Torturing Our Elderly And Stealing From Our Children

Stay-at-home orders imposed on U.S. citizens – especially elderly singles living alone – amount to torture according to the standards advocated by the United Nations[1]. The UN expert concludes that:

“The severe and often irreparable psychological and physical consequences of solitary confinement and social exclusion are well documented and can range from progressively severe forms of anxiety, stress, and depression to cognitive impairment and suicidal tendencies. This deliberate infliction of severe mental pain or suffering may well amount to psychological torture."

If the psychological damage from the Federal and state governments’ unprecedented attack on the civil liberties of its current citizens is not enough reason to restore our freedoms, consider the financial effect on America’s future generations. The ongoing and massive Federal government giveaways are stealing money from our children. Each trillion dollars being given away saddles each American years from now with another $2,000 or more in debt. Future generations will never pay it off. Many young and unborn Americans will be burdened with huge annual interest expenses over their entire lives on debt that they did not incur.

The economic plight of our country was supposedly justified to reduce deaths from COVID-19. Eventually evidence will show that it was foolhardy. But it will be our children – not the dictators and bureaucrats – that end up bearing the long-term financial toll.

It should be noted that our Federal government is perfectly happy oppressing its citizens merely on the pretense of protecting property rather than saving lives. I remember as a child being warned over the radio that going into public after a certain hour risked being shot by the National guardsmen who were patrolling our town in the aftermath of a flood. The goal was prevention of looting because there were many unoccupied houses in the flooded areas. But the threat was not that looters would be shot or that shootings would only occur in flooded areas – it was that anyone violating the curfew risked being shot.

Victims of this flood in upstate New York in 1972 were eligible for small business disaster loans of about $5,000 (the program was available to anyone – not just business owners). Half of the loan was forgiven if the funds were used to rebuild property supposedly damaged by the flood. Thousands of residents were eligible to use the loans to upgrade their summer homes on the various lakes in the area. Most of that money went to make improvements to docks and sea walls since very few of the lakefront properties had damage to the living quarters.

The massive government giveaway of 2020 is allowing many businesses to reap massive profits on top of their usual profits. A firm with virtually no consequence from the pandemic can get two months of their 2020 wages paid by the Federal government if they declare in good faith that the “uncertainty of current economic conditions” makes the loan necessary for their business. Think about that phrase as you pay higher taxes in the future.

Government aid to displaced employees is so generous that firms will struggle for years to coax able-bodied recipients back into the workforce. Leftists are ecstatic that more and more unemployed Americans can get living wages and healthcare. But government giveaways remove incentives for recipients to contribute anything valuable back to society – where something valuable here is defined as something that people will voluntarily purchase rather than being something that the left proclaims as being valuable (e.g., community organizing).

Politicians are now turning their attention to bailing out failing local and state governments. Apparently financially-mismanaged state and local governments (primarily in jurisdictions controlled by leftists) feel that they should be bailed out by taxpayers of well-managed jurisdictions. State and local governments who struggled to keep their finances in order will find their stewardship was foolhardy and that future financial responsibility is unnecessary; simply wait for the next government-created crisis and pass the debt on to the whole country. It is a classic tragedy of the commons.

It has been said that “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” Our Federal and state governments are using both.

SOURCE 

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No Doubt, the Left Hates Grassroots Americans

From verbal smears to actual violence, leftists are increasingly angrily intolerant.

If there’s one thing that has been learned over the last three and a half years, it’s that Patriots are targets. Some, notably commentators Kurt Schlichter and Dennis Prager, have been warning us for years. Schlichter, in particular, has pulled no punches about the fact: On the Left, hatred of grassroots Americans exists and dealing with it is going to be very necessary.

Anyone who doubts this just needs to trust their own eyes and ears. It has been blatantly obvious in everything from venomous declarations on social media to campaign slander to smears you’d see while watching TV — news or drama, if you can tell the difference. Maybe you’ve even heard it from those around you.

It goes beyond statements. Look at the nearly 400 incidents of violence directed at Trump supporters. These things didn’t happen because someone just woke up and decided to beat up Trump supporters. It came from a long campaign of dehumanization involving a series of big lies. It’s gotten far worse since Trump pulled off a huge upset against Hillary Clinton.

But those who want to claim that somehow Trump made this all worse are simply not seeing what happened previously. Claims of racism have been aimed at Republicans at least since Ronald Reagan won in 1980. It wasn’t just Reagan: George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney all faced such nonsense charges.

It wasn’t just those running for president, though. Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and scores of other prominent Patriots have been smeared as racists and Nazis. Had Mitt Romney won in 2012, or even if John McCain won in 2008, we would still see the same Resistance emerge, only this time citing the defeat of Barack Obama as proof of racism. The congressional power of Gingrich and DeLay made them targets.

For a long time, Patriots have joked that the way to tell if a leftist is losing an argument is hearing them declare their opponent a “racist!” The jokes have more than a grain of truth to them — as we have seen, the phony claims are often used to distract from failures. Even trying to fix messed up school lunches led to vicious personal attacks.

That said, perhaps we should have been far more serious, especially as the Left broke out more and more comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis. The fact is, we can answer one question Dennis Prager posed in 2018: They seem to really mean it, and they are acting on the belief that Republicans are no different than Nazis.

It’s graduated beyond name-calling to mobs of antifa outside the homes of government officials and journalists. People are attacked in restaurants or even while registering voters. Once upon a time, that was seen as cause to bring in the FBI. These days, though, there is some local coverage — maybe a report from Fox News — but it’s quickly swept under the rug by far too many journalists who seem to think the victims had it coming.

It’s easy for some on the Right to just dismiss the warnings from Prager and Schlichter. But those who have should be asked a very simple question: Is there any evidence that can disprove their observations? Because from where we sit, we have to say they’re right.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

President Trump, citing the organization's "alarming lack of independence from the People's Republic of China," threatens to make WHO funding freeze permanent (NBC News)

Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine to protect against coronavirus (The Washington Post)

On the heels of Katie Hill's "throuple," Democrat Rep. Steven Horsford admits to decade-long affair with former intern (The Washington Free Beacon)

They've been through riots, protests, and natural disasters — but America's colleges have never seen anything like the financial meltdown the coronavirus is about to bring to their campuses (The Washington Free Beacon)

China slaps an 80% tariff on drought-affected Australian exporters as brutal punishment for push for COVID-19 inquiry — just hours after saying it'll support inquiry when pandemic is over (UK Daily Mail)

Japan has slipped into a recession as its economy sank for a second straight quarter (UPI)

Hope for producers as oil clears $30 a barrel (Washington Examiner)

Oregon's coronavirus restrictions ruled "null and void" after governor failed to get approval from legislature (Fox News)

Democrat-imposed coronavirus orders face lawsuits across the nation (Fox News)

Gov. Charlie Baker announces Massachusetts reopening plan (The Hill)

Mayor Bill de Blasio warns beach swimmers will "be taken right out of the water" (The Daily Wire)

Not-so-mission accomplished: Over 100 million in China's northeast face renewed lockdown (Bloomberg)

Good news: Early data show Moderna COVID-19 vaccine generates immune response (STAT)

Four ways the 1957 H2N2 pandemic resembles, and differs from, COVID-19 (The Daily Signal)

Policy: How blind faith in scientific expertise wrecked the economy (The Federalist)

Policy: The public health crisis means cities need to reevaluate transit projects (The Hill)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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