism about the wisdom of locking down society.

It’s interesting that there are no clean political lines when it comes to getting a vaccine.  The vaccines are coming out on Trump’s watch, but they were announced after the election.  So some Trump supporters favor the vaccine because Trump is touting it and because they are coming out while he is still president.  But much of the left also favors the vaccine because they are being approved after the election, which seemingly takes a lot of the political element out of it.

Libertarians tend to be the most consistent in not wanting to get the vaccine, but I have definitely seen exceptions here as well.

With regard to Trump, I think he has just been bad on this issue.  With the overall issue of the coronavirus, Trump has been better than Biden just because Biden has been so horrible.  At least Trump admits that there are tradeoffs and that we can’t lock down society for a long period of time.  As he has said a few times, we can’t let the cure be worse than the disease.  Of course, from my perspective, the cure became worse than the disease on the first day of lockdowns back in March.

When Trump was elected in 2016, there was talk of him setting up some kind of vaccine safety committee to be headed by Robert Kennedy Jr.  This would have been a hand grenade thrown right at the FDA, the CDC, and the entire pharmaceutical industry.  This is why it never happened.

I suspect the hysteria over COVID-19 was greater than it would have been had Trump not been president.  He got suckered. He went along with Fauci and all of the establishment medical hacks.  He originally bought into the idea of lockdowns.  In this sense, he deserved to lose the 2020 election, even if fraudulently.

At this point, I’m not sure how much worse things could get under Biden in terms of the COVID hysteria.  He can implement a 100-day mask mandate (or request), but maybe that will just make the Trump people a little more defiant.  Right now, almost everyone wears a mask because they are obedient citizens. At the very least, they feel societal pressure to conform.

Trump continues to push hard for the vaccines.  It certainly makes no sense based on what he was saying in 2016. Unfortunately, many Trump loyalists are going to listen to him on this one and take the vaccine.

My personal recommendation is to skip it.  It may be hard for some people, especially if their job depends on it. If this is the case, then my best recommendation is to stall for as long as possible.  At least give it a little time to see if there are major side effects being experienced by a significant percentage of people. But don’t rely on the corporate media for this reporting.

Just the fact that the establishment and its media are promoting these vaccines so hard gives me reason to stay away from the vaccines.  They lie about weapons of mass destruction.  They lie about climate change.  They lie about Russian interference in the election.  If they’ll lie about all of this, why wouldn’t they lie about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine?

Also, I just don’t believe the narrative about COVID-19.  Even if you believe the death count, which you shouldn’t, it means that really old people and really unhealthy people mostly die from (or with) it.

If you are relatively young and healthy, then there is no reason to be vaccinated.  Your risk of bad side effects from the vaccine is likely much higher than your risk from the actual virus.

If you are elderly or if you are in poor health, then you probably shouldn’t be injecting vaccines into you that will likely just serve to further weaken your immune system.

These are just my opinions.  If you disagree, you are free to take the shots.  Of course, I wish that others had respected my rights and the rights of others to live our lives as we saw fit this year.  If you thought you were at high risk for the virus, then nobody was telling you that you had to leave your house.  But for those of us willing to take the risk (supposedly), we should have been allowed to voluntarily associate with others.

The other major problem with these vaccines is that they all come about with government funding. The U.S. government has spent billions of dollars already, which means that the taxpayers have paid for them. Again, we get back to a lack of property rights, although a few billion dollars is nothing these days.

However, the government funding and approval create even more moral hazard.  It takes away market competition.  It gives a false sense of security when the FDA approves a vaccine and declares it to be within its safety guidelines.  And these vaccines coming out now were obviously rushed, and there was far less stringent testing than normal.

It would not surprise me if the coming vaccines just cause a new wave of illness.  Maybe the illnesses will be blamed on the coronavirus.  Maybe they will be ignored.

One thing I do know is that it would have to get pretty bad for any establishment news sources to report on it.  You will have to rely on alternative media, which you should probably do anyway.

My best hope is that the vaccines don’t really do much of anything but they are used as an excuse to say that the coronavirus “pandemic” is now under control and we can start opening up the economy.

Actually, my best hope is that everyone wakes up and realizes they have been swindled since March 2020.  But I’m trying to be realistic here.

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has slowed down since its unprecedented rise from March to May 2020.  However, it is still rising, even if relatively slowly.

When you look back at the year 2020, there are a lot of incredible things to look at.  The hysteria over a virus is the most incredible thing, especially considering that the overall mortality in the U.S. for this year will not be all that different compared to previous years.

In regards to the reaction, I’m not sure what is more surprising – the fact that people so easily gave up their liberty to government, or the fact that many people have isolated themselves from friends and family.

It is still amazing what has happened in the last 9 months.  It is hard to believe that governors and mayors across the country were able to close down hundreds of thousands of private businesses just on their own word.

With all that has happened, it is easy to be distracted and not look at the many economic consequences.  For those who actually consider the economic costs of the shutdowns, we tend to focus on the unemployed and the many companies that have been put out of business, as well we should.

Still, even if all government lockdowns and restrictions ended tomorrow, we would feel the economic consequences for many years to come.

With all of the unprecedented things happening, it is easy to ignore the Fed’s balance sheet. It has now grown by over $3 trillion since the beginning of March.  We may be somewhat numb to it, given the massive expansion after the 2008 financial crisis, but it doesn’t mean it won’t significantly impact us.

While stocks started to crash in March and April, things reversed rather quickly after the Fed showed it would do whatever was necessary to bail out everyone.  We saw unemployment payments to people that exceeded the salary they had been previously earning, while most Americans received “stimulus” checks regardless of their employment situation.  The checks certainly did stimulate the stock market.

The Fed dropped its target federal funds rate to near zero, eliminated reserve requirements, and expanded its balance sheet by $3 trillion.  While that may be music to the ears of stock investors, it shouldn’t be music to the average middle class American who will eventually pay for all of this in the form of higher prices and a lower standard of living.

It’s quite amazing how bullish stock investors are.  Stocks were hitting all-time new highs when news was being announced of the possibility of effective vaccines.  I wouldn’t bet any money on these vaccines, as it could all go bad rather quickly if and when people start reporting bad side effects.  As with the government lockdowns, the vaccine cure is likely to be worse than the disease.

But even if these vaccines will provide the miracle cure to open up the economy again, these announcements of effective vaccines were coming at the same time that many cities and states were imposing stricter lockdowns.  So the stock bulls just shrug off the new lockdowns, but cheer the vaccine news.  The new lockdowns in places like California will put the final nail in the coffin of many small businesses, but that seems to be irrelevant to the bulls.

Price Inflation

Meanwhile, the latest numbers have come out for the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  The CPI rose 0.2% in November 2020, while the more stable median CPI came in at 0.1%.  The median CPI, year-over-year, is actually trending down a little.

I have to hand it to the Fed.  They have been able to get away with a lot without moving the overall price inflation numbers much.

The Fed’s massive monetary inflation is hurting us severely by allowing Congress to spend recklessly and by allowing a major misallocation of resources.  But since it isn’t showing up in the CPI, they are basically getting away with it.

One of the main problems with the CPI right now is that it doesn’t show us that necessities are tending to be more inflationary than more luxury items.  Governors and mayors determined what was essential, so it’s funny the Fed doesn’t discriminate on this basis as well.

If haircuts and pedicures are non-essential, then does it really matter if prices for these things have stayed flat or even gone down?  Prices may be really stable, or even down, for luxury services, for certain electronic items, and for rent in Manhattan.  But for most people, their basic necessities of food and medical care are going higher in price.  In most areas outside of some big cities, housing prices are also going up.

So while the CPI tells you that inflation is no problem, it seems to be a problem for many people when prices at the grocery store for some items are going up by 5% or 10% or more in the matter of months.

Since there is talk of more stimulus (bailouts) and almost no talk of worrying about deficits, we should expect the Fed to continue to expand its balance sheet in order to fund a good portion of the deficits.

It is hard to imagine that stocks can just keep going higher while the reported price inflation stays in check.  Something has to give. We are living in irrational times. The human race is completely irrational with regard to listening to the powers-that-be over a virus.  There also seems to be irrationality with regard to new stock market highs in the wake of economic devastation.

As Keynes said, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.  So in that sense, it is hard to bet against the trend right now.

But there is a saying that when things can’t go on, they have a tendency to stop.  I don’t know what we’ll see first – a stock market crash or a spike in price inflation.  I am expecting one or the other.

In 2020, it would have been more profitable to invest in the Nasdaq than to invest in gold.  But past performance does not indicate future performance.  In these turbulent times, I’d rather stick with something more secure. When stocks eventually fall, I believe they will fall hard.

I have written quite a bit in 2020 on the coronavirus.  I think it is justified because the reaction to the virus is the number one issue facing most Americans, at least politically speaking.

It is still amazing to me how easily people all over the world just gave up liberty because the powers-that-be told them to be afraid of something.

I had a Facebook friend the other day, who is a leftist in California, say that we need to do what’s necessary.  It was in reference to more lockdowns in the state.  I didn’t reply, but I wanted to say, “Spoken like a good little serf.”

I haven’t believed much of anything about this virus that has come from establishment media sources.  If they’ll lie about stuff to get us into war, it surely is not beneath them to lie about the dangerousness of a virus.

I knew we were being lied to in March, and not just because of the sources.  They were saying it was a three to four percent mortality rate in China.  It was a completely flawed statistic.  They took the number of people who died divided by the number of people who tested positive.

Back in February and March, there was not much testing.  The people being tested in China were the really sick people, most of whom were going into the hospital.  So of course 3 to 4 percent of them were dying.  The people tested were already really sick.  This is not how they calculate the mortality rate for the seasonal flu.  The denominator is not the number of people who tested positive for the flu. It is a projection.  It is an estimate.  They didn’t do this with the coronavirus.

I am not an epidemiologist or any kind of a scientist.  I am not a statistician, although I was pretty good at statistics in high school and college.  But I could figure this out without much thought.  Are you telling me that nobody else in the corporate media could have pointed this out?  Or was it too inconvenient of a fact to point out?

And then the CDC changed guidelines for coding deaths.  If you were diagnosed with COVID-19 or were suspected of having COVID-19 and then died, then you died of COVID-19.  Again, that’s different from the way the seasonal flu has been handled and calculated in the past, and I already thought that was an overstated number.

Proper Language

The whole thing is a giant tragedy for the human race in 2020.  Many millions of lives have been destroyed.  If you count severe hardship and poverty, it is probably tens of millions or hundreds of millions.  As bad as Americans have it with the lockdowns and hysteria, it is a hundred times worse in third-world countries where the people have very little wealth to fall back on.  When they get shut out of a job, they can’t feed their families that night.

The use of language has been infected as well.  I keep hearing almost everyone refer to this as a “pandemic”.  It may be a pandemic of ignorance, but there is no pandemic regarding a virus.

I don’t know anyone personally who has died of the coronavirus.  I barely know anyone who knows someone who has died of it. Most of the people who supposedly die of the coronavirus are people who typically die.  They were elderly people and people with severe health problems.

The United States has a population of about 330 million people.  You can always find an example of somebody dying of something. There are many thousands of deaths that occur each year with no explanation.  That explanation is now coronavirus.

The people who have supposedly died of coronavirus are a good sample of people who typically die.

So I refuse to use the word “pandemic” in this context, unless it is in quotes.

I hear it from people frequently.  “I couldn’t travel this year because of the pandemic.”  “I didn’t get to see the concert because of the pandemic.”  “I lost my job because of the pandemic.”

I refuse to say anything like this.  I will say that I couldn’t travel because of the hysteria.  I will say that I didn’t go to the concert because it was cancelled.  I will say that someone lost his job because of the lockdowns.  None of this is because of the “pandemic” because there is no pandemic.

If everyone who has the common cold or has recently had the common cold were marked as dying of the common cold if they died, then you would have an equivalent “pandemic” of the common cold.  There are almost 3 million Americans who die every year.  Some percentage of those people had the common cold or recently had the common cold at death.  It doesn’t mean they died of the common cold.

I also despise the inaccurate use of language in blaming the virus for things that were caused by humans.  For example, “I was temporarily laid off from my job because of COVID.”  No, you were laid off from your job because of the hysteria and likely because of lockdowns by the state.

It is especially frustrating when people on “our side” use this type of language because it plays right into the hands of the fear mongers.  It is not easy because of the things we hear every day, but you should make a conscious effort to be accurate in your language.

What’s Next?

I don’t know what 2021 will bring.  I assume that Joe Biden will be president.  I don’t know if the virus will magically disappear.  I hope that’s the case, but I’m afraid that politicians have gotten a taste of this new power that they will not easily relinquish.

If people are willing to give up their livelihood because of what a few handpicked “experts” say, then what will be next?  Maybe they will try the global warming/ climate change theme again and tell everyone they must obey all orders or else the oceans are going to flood the continent in the next 5 years.

Since the coronavirus worked so well and is so hard to prove its existence, maybe they will just come up with a new virus.  The symptoms will be tiredness and anxiety.  If you have anxiety, then you probably have the virus.  You should probably stay home and take your marching orders.

Maybe the next panic will come from the vaccine coming to supposedly quell the current panic. But if people get sick from the vaccines, then I’m sure it will be blamed on something else.  Again, maybe it will be a new virus or a mutated form of the coronavirus.  They could make up anything at this point.  As long as it is said by NBC Nightly News, then half the population will believe it.

It doesn’t matter what ridiculous thing I say.  What has happened in 2020 is ridiculous.  It is perhaps the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race.

I went to the park over the weekend and there was a family playing basketball outside, and they were all wearing masks.  There were other people on the play equipment wearing masks.  This wasn’t virtue signaling.  It was pure ignorance.

People have gone insane on the things they are saying and the things they are doing or not doing. They are allowing elderly relatives to die alone because they don’t want to risk the chance of giving them a virus.  The few really old people that I know don’t want to be alone.  They want to experience life right now because they don’t have much life left on this planet.

Children are being emotionally traumatized.  In some cases, they are having to give up time with friends.  Many of them have had sports or other activities taken away from them.  It is ridiculous and cruel at the same time.

This is why it is important to live your life the best you can given the circumstances.  I recently had lunch with three other guys. We shook hands.  We didn’t wear masks.  This is now somehow seen as reckless in the year 2020. To me, it is normal.

People need to get jealous of you.  They should see other people living their life.  They should see other people not living in fear.  I believe that is the only way to defeat this giant hoax that is bringing so much misery to people all over the world.

The “state” has won the battle in 2020.  The people not living in ignorance need to fight back by not complying with the madness when possible.  The most important thing you can do is to live your life, even if those around you are only trying to avoid death at all costs.  Let them live in fear with their so-called science.  You can live your life.

Some of the so-called moderates in the U.S. Senate have come up with a new stimulus bill.  The price tag is a mere $908 billion. In 2020, this doesn’t seem that big.

If you divide it by the number of households in the United States, this will put a different spin on the whole thing.  908 billion divided by 128 million (approximate households) is just over $7,000 per household.

But before you get too excited, don’t expect a check for your household in the amount of $7,000. In fact, if you are not unemployed or a business owner, your portion should equal approximately zero. Or maybe more accurate, your portion will be -$7,000, since you’ll still have to pay for it in some way.

When people talk about “moderate” politicians, it usually just means they favor big government on all of the issues.  In the case of domestic spending, it is no surprise that Mitt Romney would favor massive spending that largely goes to corporate interests and other governments.

Here is a list of the breakdown of the $908 billion proposal.

Notice that there is no direct “stimulus” check.  While I abhor the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), at least I derive some benefit out of it.  I get some of my own money back.

If this legislation goes through, I will get no benefit out of it whatsoever.  Most other Americans can make the same claim. Instead, it is just more massive spending that will be mostly paid for through Federal Reserve monetary inflation.

Perhaps the worst thing about this legislation is that it is the ultimate moral hazard.  It will only encourage more lockdowns and restrictions coming from state and local governments

The Lockdown Bailout and Federalism

Take a close look at everything in this bill.  Virtually every piece of it will disproportionately go to states with heavier lockdowns.

The bailouts for state and local governments is the obvious piece.  This will just bail out governments that have vastly overspent and find themselves in a major hole.  This is an obvious moral hazard.  It will allow these state and local governments to continue on, at least for a while, with reckless spending.

But look at the other 2 major pieces of this legislation.  There are major supplements for unemployment benefits, and there are handouts for businesses.

These will disproportionately favor the lockdown states.  These are the states that have put more small businesses under or on the brink of being under.  These are the states that have put more people out of work.

So if state and local governments can lock down and not feel the fiscal consequences of doing so, they are likely to do more of it.

The state of California is locking down hard again.  Like almost everywhere else, the state budget and the local government budgets will be pinched.  They will have a reduction of tax collections while at the same time having more welfare to hand out.  But if the governments are being bailed out, and their victims are being partially bailed out, it gives California a pass to continue the lockdowns and restrictions.

Meanwhile, in a state like South Dakota that has stayed mostly open, it will have to help fund the bailout of California.  South Dakota isn’t going to have as high of a percentage of unemployed people and failing businesses.  The people of South Dakota will have to help pay for the lockdowns in other states.

There aren’t many positive things in 2020, at least politically speaking.  One positive though is that we have seen a certain degree of federalism.  Even though the federal government has promoted the hysteria and recommended lockdowns, it was left up to state and local governments to impose them. I am happy to live in Florida, which is one of the few states open for business now.

This bailout legislation helps to destroy some of that federalism.  While I will continue to be happy to be in Florida, it is rather disgusting that I will have to pay for the actions of the tyrants in places like California and New York.

This is why the issue of states’ rights is so important.  It isn’t really the states that have rights.  It is the people residing in those states who should have the right to not have to pay for the idiotic policies endorsed by the people in California and New York. 

I fully understand that there are many people in California and New York who don’t endorse these lockdowns, but it is up to them to work to change the policies or to move out of those tyrannical states.  The people of Florida and South Dakota should not have to support this tyranny.

I can only hope that some politicians who call themselves conservative Republicans will stand up to this.  There were barely any standing up to the enormous spending back in March and April.It is important to oppose these bailouts not just for fiscal reasons, but also because it is a form of moral hazard.  These bailouts will just encourage and enable more lockdowns in the future.

President-Elect Joe Biden – as declared by the corporate media – is picking his cabinet even though he hasn’t officially been elected president yet.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that Joe Biden actually takes office on January 20, 2021. Let’s also assume that he officially nominates Janet Yellen as the next Treasury Secretary as he has indicated. Let’s also assume that she is confirmed by the Senate.

Janet Yellen would become the first female Treasury Secretary.  She wouldn’t be the first Keynesian though.

Yellen already has the distinction of being the first female chair of the Federal Reserve.  She was nominated by Obama and was in that position from 2014 to 2018.

Yellen is known as an inflation dove.  In other words, she is more than happy to see the central bank create more money out of thin air to pay for things that politicians and taxpayers are not willing to pay for directly through tax collections.

However, when you look at Yellen’s record as Fed chair, she had the tightest monetary policy of any Fed chair since Paul Volcker if you use the Fed’s balance sheet as the measure.

The Fed’s target federal funds rate was already near zero when Yellen entered office, and while it stayed low, she did start the process of raising it.  Yellen oversaw the winding down of the last round of quantitative easing (QE 3) from the 2008 financial crisis.  For her remaining time in office, the base money supply was tight or perhaps even slightly deflationary.  In other words, her actions didn’t fit with her reputation.

It is important to acknowledge that there were also no economic or financial crises that occurred on her watch.  If she had been Fed chair in late 2008 or in March 2020, then I’m sure the story would be different.

What does this tell you?  It tells you that Yellen is going to go along with whatever the establishment is doing.  She will be accommodative when accommodation is necessary.

Yellen is an intelligent person despite being a Keynesian in economics.  She has some practice taking questions as Fed chair.  She is fairly well spoken.  In this sense, it makes her somewhat dangerous.

However, I also believe that libertarians and conservatives should not overplay their hands in criticizing Yellen.  Despite some rhetoric in her distant past, she is rather conventional. She isn’t going to be enacting the policies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unless that is the way the general establishment is headed.

Yellen is not an outright socialist.  She isn’t even Bernie Sanders.  She understands some economics, even if some of it is wrong.  She also gets some things right.  I think she understands that the Fed can’t just create money with total recklessness without there being some bad consequences.  Just the same, she understands that the federal government can’t run multi-trillion dollar deficits forever without there being bad consequences.

I was a little bit surprised at Biden picking Yellen for this position.  But it isn’t earth-shattering news because Yellen is going to oversee the Treasury department similarly to some other establishment Keynesian.

It’s certainly not good news, but it also isn’t horrible.  You can already see the way Biden is going to govern.  It will be establishment politics.  It will be a return to the status quo of early 2016 to the degree that anything deviated from that.  The deviation was mostly in rhetoric.  In terms of government spending, there has been no deviation except even more spending in 2020.

If banks or certain favored corporations get into trouble, we should expect more bailouts.  We should expect more spending on unemployment and perhaps stimulus checks.  We should expect proposals for small marginal tax hikes on high-income earners.

I am less certain about corporate taxes.  It is hard to imagine that Biden, or even Harris, would try to hike corporate taxes if the economy is still slumping.  This would be true even if the Democrats take control of the Senate.

The problem is that the economy is in major trouble right now.  We live in a tale of two worlds.  I saw this on Thanksgiving on television with scenes of long food lines.  There were cars stretched for miles.  But when I went out on Friday afternoon, the mall was packed.  I wasn’t shopping, but I was going out for dinner.  This was in Florida, which is more open than most other states, but it is indicative that many families are still doing rather well.

The stock market has done amazingly well.  I think it is a giant bubble.  The most amazing thing is that it is hitting new all-time highs in late 2020, even as new lockdowns and restrictions are imposed across the country.

Gold took a bit of a hit in November, but it is still much higher than it was this time last year. With Yellen looking likely as the next Treasury Secretary, I continue to be bullish on gold in the long term.

Assuming Trump leaves office, we may start to get a little pushback from Republicans in Congress on the budget.  However, even if there is a small scaling back from where we are, the government is still going to be running massive deficits.  If there is a stock market crash and a rise in unemployment again, then we will see even bigger deficits again.  Most of this will be paid for by the Federal Reserve buying debt with newly created money.

There aren’t a lot of certainties in life, but there are a few.  The sun will rise in the east.  Hillary Clinton will never be a libertarian.  And the Fed isn’t going to significantly reduce its balance sheet any time soon.  This is why gold is still a good bet, with or without Janet Yellen.

Yellen won’t be any more of a disaster than anyone else would have been under a Biden presidency, but she’ll still be a disaster.  Reckless government spending will continue.

You may want to ignore politics, but politics isn’t going to ignore you.  This statement should ring more true than ever for people in the year 2020.

People have different thoughts when the word “politics” is mentioned.  Really though, it all comes down to violence and the threat of violence.  It is usually a question of what degree of threats the state should impose.

For anyone who says that they aren’t interested in politics, you have to wonder if they realize that politics has dominated their life in 2020.  It certainly did in April when most people couldn’t go to the store unless it was a store that sold “essential” things (as deemed by governors and mayors).

It wasn’t a virus that caused all this.  It was politics.  People were fearful, so they granted their consent to be ruled over in a more heavy-handed way.  They were willing to give up liberty for the prospect of more safety.

If you thought it was bad as a consumer, imagine a small business owner who was shut down (by threats of violence) because the business was deemed non-essential.  It was probably essential for the business owner to put food on the family table.  But, according to the powers-that-be, the business owner’s hopes and dreams don’t matter.  His family’s well being doesn’t matter.  We have to protect people from a virus for their own good.  They are not allowed to decide for themselves how much risk they are willing to take.

Consent of the People

It was Ettiene de la Boetie in the 16^thcentury who said that all government ultimately rests on the consent of the people.  It does not mean you have to explicitly state your consent, but tacit consent in accepting conditions is enough.

In order to be free, people just need to withdraw that consent.

When you look at states within the United States, you can see some differences in approaching the virus.  A few states like Florida and South Dakota are fully open, with the exception of some local mandates/ regulations such as mask wearing.  Then you have states like New York and California where the governors and local politicians are trying to make life as miserable as humanly possible.

This is coming from the more authoritarian politicians.  The Democrat politicians are generally favoring harder lockdowns and restrictions, but most Republican politicians have been bad too.  It’s just that they have generally been less bad.

So your instinct, regardless of where you stand on the issue, is to naturally think that it is really important to elect the right people to office.

I have long-thought this not to be the case, although my mind has been slightly swayed in 2020. I live in Florida where Ron DeSantis has opened up the state.  Of course, he never should have shut anything down in the first place, and I was critical of him for this back in April.  But now that Florida is mostly open for business, I am quite thankful for living here.  A politician from the more socialist wing of the Democratic Party almost won the office back in 2018, and I’m glad he didn’t.  If he had won, I’m sure we would be more resembling Michigan or Illinois right now.

With that said, I still maintain that all power with politicians relies on the consent of the people.  Of course, if you are a lone individual in a sea of statists, you are going to be subject to their whims.  However, if you have a large portion of the population not willing to go along with these edicts, then it will be hard for any governor to enforce them.

It probably doesn’t even take a majority.  Anyway, there is a large percentage of the population that just kind of goes along with whatever society is doing.  Maybe they’ll talk to their family members or close friends about it, but they won’t have much of an opinion.  If everyone else is wearing a mask, they’ll wear a mask. If everyone else accepts shutdowns, they’ll accept shutdowns as long as they can survive.  If everyone else is coming out to socialize again, they’ll come out and socialize.

So you really only need a minority of people to resist peacefully.  It has to be a substantial enough minority though to overwhelm the other minority that is vocal about hard lockdowns (or whatever political issue it is).

Let’s circle back to the lockdown states.  Are California and New York residents under hard restrictions because they have Democratic governors who are quite authoritarian?  To some degree, yes, but it may be more correlation than causation.

The reason that these people are in office in the first place is because there is a large segment of the population in those places who are statists.  They demand government action in most areas of their life.  So they get it good and hard.

As Frederick Douglass said, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

In other words, it isn’t the governors of California, New York, and other lockdown states who are enslaving the people in those states.  It is the people themselves.  They are enslaving themselves.

Now I understand this does no good for someone who lives in one of these places who wants liberty. But even here, the issue isn’t electing the right person to office.  The issue is convincing enough of the people around you to oppose lockdowns and other restrictions on liberty.

This is obviously frustrating, to say the least, for libertarians.  But we also do have to look in the mirror and make sure we are doing what we can reasonably do to inform others.

Liberty Classroom

There are limitless resources available thanks to the Internet.  Still, if you are looking for ways to expand your knowledge about liberty and find out the things they didn’t teach you in school, one great resource is Tom Woods’ program called Liberty Classroom.

I have to say, Tom was a little wishy-washy on the issue of the virus back in March.  He wasn’t clear on how serious it would be and if any of the panic was warranted.  But this is why it is important to have libertarian principles.

Even if you thought the virus was as bad as the media made it out to be (or you still think that), it should be clear to any libertarian that the state is not the solution.

By the end of April, Tom had become one of the leading voices of reason with regard to the virus.  He has pointed out the misleading statistics.  More importantly, he has become a voice for those who have suffered greatly from the lockdowns and restrictions.  He has pointed out that living life is not just about avoiding death.

Tom has done a few speeches on this topic.  Combined, a couple of his YouTube videos have reached well over a million people.

Staying on top of the virus debate is important because reactions to the virus have impacted our lives so greatly in 2020.  At the same time, we shouldn’t neglect the overall cause of liberty. While the center stage issue now is the virus and the lockdowns, we don’t know what will take center stage next.  It could be another war.  It could be massive inflation in reaction to all of the economic wreckage that has been brought to us.

No matter what it is, it is important to have a good knowledge of history, economics, and other topics that provide a good foundation for libertarian principles.

If you are interesting in becoming a subscriber to Liberty Classroom, Tom offers really great discounts during Black Friday weekend.

If you order through my affiliate link, you can get a bonus from me in the form of financial education.  Just send me your receipt (geoff@libertarianinvestments.com) after purchasing through my link, and you can ask me for financial advice, as long as it is not legal advice.  We can have an email conversation about your financial worries or anything else.

You can ask general questions or personal questions with as much detail of your own financial picture as you care to divulge.  Questions can range from investment choices, to handling debt, to preparing for future economic uncertainties.  I will give you thorough responses to your questions as my bonus for ordering through my link.  It doesn’t matter what level of membership you order through Liberty Classroom.

While people around you float by in a sea of ignorance, you can be sure that you aren’t part of the problem.  You deserve the education that you surely didn’t receive in school.

As I write this in late November 2020, I am assuming that Joe Biden will become president on January 20, 2021, even though Trump is still contesting the outcome of the election as called by the corporate media.  I am also assuming that Trump will not start any new wars in the next two months, even though I know this is still a possibility.

If there are no new wars in the next two months and Trump leaves office, he will be the first president in at least 4 decades who didn’t get the U.S. involved in a new major war.

To be clear, I have been quite critical of Trump for his handling of U.S. foreign policy. He has surrounded himself with war hawks, many of which are leftovers from the previous Bush administration. Trump has been unable to end the continued wars overseas, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.  While troop reductions are a step in the right direction, they are not complete withdrawals.  He has continued to allow bombs to be dropped on foreign countries

I have been quite critical of Trump with his policy towards Iran.  Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, which is one of the few decent things done by the Obama administration.  I believe that all sanctions should be removed from Iran. Also, the U.S. government’s assassination of an Iranian official was immoral and quite dangerous, and we are lucky that did not lead to a broader conflict.

There have also been interventions in other places, such as Venezuela.  The U.S. government tried to execute a coup there, but it failed.  It is good that Trump did not try to up the ante there.

Trump campaigned on an America-first platform.  I would prefer a strictly non-interventionist approach, but Trump’s policy was an improvement.  Trump has actually made the Republican Party less hawkish than it was five years ago.  This is a good thing.

Trump’s foreign policy is very inconsistent.  However, this is a vast improvement from what we have seen over the last several decades.  I don’t want a more consistent foreign policy if the default position is always more war and more intervention.

A Long List of Wars

You can see a list of the U.S. wars and conflicts on Wikipedia.  There are other sources with an even bigger list.  For example, the Wikipedia list avoids many of the covert operations and attempted coups.  Ukraine is not on this list, even though the U.S. government did assist in a coup during the Obama administration.  This was just before U.S. politicians and its corporate media were criticizing Putin for supposedly annexing Crimea.

If you look back at the last 40 years, the two Bush administrations and the Obama administration (Mr. Peace Prize) are the worst.  There were smaller conflicts under Reagan including Lebanon, Grenada, and the bombing of Libya.  The best you can say about Reagan is that he kept the peace with the Soviet Union, and there were no total disasters as we’ve seen in the Middle East wars and occupations of the 21^stcentury.

Bill Clinton saw conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.  There were also missile strikes in Sudan (Monica missiles).  This isn’t widely recognized, but there was continued bombing in Iraq during Clinton’s time in office from the first Gulf War.

It should be clear though that there has been almost no peace at all over the last 100 years or more.  Even during the Carter administration, there were conflicts going on.  It’s not as if the U.S. had a non-interventionist foreign policy at any point.

The first Bush administration gave us the first Iraq War.  There was also an invasion in Panama and a disaster that started in Somalia.

The second Bush administration gave us Afghanistan and Iraq War 2, which was really just a scaling up of the war started under his father.  These are wars and occupations that continue to this day.  They have been complete disasters and have led to widespread problems in the overall region.

The Obama administration gave us Libya, Yemen, and Syria, which have all been devastating for the innocent people living in those regions.  As mentioned above, there were covert operations in Ukraine. There were also conflicts in Africa and troop surges in the Middle East.  Obama was a complete disaster for foreign policy regardless of what you might hear from the corporate media.

Obama 2

I see no reason why a Biden/ Harris administration would be any different from Obama.  Biden will go along with whatever his handlers tell him to do.  Since one of his handlers is essentially the Pentagon, we can see where that will go.  Harris is an authoritarian and is similar to Hillary Clinton.  She would thrive on going to war and using her power if and when she becomes president.

Biden and Harris were bragging in the campaign that several people from the previous Bush administration were not supporting Trump.  They and some other Republicans were supporting Biden for president. This was supposed to be a talking point against Trump.

I saw this as a positive for Trump.  If someone like Colin Powell is supporting Biden and is anti Trump, that tells me something right there.  This is the man who went before the United Nations and knowingly sold a bunch of lies about Iraq weapons of mass destruction in order to go to war. Powell is a criminal.

So when I see the war hawks lining up to support Biden, it tells me all I need to know.  It will be back to business-as-usual under Biden.  The Pentagon will be in full control with the military-industrial complex.  It’s not that they ever completely lost control, but Donald Trump was a major irritant to their plans.  He was a threat to the status quo because he sometimes dared to tell the truth and point out the obvious.

Since Trump has converted many Republicans to at least being less hawkish, it would be nice to see an anti war alliance with the political right and political left.  But we know how that goes.

The hard left that claims to be anti war should have cheered on Trump whenever he sought to withdraw troops or have a less interventionist foreign policy.  But they hate Trump so much that most of them couldn’t possibly praise him for anything.  They would rather have war than to form any kind of alliance with Trump supporters.

It will be interesting to see if the hardcore Trump supporters go back to being war hawks themselves.  I’m hoping that Trump and his Twitter account keep his supporters in line here.  Again, it’s not that Trump is great on foreign policy, but he is better than most other Republican politicians who are part of the establishment.

If for some crazy reason Biden actually proposes reducing intervention in some country, I hope the Trump supporters will back him in this circumstance.  Again, we know how that goes.

The one other factor in all of this is the economy.  The spending at the federal level is beyond ridiculous.  It was already ridiculous going into 2020.  The deficits are absurd, and there is almost no talk of reducing spending.

For this reason, it will be hard for the U.S. to get involved in yet another major conflict. While the Federal Reserve can print money (digitally speaking), there are limits at some point.  Taxation and inflation can only go so far, especially when hundred of thousands of businesses across the U.S. have had to shut down in 2020.

I know that Biden/ Harris will fill their cabinet with a bunch of horrible people.  Trump did this too, but Trump himself was the one who prevented them from being out of control.  When there are a bunch of war hawks in the Biden administration, Biden and Harris aren’t going to reel them in.  Biden will have essentially zero control anyway.

It was nice to have a few years without any new major conflicts or wars.  We’ll see what happens with Biden/ Harris, but it doesn’t look promising.

Prior to 2020, there was already a great divide politically, particularly within the United States. It has all been ampliphied in 2020 with the election and with the reactions to the coronavirus.

You can see the divide almost everywhere.  You can see it by the vote totals in the election.  You can see it on Facebook, although I believe the anti Trump forces tend to be more vocal.

Now you can see it with the way people are living their lives.  Some are trying to live their life while doing their best to ignore society around them.  In other words, they try to do the things they were doing prior to March 2020.  Others do what they are told (by the people they listen to and trust) and mostly stay at home.  If they venture out, they will mask up and do their best to avoid any gatherings.

One of the controversies (for anyone paying attention) to the presidential election surrounds mail-in ballots.  While it is odd that so many of the swing states seemed to stop counting or stop reporting votes in the middle of the night after the voting ended, it does make sense that the mail-in ballots went heavily for Biden.

Many of the Trump supporters certainly didn’t want to use mail-in ballots because of the potential for fraud.  But more than that, Trump voters were less afraid to go vote in person on Election Day.  Biden supporters – or more accurately, anti Trump supporters – were far more likely to vote by mail.

This makes perfect sense because the anti Trump people tend to be more terrified of the virus. But why is this so?

I believe it can be summed up easily.  The anti Trump people listen to and believe everything that the establishment media tells them to believe.  The Trump people, for obvious reasons, don’t trust most anything coming from the establishment media.  So when the media tells you how horrible and dangerous the virus is and that you must obey your orders, the anti Trump people are more likely to obey.

Of course, it isn’t 100% clean like this.  I don’t trust the establishment media at all.  When it comes to important things, I tend to believe the opposite of what they say.  Most libertarians should be in this camp, although I know a few people who identify as libertarians who somehow believe virtually everything they’re told by the corporate media.  Still, even within the libertarian camp, those who don’t trust the media at all tend to be more sympathetic to Trump, even if they would not call themselves Trump supporters.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has gotten a little attention lately.  As he is imposing hard restrictions (particularly partial lockdowns) on the people of California, he was caught going to a dinner party.  He also apparently lied, saying it was held outside, and then pictures were released showing it was clearly inside.

Newsom said he was within guidelines, but he sort of apologized for not setting a good example.

Wouldn’t this just destroy any credibility he had with the people of California?  Are they even aware that this happened, or are they protected from this news in their bubble?  I have to imagine that with social media (despite attempts at censoring) and local new outlets, most Californians would have to know this happened.  They would also have to know about Nancy Pelosi visiting a hair salon inside without a mask or her having to cancel a dinner she was going to host for incoming representatives.

Why would the people of California continue to listen to these people?  Why would they continue to obey their orders?

There is certainly some outrage over the hypocrisy of these people.  But the hypocrisy is not what bothers me the most, and that isn’t what should bother the people of California the most.  They should be most bothered that they are being lied to.

Obviously, Newsom, Pelosi, and others issuing these edicts or recommendations to lock down do not believe what they are saying in terms of the virus.  Gavin Newsom was not worried for this life by going to lunch with a group of people outside of his family.  Nancy Pelosi, who is 80 years old, isn’t worried about dying of the coronavirus when she is walking in a hair salon without a mask.

Yet, these people will easily ruin your life.  They will shut down your business.  They will force you out of your “non-essential” job.  They will tell you not to see your family for Thanksgiving.  They will tell you that your kids can’t play sports and see their friends.  They will willingly wreck the lives of millions of people all based on a lie.  They don’t believe they are helping anyone.  Otherwise, their actions would not show us breaking their own rules.

Two Worlds of Media

I am fond of the idea of panarchy, where people get to choose their own government.  Maybe we should have a world where people get to choose their own media, and this can be their own reality.

A few days after the election was over, the corporate media called the whole thing for Biden. They just started calling him President-Elect Biden, even though the vote counting hadn’t finished, Trump hadn’t conceded anything, and there were many allegations of election fraud. The media just mostly ignored Trump and reported on the situation as they saw it.

There has been a little bit of forced coverage lately, but still not much.  Of course, any coverage there is assures us that this was the most secure election in history.  (How could anyone possibly know that?)

I was wondering if we could just separate and live in our own realities.  There is actually widespread agreement when it comes to government education, Social Security, massive deficit spending, etc. These are things that most Trump supporters and most anti Trump people agree on in terms of the big picture. So all of that can continue on (unfortunately).

What if the establishment media just tells all of its listeners that Biden is officially president?  On January 20, 2021, they can show his inauguration.  He will do it in an inside and controlled environment.  There won’t be any people except a few family members and a Supreme Court justice to swear him in, all in the name of staying safe from the coronavirus.

Biden will be the president for the establishment media followers.  Meanwhile, the alternative media reports that Trump has successfully proven election fraud and Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin have all gone red.  Trump has been reelected and stays in the White House.

For Biden, his handlers purchase a piece of property near his home in Delaware.  They make a look-alike Oval Office.  They might have to get a few white columns with a green lawn for some outside photographs.  Biden can report to his people from the Oval Office or the lawn.  He can even name his cabinet.

Biden could even meet with a few foreign leaders.  Trump will just say that he is ramping up his America-first policy and doesn’t need to meet with these people.  Trump can go to North Korea for diplomatic relations, but this will only be covered by alternative media sources.

It will be like The Truman Show.  The Trump supporters just need to keep their mouths shut about it if they accidentally watch NBC Nightly News.

If you’ve ever seen The Truman Show, the character played by Jim Carrey finds his way out at the end. He realizes that he is living in a false reality.  I can just picture a Joe Biden supporter accidentally finding a website and realizing he’s living a false reality.  “I had a few of my conservative friends try to tell me something about the media lying a few years ago, but I didn’t believe them.”

Ok.  So I am obviously joking about this whole thing of living in two different worlds.  But when you think about it, we are not that far from that reality now. There are two different worlds. There are two different sets of people who don’t just believe different things.  They believe the opposite of each other in many cases.

We are already somewhat in that world in terms of the coronavirus.  There is one side that sees the whole thing as a sham.  At best, they see the coronavirus as a bad flu season. Then there’s the other side that sees it as a pandemic that is wrecking our society.  But it isn’t a pandemic of a virus that’s wrecking our society.  It is the fear brought on by the establishment media.

Mark Twain reportedly said that it is easier to fool someone than to convince him that he has been fooled.  I can think of no better time than 2020 to illustrate this point.  Of course, in order to illustrate this point, you have to convince someone that they have been duped.

There are two worlds. There are those who believe everything they are told by the establishment media, and there are those who believe almost nothing they are told by the establishment media.