It takes a pillage

Among the most guileful, if transparently self-serving, arguments I’ve heard in favor of spreading student debt to every taxpayer – from a youngster whose degree was fully financed by parents – is that wiping the student slate clean would benefit everyone because of the important contributions student debt ‘victims’ could make if they no longer had to worry about the burden of holding up their end of freely signed contracts.

Freedom from the indentured servitude they accepted would enable them to more quickly apply their elite credentials and superior expertise, contributing to the welfare of society. Translated, this means they can get on with their lives: Borrow money to start a business, buy a house, start a family, afford a planet saving electric car, contribute to the most enlightened charities, vote for more spending… The simplest formulation is, “If we get to be looters, we will become better makers quicker than anyone else. And everyone gets a share!” (Apologies to Milo Minderbinder.)

I do not know how Equity of the implied redistribution is assured, and I assume Equity is very important. Maybe a new Federal Department?

This same ingenue has been heard to argue that we needn’t worry about government spending in any case, because we are on the brink of marvelous technological advances which make the at least half trillion dollar cost of spreading student debt to everyone else look like spare change.

This explosive growth of wealth theory is interesting enough for another long post, but I do have some questions to mention here.

In the context of the student loan pillaging, the minimum increase in general wealth would have to be substantially more than half a trillion. For example, we need to account for all the small businesses that wouldn’t be started because some taxpayers won’t be able to afford it; or a down payment on a house. Etc..

So, if the starting point is north of half a trillion dollars, what is the limit to spending we should consider? Is there any? Are we into full MMT? How much debt will be erased by this unprecedented expansion of wealth?

It seems to me we should minimally aspire to eliminating the national debt, and establishing true trust funds for social entitlement programs. Including a contingency fund for things like reparations. Again, what’s the limit on current spending if we assume such miraculous future growth?

This news is so good, and so imminent (arguably it must occur withing the span of a single generation) that I have to wonder why we just don’t wait for it to happen. And THEN pay off the student loans. Or, better, let the people who incurred the debt pay it off with their new found wealth.

OK. I conflated arguments which appear not strictly meant to be taken together. But there is a direct line between freeing the potential of these embryonic John Galts and economic nirvana. Expecting consistency in such ideas isn’t unreasonable. If we’re going to accept “the elite will contribute more than it costs” argument, it’s fair to ask how much faith we can put in the overall economic acumen of the bright young people who are proposing it. Who are preparing to become stewards of the economy.

The bottom line is that looting of taxpayers on behalf of students will damage the economy. Even if you accept the “benefits everyone” argument, those benefits are not immediate. Let’s just let the people who benefited from the loans they took (because they thought they would benefit financially) pay them off. As a bonus, not paying them off via taxation preemptively reduces the national debt by at least half a trillion dollars.

However, perhaps you find economic arguments insufficient. And you consider the question of fairness to those who responsibly discharged their student debt to be irrelevant… Let’s take a look at legal objections and precedent.

A major argument for proponents is that a Presidential executive order is legal under the 2003 HEROES Act. Randi Winegarten certainly doesn’t see any legal barrier:

If you can take the word of a person responsible for closing classrooms that she’s concerned about “our students” you might consider that what she means by “our” is ownership, not stewardship. She does not mean students under care and protection, she means revenue bots.

IAC, she’s wrong, no matter how manic.

Let’s see what Congress intended and examine the law itself (links omitted):
Congressional Records Prove Biden’s Student Loan Cancellations Are Illegal

The HEROES Act of 2003 was sponsored by Republican John Kline of Minnesota, who had served 25 years as a U.S. Marine. When he introduced the bill in the House of Representatives, he declared that it would help “the troops who protect and defend the United States.”

At that time, many college students and recent grads who were members of the National Guard and Reserves were being deployed to carry out Operation Iraqi Freedom and anti-terror operations in response to the slaughter of 2,977 people on 9/11.

Stating that the bill was “simple in its purpose” and “specific in its intent,” Kline explained that it will “assist students who are being called up to active duty or active service” and those who are impacted by “a war, military contingency operation or a national emergency.” He also emphasized that the bill would do this “without affecting the integrity” of student loan programs.

Demonstrating just how simple and specific the bill was, the official legislative record shows that the House of Representatives passed it by a vote of 421–1 with only “forty minutes of debate.” The Senate then passed it “without amendment by unanimous consent.” If all 100 senators were present, this is a margin of 521 to 1.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that Biden’s student loan cancellations and payment reductions will cost $605 billion to more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. This amounts to an average cost of roughly $4,700 to $7,700 for every household in the United States.

The Biden administration claims that the HEROES Acts of 2003 gives them that power, but Congressional records prove just the opposite is true. These include the introduction of the law, the debate of the law, the votes on the law, and the text of the law.

Moreover, the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that unless Congress clearly delegates such powers to the president, these types of actions are illegal.

There’s more. Even Nancy Pelosi knew it would be illegal before she stopped knowing it

A Legal Reckoning on Student-Loan Forgiveness

If the Court cannot stop the president from raiding the Treasury to buy votes and reward friends on the most implausible of legal pretexts, what is it for? A majority of the Court appears to recognize that the HEROES Act does not grant the power in question — a reality that even Nancy Pelosi acknowledged until it became clear that Biden intended to act when he could not get such a plan through Congress.

The statute says that the secretary of education can “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs” when “necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.” Chief Justice John Roberts set the tone for the argument by noting that Justice Antonin Scalia once observed that “modified in our view connotes moderate change. He said it might be good English to say that the French Revolution modified the status of the French nobility, but only because there’s a figure of speech called understatement and a literary device known as sarcasm.” Moreover, the chief justice observed that, even if terms such as “waive or modify” could be construed to encompass the outright cancellation of student debt, the Court’s “major question doctrine” requires more — namely, a citation to “clear congressional authorization” of the specific action taken by the administration. No one can plausibly claim that the HEROES Act even anticipated, much less green-lighted, half a trillion dollars in relief to a favored class of debtors without additional congressional input.

The entire idea was a Democrat political ploy prior to the mid-terms.

No, the HEROES Act Doesn’t Let Biden Forgive Student Loans

Biden has justified spending such an incredible amount without first obtaining congressional approval by invoking the HEROES Act, a 9/11-era law designed to allow the federal government to provide student debt relief to soldiers who were forced to withdraw from college to enter active duty. Under the HEROES Act, the Secretary of Education is granted the authority to waive “any statutory or regulatory provision” relating to student loan repayment or assistance programs during a time of “a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

The legal ground justifying Biden’s student loan relief plan has always been shaky—and obviously politically motivated. As higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz told CNBC earlier this month, “If it was an emergency, why wait three years to provide the forgiveness? Why present it in a political framework, as fulfilling a campaign promise?”

Finally, let’s not forget who promoted this problem. Student indebtedness owes most of its problematic nature to debt encouraging Federal programs and the use of that easy money to fund the explosion of a diversity/inclusion/equity (DIE. AKA DEI) Administrative cadre in our universities. WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING is a quintessential example of government causing a problem for which the ‘fix’ is more government intervention.

Damn the law. Full speed ahead.

Update 03/04/20 10am – removed duplicate paragraph

More than a coonskin cap

Not Yours to Give

Apocryphal. Accurate.

A story the people cheering for Biden’s unconstitutional, executive order raid on the Treasury – his vote-bribe student loan payoff – need to read. Probably wasted on them, but that’s because they’re the ones who agree with Woodrow Wilson that the Constitution should be abandoned, that “modern government” should be guided by administrative agency “experts” with specialized knowledge beyond the ken of ordinary Americans.

We have Anthony Fauci as an example of how this hubris works out in the corridors of power.

After reading about Congressman Davy Crockett’s account of his epiphany under the tutelage of Horatio Bunce, those happy about student loan forgiveness should go on to read Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.

They mistakenly think they’ll not be among the serfs.

Green Ordeal

Don’t pretend that high prices and American suffering are a ‘bug’ for the establishment — it’s a historic feature

Yes, the record of those establishment hacks seems pretty bad. Of course, that assumes they want cheap gas, cheap food, energy independence and to promote America’s interests. There’s every reason to think the opposite: We’re not getting cheap gas, cheap food, energy independence, etc. because that’s not what the establishment wants. What we’re getting is what the establishment does want; if we don’t like it, tough.

Obama, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, AOC, et. al., want energy usage curtailed. They’ve repeatedly told us they will make this happen by dramatically increasing the cost of energy.

Now they are experiencing success. So, they must deny high prices have anything to do with their policies. This is because the human immiseration from high energy prices quickly becomes experientially and intuitively obvious to everyone. Acknowledging your success in the endeavor is saying the quiet part out loud.

Michael Moore did a masterful job of implying that quiet part, without going full Extinction Rebellion, in his 2019 film Planet of the Humans. He caused a stir because he severely ruffled some envirostatist feathers by pointing out the magnitude of the Green Energy public/pirate partnership fraud.

Moore nails the fraud part. But his real message was subtle: We face an existential, ecological dilemma. We can escape it only by drastic reductions in human population and impoverishment of (most of) those who remain.

My review is here: Planet Without Humans. There’s a link to Moore’s film there, and it is worth watching. The skewering of the green fraudsters is amusing, and the barely submerged lamentation about humans as a cancer on the planet is a “know your enemies” education.

Following are some practical insights, in three parts, about the policy effects arising from Envirostatist population control goals.

Together, these are a primer on the domestic oil industry: The mechanics of leases/permits/financing/production under the Biden Administration. Written by David Middleton, who describes himself as “a geologist/geophysicist in the “climate wrecking industry” since 1981 at Watts Up With That?.

Democrat Senators Demand That Oil Companies Increase Production

Do they really think we can just “dial up the volume” on oil wells? Competent operators produce oil wells at the rate that maximizes the volume of recoverable oil. We don’t dial the volume up and down in an effort to control uncontrollable oil prices. When prices rise, we have more cash flow to spend on additional drilling. This increases oil production, which eventually lowers prices. Production will increase in response to higher prices, but it’s not an instantaneous thing.

Jen Psaki: “There are 9,000 approved oil leases that the oil companies are not tapping into currently”…

“Oil leases” are the mineral rights to geographical tracts of land/seafloor. They don’t have oil because the government designates them as “oil leases.” In the Central GOM, on the shelf, a standard “oil lease” is a 3 mile by 3 mile square tract, covering 5,000 acres. Standard deepwater leases are a bit larger, covering 5,760 acres… However, they’re all just square tracts of acreage. Well, not all… Some leases along the edges of the protraction areas are smaller polygons. The geology of the Gulf of Mexico and the oil that migrated into its geological traps didn’t pay attention to the future leasing plans of the US government.

Jen, Joe… Is it 9,000 leases or 9,000 permits that oil companies are allegedly sitting on?

Since, Brandon seemed serious about “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters”, oil companies with large lease positions on Federal lands in places like New Mexico and Wyoming began stockpiling drilling permits to ensure that they had sufficient inventory to continue drilling through at least the next 4 years…

These companies stockpiled four years worth of drilling permits. They may “have 9,000 permits.” However, they’re not “to drill now.” They applied for sufficient permits to maintain their drilling programs from 2021 through 2024… Because Brandon promised to shut down permitting…

The concern was so great that we were advised to file Suspension of Operations (SOO) applications for all of our leases in the Gulf of Mexico…

“Biden’s first actions as president included re-entering the Paris Climate Accord, canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, halting a leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), issuing a 60-day halt on new oil and gas leases and drilling permits on federal lands and waters (which account for nearly 25% of U.S. production), directing federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel “subsidies,” imposing tougher regulations on oil and gas methane emissions (which were first promulgated under President Barack Obama and had been eased under President Donald Trump), and hiring SEC regulators to prepare climate and ESG disclosure mandates.”

But don’t worry, Fauxcahontas has a solution:
Elizabeth Warren Says the Solution to High Gas Prices Is Higher Taxes on Oil Companies

She’s just lucky Ellis Wyatt isn’t in charge of the oil companies.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is an emotionally-abusive strategy that causes someone to question their feelings, thoughts, and sanity. Someone who employs gaslighting tries to convince the other that their own perception of reality is wrong. The purpose of this is to convince the person being gaslit that they can’t trust their own instincts or thoughts. A gaslighter may try to convince you that your memories are incorrect, that you overreact to situations, or that something is “all in your head.” They may then try to convince you that their version of events is the truth.

In 2008, future Obama administration Secretary of Energy Steven Chu shared his vision for American energy policy:

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

In the month before the Obama administration assumed office, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.59. This week, [April 1, 2012] the price of gasoline has climbed to $3.79.

The Biden administration resumed Obama’s sabotage of our domestic oil and gas producers on day one. The average price for gasoline at the end of Biden’s first week of office was $2.39 a gallon. Prices have now hit above $4.

The Democrats, having pummeled investment in oil and gas extraction, pretend that production can be flipped like a light switch. Jen Psaki tells us there are “9,000 leases not being exercised.” This may be true, but it is entirely unrelated to the fact the United States is no longer energy independent. How does that even happen in under 12 months?

Leases not in use is a factoid servicing a Big Lie.

A friend wrote:

“A lease is but one element necessary to overcome to get oil to market: “Copious permitting paperwork over a period of months or years, financing from banks and investors being pressured to disinvest, means of getting the crude to refineries, refining capacity, taxes that threaten return on capital, and legal challenges.”

That’s a great summary of this must read article:
In-depth analysis debunks Biden admin blaming oil companies for not developing 9000 leases – Feds ‘spent over a year making it more difficult’ to drill & environmentalists ‘constantly sue to stop any development’

With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine the plot has gotten out of hand for the President. So, he complains that the oil and gas producers aren’t doing enough. Putin provides Democrats more cover for the real Green Ordeal objective, described masterfully in this excerpt from a book review by Peter W. Wood of Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers: RTWT.

[T]he real endgame is a remnant human population on a vegan diet perhaps supplemented with insects; the restoration of Earth’s landmass to animal-friendly wilderness; and small-scale cooperative (socialist) societies living in harmony with nature. Less utopian versions of this vision are available, but properly understood, all of them rule out modern life as we know it. People like Biden don’t take any of that seriously. Their interest is in the political game, not the endgame, but it is important to understand the premises and the motives of the activists who are driving the politics. They may never get their utopia, but they can cause profound misery in their attempts to reach it. And we are seeing some of that now.

‘Under My Plan, Electricity Rates Will Necessarily Skyrocket’

That was Barack Obama in 2008. Obama’s electricity plan was not implemented, but it lurks in the dreams of the Green Ordealers: Every environmental problem could be solved if there were fewer humans and they were all less well off.

It’s Critical Race Theory applied to all humans everywhere. White people may be colonialist, homophobic, and racist by the accident of being. But every human being is a planet killer by the same standard.

In support of Critical Humanity Theory, President Biden is emulating Obama’s plan. On his first day in office Biden targeted energy in the form of gasoline, natural gas, and propane.

Now, with a world supply shock from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rate of oil price increase is exceeding the trajectory Obama planned for electricity.

Adding to the gasoline price acceleration, Biden today banned imports of Russian oil (Good for him, but it’s only about 3% of US usage.).

The President warned us to be ready for the “Putin price hike.” Nah. It will be a joint effort. I think Biden had ‘the don’t let a crisis go waste’ principle in mind: “I can raise gas prices, blame it on Putin, and AOC will be happy.”

Everything to the left on that chart can reasonably be called the ‘Biden price hike.’ These stickers were being placed on gas pumps long before Vlad mobilized.

Since the President refuses to unleash American oil and gas production, or change his decision to shutter the Keystone XL pipeline, I think the price hikes remain his.

Instead of importing the Keystone oil from Canada, an ally, we’re begging in Venezuela, and soon Iran, for oil.

Oil which we will burn. Just like American or Canadian oil. CO2 will not be reduced, but we’ll pay a lot more to produce it. To thugs.

I admit Justin Trudeau is a thug too, but there’s more hope Canada will depose him. If there was ever a worthwhile nation re-building effort we should support – it’s Canada.

Enter Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, telling us all we need to do to avoid high gas prices is buy electric cars.

“Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well. Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.”

Get back to me when that charging network you’re spending 5 billion taxpayer dollars on is complete, Pete. Meanwhile, how about a cost free initiative? Open Keystone XL and lift all Federal impediments to American energy production. We could be energy independent again.

Buttigieg is correct, there is a gasoline saving in driving an EV. That is not the same as saving money, saving energy, or reducing CO2 emissions, however.

There’s the cost of buying a new car you may well not need, and with groceries up 20%, maybe can’t afford. You also may be pinched financially by the cost of heating your home.

The taxes we pay to subsidize other people’s electric car purchases need to be accounted for.

And, what if everybody buys an EV? Will demand for electricity make prices:
a) rise,
b) fall,
c) remain the same, or,
d) go to zero, with a grid collapse?

Will the Feds add a special ‘transportation electricity’ tax in order to replace gasoline taxes? The Transportation Secretary didn’t address the question.

Electric cars get their power mostly from coal and natural gas. Prices on those fossil fuels are up, so that will raise electricity prices. Any money savings for electricity as fuel is unlikely to last without major investment in nuclear plants.

So saving money with an EV may be over optimistic in the mid-term. And, without nukes, in the long term.

Gasoline is the current energy hot-button. It’s a preview for the real green agenda: All energy costs must be high to discourage humans from reproducing.

You may find that objectionable. I do not mean every amateur environmentalist is an Extinction Rebellion fellow traveller, but the envirostatist elite are committed to that Malthusian principle. It explains a great deal, and its modern incarnation is well described by Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome 50 years ago.

Preponderantly polite. Dangerously non-violent.

UPDATE: 12:15PM, Feb5
GoFundMe has shut down the Freedom Convoy account and threatened to give the money to charity. They indicated contributors would have to apply for refunds. They’ve backed down and will be issuing refunds automatically.

Meanwhile:
Verified Information on Where to Safely Donate to the Freedom Truckers Convoy

It’s approaching a million dollars as I write.

A night with the untouchables
Written by a civil servant in Ottawa who lives where the protest is happening. Worth the read.

Back to our regularly scheduled program…

You may be aware that thousands of truck drivers in Canada formed a convoy 45 miles long and drove 2,000 miles to protest Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s CCP virus pronunciamentos. Overpasses along their trek thronged with cheering supporters.

The convoy arrived in Canada’s capital last weekend, and Ottawans’ lives have since been disrupted by clogged streets (lanes are open for emergency vehicles), liberal use of air horns (stopping at six PM), and protestors marching around the Parliament buildings chanting “Freedom!” And occasionally taking time out to shovel snow in public spaces, or build a mobile soup kitchen to feed Ottawa’s homeless.

The truckers, and a growing majority of Canadians, think Canada’s CCP virus rules should follow the science. That is, the rolling imposition of limited martial law should cease.

They think the Trudeau hegemony has again misinterpreted Canada’s mission statement: “Peace, order, and good government”. The truckers are leading the debate, “Resolved: Canada does not have the good government required for peace and order.”

“Peace, order, and good government” is not so presumptuous a demand as “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” nor as prone to excess as “Liberté, egalité, fraternité.” The Freedom Convoy protest, befitting Canada’s image, is preponderantly polite. In no way comparable to the “stop-the-steal” riot on January 6th/20 in Washington, nor to the gilet jaune street fighting September 12/20 in Paris.

Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly says (Jan 31):

No injuries, no deaths, no riots in the last four days in the nation’s capital, even though we have a global cause, national protest.

By February 2nd there had been 3 arrests in an estimated 10,000 protestors.

The contrast with our Jan/6 riot and the Antifa/BLM planned insurrections is inconvenient for the laptop class and the Trudeau government. They need vicious oppressors. So Ottawa’s Globe and Mail, a government subsidized enterprise, finds a way to vilify the truckers:
Calling the Ottawa protests ‘peaceful’ plays down non-violent dangers, critics say

“Police haven’t reported any physical violence at the ongoing Ottawa rally against vaccine mandates and other government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions, but critics warn that conflating the absence of bloodshed with “peaceful” protest downplays the dangers of the weekend demonstrations.”

Among the dangers the Bytown anointed have cited was one guy carrying the Stars and Bars. There’s video of him being shamed and driven away by the truckers. That’s a literal false flag.

Someone painted a swastika on a Canadian flag, leading to charges the truckers are Nazi sympathizers. The strikingly more obvious interpretation is that the painter was calling Trudeau a fascist wannabe.

A woman was seen, arms in air, shouting “Freedom!” while standing on the base of the National War Memorial. This action has been described as “desecration.”

It is a beautiful and evocative statue, deserving reverence and protection:
Credit Robert at SDA

So far it has not been targeted for destruction by BLM or Antifa. But the subjects are imperialist white male warriors, so it’s only a matter of time. You do have to wonder whether the men depicted would feel disrespected sharing a plinth with someone shouting “Freedom!’ in the context of CCP virus tyranny.

They were soon to be exposed to the Spanish Flu pandemic. I imagine their reaction to mandates and lockdowns would be less compliant than Justin would prefer.

Someone hung a Maple Leaf flag upside down on the statue of Terry Fox. The left was apoplectic. This statue has been dressed up many times in the past without comment from the petty totalitarianate.

A CBC newsbimbo suggested that Russia was secretly organizing the protests.

Somehow these deplorable truck driving cretins must be driven from polite society, castigated, cancelled, shamed. Canada’s precedents for using nebulous complaints from far-left activists to punish speech are well known. Mark Steyn made some of them famous.

One of CNN’s iconic contributions to Newspeak was displaying the phrase ‘mostly peaceful’ over live images of burning buildings. Having described protests involving murder, looting, arson, and vandalism as ‘mostly peaceful’, what do you do when a you need a condemnatory description of protests that involve no class A felonies? Well, war is peace and freedom is slavery. Just follow your 1984, or the Globe and Mail stylebook.

‘Dangerous non-violence’ is justification for making Thoughtcrime up as you go along. Ideas are too dangerous to trust them to free citizens.

It’s disappointing, really. These truckers went to a lot of trouble to gently stir up some shit. Even with the distinct lack of felonies… couldn’t we at least call it ‘barely raucous?’

No. No agency must be granted to these unacceptables. The Prime Minister is channeling Hillary Clinton:

“The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa, or who are holding unacceptable views that they’re expressing, do not represent the views of Canadians…”

-Justin Trudeau

According to this Angus-Reid poll, Pansy McBlackface is claiming 54% of Canadians hold unacceptable views. Even Hillary only called half of Trump’s supporters deplorable, not more than half the whole population.

Not to be outdone, the leader of Trudeau’s partners, the New Democrats (think Bernie, AOC and Omar), played the race card:

“Conservative MPs have endorsed a convoy led by those that claim the superiority of the white bloodline and equate Islam to a disease.”

-Jagmeet Singh

Wow. Maybe he gets his world view from Whoopi Goldberg.

Finally, displaying the cluelessness for which he is justly famous, Ontario’s Premier:

“It’s time to let the people in Ottawa get back to their lives,” Premier Doug Ford says on fifth day of convoy demonstrations.”

-Doug Ford

Doug, you portly pontoon, it’s time to look up the word “irony.” THAT MESSAGE is WHOLLY OWNED by the protestors. YOU CAN”T POLITICALLY APPROPRIATE “Letting people get back to their lives.” The Freedom Convoy hasn’t even had their 2 weeks to flatten the curve.

Further reading on freedom of conscience in Canada:
Lessons from Canada
The Chief Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator testifies in 2008, “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.”
Touquemada™
Until freedom “of thought, belief, opinion and expression” is seen in Canada to actually be a fundamental right it will simply be a matter of how much freedom of speech Parliament thinks is good for you.
The View from Dromore – Free Speech in Canada?
A Canadian citizen comments in 2008.
The first 100 days: Major battle over free speech, internet regulation looms when Parliament returns
Section 13 is coming back.
Canadian Father Jailed For Talking About Court-Ordered Transgendering Of His Teenage Daughter
He must use the ‘correct’ pronouns.

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell was mentioned in yesterday’s post. Today, I thought to direct you to his website. He is a national treasure.

Don’t miss the ‘favorite quotations’ page. Five examples:

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm– but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
—T. S. ELiot

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
—C. S. Lewis

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
—Eric Hoffer

Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
—Eric Hoffer (that was 1971, and look where we are now)

Publicly inconsolable about the fact that racism continues, these activists seem privately terrified that it has abated.
—Dinesh D’Souza

Here are some quotes from Sowell himself. One example:
“Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
― Thomas Sowell