Little Brother Or Big Brother: The Public Applauds As Free Speech Dies On The Internet

President Donald Trump’s executive order on social media has left more questions than answers on the ability of the government to regulate companies like Twitter. However, one thing is abundantly clear: the loser in this fight will be free speech. Indeed, the striking thing about this controversy is neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are actually advocating for free speech, just different forms of speech controls. Civil libertarians are faced with the “choice” offered by Henry Ford on colors for the Model T Ford “any color … so long as it is black.” In some ways, Trump and Twitter are offering a similar choice on the new model for free speech: Americans can chose between government censorship and private censorship.

The heart of the executive order is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The 1996 legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton was largely an attempt to regulate pornography and struck down in significant part as unconstitutional. Section 230, however, survived and grants any “interactive computer service” (including Internet and social media companies) immunity from most lawsuits over content posted by users. Courts have interpreted the provision to give sweeping immunity for companies like Twitter and Facebook because they simply supply a forum for others to express themselves.

For years, Democrats leaders have called for companies like Facebook and Twitter to monitor and delete material that they deem offensive, false, or misleading. Former Vice President Joe Biden declared in January, “Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one.” In his view, the mere fact that Twitter is allowing others to speak freely is the same as “propagating falsehoods they know to be false.”

Congressional leaders like House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff have called for labeling and removal of material with some members directly threatening a legislative crackdown. This week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for resisting speech monitoring and censorship as a matter of free speech. Pelosi lashed out that those who want to preserve a free speech zone are “all about making money,” ignoring free speech advocates who have no financial interest in these companies. Pelosi said that opposing such monitoring means that social media companies simply want “to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts” and are trying to “hide under the freedom of speech.”

Where Democrats want to either remove all protections or force private censorship, Trump seems to want to control protections and create a system of government censorship. Again, the choice allows citizens to select any option so long as it is censorship.

The ‘Big Brother’ problem

There are ample reasons why the executive order is unlikely to succeed in any meaningful way. While the scope of Section 230 is largely the result of judicial interpretation, even judges who have criticized the sweeping immunity have concluded that it must be treated as the intent of Congress, which has done nothing to change it. If the administration seeks to change the scope of this law through agency action at the Federal Communications Commission, it will be immediately and legitimately challenged.

Any attempt to unilaterally alter such a federal law is precisely what Republicans objected to in the Obama administration, when the president repeatedly ordered changes denied by the legislative branch. Such circumvention was unconstitutional under Obama and it would be unconstitutional under Trump. President Trump has declared that he will also be seeking legislative changes, a move that could negate some constitutional challenges. However, the elimination of all protection through legislation (as demanded by Biden) would likely trigger greater limits on expression.

The executive order also empowers the Federal Trade Commission to investigate bias in companies like Twitter removing or labeling material. Such investigations may not in themselves be unlawful, but any action taken against companies for their policies on accuracy would raise serious questions of government censorship, the ultimate scourge under the First Amendment.

Ironically, Democrats now defending Twitter are some of the same members who were previously calling for a possible government crackdown. Moreover, these members have long opposed the concept of free speech protections for corporations, recognized in such cases as Citizen’s United. Nevertheless, they would be on good ground to oppose unilateral executive action despite their silence when President Obama engaged in the same circumvention of Congress in areas ranging from immigration to the environment.

The Little Brother problem

The First Amendment is designed to address government restrictions on free speech. As a private entity, Twitter is not the subject of that amendment. However, private companies can still destroy free speech through private censorship. It is called the “Little Brother problem.” President Trump can be chastised for converting a “Little Brother” into a “Big Brother” problem. However, that does alter the fundamental threat to free speech.

What Twitter did on the Trump tweets — adding fact checking links — was wrong. It was intervening on a political statement to inject its views into the communications between President Trump and his roughly 80 million followers. It is precisely what Democrats have demanded for years and what civil libertarians have vehemently opposed.

Twitter is demanding immunity under Section 230 because it merely supplies a forum for the discussion of others. However, it now wants to be an active part of that discussion. Many disagree on the subject of mail-in voting and its potential for fraud. The warnings posted by Twitter (and deletions demanded by Democrats) invites arbitrary and biased monitoring. Twitter has not posted such warnings on the many false statements made about the Russian investigation or the Steele Dossier or other subjects.

Much of our free speech today occurs on private sites like Twitter and Facebook. The Democrats want private companies to censor or label statements deemed misleading. Such a system would evade First Amendment conflict but it would have an even greater likely impact on free speech than direct government monitoring.

Social media has long been one of the few areas of free and robust speech. While Trump and his critics are now in a fierce battle over the Twitter controversy, it is largely a battle over control of speech, not a battle for free speech. What is striking is how we have all become chumps in rooting for one side or the other when both would curtail our ability to speak freely on social media. It is like being offered the Matrix choice of a blue and red pill, but both leave you in Matrix.

Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.

from Little Brother Or Big Brother: The Public Applauds As Free Speech Dies On The Internet

Riots Out Of Control - Are US Troops And Martial Law The Answer?

Hundreds of US cities have been turned into war zones, with looting, murder, and mayhem unleashed on a level we have not seen in more than a generation. President Trump is threatening to call US troops to the street. Will de facto martial law calm the chaos, or will it be pouring gasoline onto the flame? Watch today's Liberty Report:



from Riots Out Of Control - Are US Troops And Martial Law The Answer?

The US Government’s Shady Mask Advice

A lot can change in three months. In March, the message from the United States government, communicated through individuals including Surgeon General Jerome Adams and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, was that people should not wear masks when they go about their daily activities outside their homes.

Then, in April, the US government and its high profile medical “experts” including Fauci and Adams turned on a dime, urging people to wear masks. And, in May, citing the US government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) new pro-mask guidance, stores such Costco as well as state and local governments including, as of Friday, Virginia imposed mask mandates on their customers and people in their geographic jurisdictions, respectively.

The message transitioned from “do not wear masks” to “you must wear masks” all in three months, and all the while the prominent propagators have insisted that the morphing message is based on science.

Give me a break with the science platitudes. There is no clear evidence masks will help people shopping for groceries or doing other daily tasks be healthier. Indeed, some evidence suggests that using masks will help spread coronavirus and cause other health problems as well. Plus, over this time of transitioning from an anti-mask recommendation to pro-mask mandates it has become increasingly obvious that the health risk from coronavirus is much less than people had been told by many politicians and media stories at the beginning of the coronavirus crackdown in America.

The changing mask policy is about controlling people’s activities. You can dress authoritarianism in jargon of science-based public health policy, but that does not change its nature.

“When you’re in the middle of an outbreak,” said Fauci in an early March 60 Minutes interview at CBS television, “wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.” He continued, stating that “unintended consequences” of wearing a mask, including coronavirus transmission danger from people “fiddling” with their masks and touching their faces, weigh against wearing a mask to protect against coronavirus.

A few days earlier, Adams was declaring at Twitter, “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” and elaborating that masks “are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching #Coronavirus.”

Then, on April 3, Fauci was proclaiming in a PBS NewsHour interview that “universally when people go out and are in a situation when they might come in to closer contact,” such as, he states, when picking up drugs from a pharmacy or buying food, they should “wear that mask.” The same day Adams put out a how-to-make-a-mask video.

Turning on a dime, high level US government medical propagandists were completely reversing their recommendation regarding wearing masks.

The message to take from the switcheroo is not to trust the government medical “experts.” They were misleading people about masks in either March or April, or even both times. Instead of automatically following these radically changing government health claims about masks, consider doing your own research and thinking for yourself. If you follow bad health advice from the government, it is you, not the government, who will suffer the consequences.

The about-face on masks came along with a new CDC recommendation that Americans wear “cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.”

“The CDC can recommend whatever it wants, but I will decide for myself where and when, if ever, I wear a mask,” you may respond. Unfortunately, some businesses, as well as state and local governments have taken the new CDC recommendation and run with it — imposing mandates that all customers in their stores wear masks or all people in a city, county, or state in many circumstances wear masks. Stores like Costco and politicians like Virginia Governor Ralph Northam have used the CDC recommendation as their shift-the-blame basis for imposing mask mandates. Point to the CDC recommendation and mandate away. That is their course of action.

How about the CDC and the US government’s so-called medical experts get out of the “recommendation” business? They are not looking out for our health interests with these recommendations. As is the case with government generally, they tend to be advancing their own interests as well as assisting big money players that have great influence over government policy.

from The US Government’s Shady Mask Advice

What's To Blame For Nationwide Riots - Police Brutality Or Lockdown?

Are the riots engulfing the nation simply fallout from the shocking killing of a black suspected forgerer at the hands of a white police officer? Or is there something else to the story? The ramifications of three months of nationwide lockdown may be more profound than people understand. Watch today's Liberty Report:





from What's To Blame For Nationwide Riots - Police Brutality Or Lockdown?

German Official Leaks Report Denouncing Corona as ‘A Global False Alarm’

Germany’s federal government and mainstream media are engaged in damage control after a report that challenges the established Corona narrative leaked from the interior ministry.

Some of the report key passages are:

- The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.

- The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).

- Worldwide, within a quarter of a year, there has been no more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 1.5 million deaths [25,100 in Germany] during the influenza wave 2017/18.

- The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm.

- A reproach could go along these lines: During the Corona crisis the State has proved itself as one of the biggest producers of Fake News.

So far, so bad. But it gets worse.

The report focuses on the “manifold and heavy consequences of the Corona measures” and warns that these are “grave”.

More people are dying because of state-imposed Corona-measures than they are being killed by the virus.

The reason is a scandal in the making:

A Corona-focused German healthcare system is postponing life-saving surgery and delaying or reducing treatment for non-Corona patients.

Berlin in Denial Mode. The scientists fight back.

Initially, the government tried to dismiss the report as “the work of one employee”, and its contents as “his own opinion” – while the journalists closed ranks, no questions asked, with the politicians.

But the 93-pages report titled “Analysis of the Crisis Management” has been drafted by a scientific panel appointed by the interior ministry and composed by external medical experts from several German universities.

The report was the initiative of a department of the interior ministry called Unit KM4 and in charge with the “Protection of critical infrastructures”.

This is also where the German official turned whistleblower, Stephen Kohn, work(ed), and from where he leaked it to the media.

The authors of the report issued a joint press release already on Mai 11th, berating the government for ignoring expert advise, and asking for the interior minister to officially comment upon the experts joint statement:

Therapeutic and preventive measures should never bring more harm than the illness itself. Their aim should be to protect the risk groups, without endegearing the availibilty of medical care and the health of the whole population, as it is unfortunately occurring

We in the scientific and medical praxis are experiencing the secondary damages of the Corona-measures on our patients on a dialy basis.

We therefore ask the Federal Ministry of the Interior, to comment upon our press release, and we hope for a pertinent discussion regarding the [Corona] measures, one that leads to the best possible solution for the whole population

At the time of writing, the German government had yet to react.

But the facts are – sadly – vindicating the medical experts’ worries.

On Mai 23 the German newspaper Das Bild titled: “Dramatic consequences of the Corona-Measures: 52,000 Cancer Ops delayed.”

Inside, a aeading medical doctor warns that “we will feel the side-effects of the Corona crisis for years”.

Shooting the Whistleblower. Ignoring the Message.

As Der Spiegel reported on Mai 15th: “Stephen Kohn [the whistleblower] has since been suspended from duty. He was advised to obtain a lawyer and his work laptop was confiscated.”

Kohn had originally leaked the report on May 9th to the liberal-conservative magazine Tichys Einblick one of Germany’s most popular alternative media outlets.

News of the report went mainstream in Germany during the second week of Mai – but already in the third week media and politicians alike stopped discussing the issue by refusing to comment upon it.

Emblematic was the approach taken by Günter Krings, the representative for Interior Minister Horst Seehofer – the whistleblower’s boss:

Asked it he would treat the document seriously, Krings replied:

“If you start analyzing papers like that, then pretty soon you’ll be inviting the guys with the tin foil hats to parliamentary hearings.”

Men in tin foil hats – Aluhut in German – is a term used to describe people who believe in conspiracy theories.

Indeed one article by Der Spiegel adressing the Corona protest movement and the consequences of the leaked report contained the word “conspiracy” no fewer than 17 times!

And no discussions of the issues raised by the report itself.

Outside Germany the news has virtually gone unreported.

The Protest Movement – or “Corona-Rebellen”.

Germans begun demonstrating against Lockdowns as early as April.

And thousands of citizens keep showing up at demos every week-end, even as the government is easing the restrictions.

The demos are not merely against restrictions, which have actually been comparatively mild compared to many other Western countries.

The demos question the entire Corona Narrative, and even more its principals, especially the role Bill Gates is playing, as the WHO second biggest donor (the first one since Trump suspended US contribution).

Indeed the biggest such demos took place in Stuttgart on May 9th, where tens of thousands people assempled to say no – to the NWO.

Germans are saying no to any orwellian solution the government might one day impose out of a questionable “emergency status”, from mass surveillance Apps to mandatory vaccinations.

The leaked report has proved their fears to be well founded.

At least as far as the fake nature of the “Corona pandemic” is concerned.

The rest might soon follow.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.

from German Official Leaks Report Denouncing Corona as ‘A Global False Alarm’

War for Hong Kong?

President Trump faces trouble, and he is handling it in a dangerous way. Our economy is reeling, as the Fed pours out billions of dollars in a futile effort to avert disaster. We know to our cost that politicians, faced with crisis at home, provoke war “to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.”

Unfortunately, this is just what Trump is doing. According to a CNN news report on Friday, May 28, “President Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on Beijing Friday, naming misdeeds that range from espionage to the violation of Hong Kong’s freedoms, and announced a slew of retaliatory measures that will plunge US-China relations deeper into crisis.

‘They’ve ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before,’ Trump said of China, as he decried the way Beijing has ‘raided our factories’ and ‘gutted’ American industry, casting Beijing as a central foil he will run against in the remaining months of his re-election campaign.

Trump called out China for ‘espionage to steal our industrial secrets, of which there are many,’ announced steps to protect American investors from Chinese financial practices, accused Beijing of ‘unlawfully claiming territory in the Pacific Ocean’ and threatening freedom of navigation.

The President also blasted Beijing for passing a national security law that fundamentally undermines Hong Kong’s autonomy, announcing that going forward the US will no longer grant Hong Kong special status on trade or in other areas and instead will apply the same restrictions to the territory it has in place with China. Trump outlined that the US will strip Hong Kong of the special policy measures on extradition, trade, travel and customs Washington had previously granted it.”

Let’s look at Hong Kong first, as this is the issue most likely to get the American public roused up. “Isn’t it terrible,” some people will say, “that the Chinese government has rounded up and imprisoned rioters against its authority in Hong Kong?” In answer to this, you need to bear in mind a key fact. The American government instigated the Hong Kong protests, and egged them on in a direct challenge to the Chinese government.

As Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially known for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook,” pointed out last September, “even US policymakers have all but admitted that the US is funnelling millions of dollars into Hong Kong specifically to support ‘programs’ there. The Hudson Institute in an article titled, ‘China Tries to Blame US for Hong Kong Protests’ would admit:

A Chinese state-run newspaper’s claim that the United States is helping pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong is only partially inaccurate, a top foreign policy expert said Monday. 

Michael Pillsbury, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News National Security Analyst KT McFarland the US holds some influence over political matters in the region.

The article would then quote Pillsbury as saying:

We have a large consulate there that’s in charge of taking care of the Hong Kong Policy Act passed by Congress to insure democracy in Hong Kong, and we have also funded millions of dollars of programs through the National Endowment for Democracy [NED] … so in that sense the Chinese accusation is not totally false.

A visit to the NED’s website reveals an entire section of declared funding for Hong Kong specifically. The wording for program titles and their descriptions is intentionally ambiguous to give those like US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plausible deniability.

However, deeper research reveals NED recipients are literally leading the protests.

Given this provocative US behavior, the Chinese government could not back down. As Pat Buchanan warned back in December: “There is another issue here — the matter of face.

China has just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Revolution where Mao proclaimed, ‘China has stood up!’ after a century of foreign humiliations and occupations.

Can Xi Jinping, already the object of a Maoist cult of personality, accept US intervention in the internal affairs of his country or a city that belongs to China? Not likely. Nor is China likely to accede to demands for greater sovereignty, self-determination or independence for Hong Kong.

This would only raise hopes of the city’s eventual escape from its ordained destiny: direct rule by Beijing when the 50-year China-U.K. treaty regarding the transfer of Hong Kong expires in 2047. For Xi to capitulate to the demands of Hong Kong’s demonstrators could cause an outbreak of protests in other Chinese cities and bring on a crisis of the regime.

In thinking about what to do, we need to be guided by the wisdom of Murray Rothbard. He long ago pointed out that we should oppose American intervention into foreign countries. It isn’t our job to act as a world rights enforcing agency. We should mind our own business.

As he put it, “We must say rather that, given the unfortunate existence of the State, we must limit and reduce its power, anywhere and everywhere, and wherever possible. We must try constantly to abolish or at least lower taxes-whether for ‘defense’ or for anything else-and never, never advocate any tax increase. Given the existence of the State, we must try to abolish, and if not abolish to limit and reduce, its internal power-its internal exercise of taxation, counterfeiting, police state aggression, controls, regulations, or whatever. And similarly, we must try to abolish its external power-its power over the citizens of other States. The criminal State must be reduced as much as we can everywhere-whether it be in its internal or external power. In contrast to the usual right-wing partiality for – foreign over domestic intervention, we must recognize that foreign intervention tends to be far worse.”

What Murray said about intervention in Eastern Europe when it was under communist control applies perfectly to our situation: “Now don’t misunderstand me; I have not abandoned moral principle for cynicism. My heart yearns for ethnic justice, for national self-determination for all peoples. . . . But, to paraphrase Sydney Smith’s famous letter to Lady Grey, please let them work this out for themselves! Let us abandon the criminal immorality and folly of continual coercive meddling by non-Eastern European powers (e.g. Britain, France, and now the US) in the affairs of East Europe. Let us hope that one day Germany and Russia, at peace, will willingly grant justice to the peoples of East Europe, but let us not bring about perpetual wars to try to achieve this artificially.”

Trump’s complaints about China’s trade policies again ignore the role of American provocation. Eric Margolis identifies the core fallacy in Trump’s strategy: “Trump’s wars are economic. They deploy the huge economic and financial might of the United States to steamroll other nations that fail to comply with orders from Washington. Washington’s motto is ‘obey me or else!’ Economic wars are not bloodless. Imperial Germany and the Central Powers were starved into surrender in 1918 by a crushing British naval blockade.

Trade sanctions are not making America great, as Trump claims. They are making America detested around the globe as a crude bully. Trump’s efforts to undermine the European Union and intimidate Canada add to this ugly, brutal image.

Trump’s ultimate objective, as China clearly knows, is to whip up a world crisis over trade, then dramatically end it – of course, before next year’s elections. Trump has become a master dictator of US financial markets, rising or lowering them by surprise tweets. No president should ever have such power, but Trump has seized it.

Trade wars rarely produce any benefits for either side. They are the equivalent of sending tens of thousands of soldiers to be mowed down by machine guns on the blood-soaked Somme battlefield in WWI. Glory for the stupid generals; death and misery for the common soldiers.”

Trump also mentioned Chinese claims of territory in the Pacific Ocean. He ignored the fact that the South China Sea belongs to them, not to us, yet we send our ships there and insist we have a right to control what happens there. Also, a great deal of China’s industry and agriculture is privately owned, so an attack on China would be an attack on private property. Both the neocons and the nationalist “Right” want war with China. We should aim at peace instead, as Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul have taught us.

It is ironic that Trump accused China of industrial espionage. The US has for decades spied and monitored governments and industries all over the world, of course including China.

As the writer “Moon of Alabama” has said, “European countries do not fear China or even Chinese spying. They know that the US is doing similar on a much larger scale. Europeans do not see China as a threat and they do not want to get involved in the escalating US-China spat. . . Every nation spies. It is one of the oldest trades in this world. That the US is making such a fuss about putative Chinese spying when it itself is the biggest sinner is unbecoming.”

The Chinese people are highly productive and intelligent, and their success doesn’t depend on industrial espionage against the United States. Rather than condemn the Chinese, Trump should commend them for their monumental steps toward a free market, with unprecedented economic growth, after suffering the carnage of Maoist communism.

Trump spoke about suing the Chinese for the damage caused by the Covid-19 epidemic. As I wrote in an article last month, “There is good reason to believe that the coronavirus epidemic is part of an American biological warfare campaign against China and Iran. The brilliant physicist Ron Unz, who has time and time again been proved right by events, makes this case in a scintillating analysis.”

Even if the US didn’t do this, it would be highly irregular to sue a nation just because a virus began there. Besides, if America wants to go that route, wouldn’t many countries have grounds to sue America for what the American government did to them? What about Iraq, which has suffered from US bombing and blockades in a war now widely admitted to be a mistake? What about people all over the world who have been killed with arms supplied to foreign governments by the US?

Rather than stir up trouble with China, President Trump should promote free trade. How can it help the people of Hong Kong to deny them its free port, with no tariffs on imports or exports? America needs to confront its domestic crisis, brought on by the terrible lockdown and financial irresponsibility. War with China will only make our present crisis immeasurably worse.

Reprinted with permission from LewRockwell.com.

from War for Hong Kong?

Listen to the Doctors, End the Lockdowns

Six hundred physicians recently signed a letter to President Trump calling for an end to the coronavirus lockdowns. The physicians wrote that, far from protecting public health, the lockdowns are causing “exponentially growing negative health consequences” for millions of Americans.

Since the lockdowns began, there have been increases in alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence. There has also been an increase in calls to suicide hotlines. This is a direct result of the mass unemployment and limitations on people’s activities resulting from the lockdowns. As long as millions of Americans are sitting at home wondering how to survive until the government says they can go back to work — assuming the lockdowns did not drive their employers out of business, there will be more substance abuse and suicides.

At the start of the lockdowns, Americans were told to stay away from emergency rooms and doctors’ offices to avoid exposure to coronavirus. This has led Americans to neglect their health. US hospitals have seen a 40 percent decline in the number of patients admitted for severe heart attacks since March. Does anyone believe that the coronavirus panic just happened to coincide with a miraculous decline in heart attacks?

Physicians have also become unable to help many stroke victims who coronavirus lockdowns have kept from seeking medical assistance.

Early in the coronavirus panic, hospitals were told to cancel elective procedures to ensure space was available for an expected wave of coronavirus patients. But hospitals were not overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. Beds and other resources were unused.

According to the American Hospital Association, this has cost healthcare providers tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. Inner-city and rural hospitals that already operate on slim profit margins are especially hard hit by the financial impact of the lockdowns. These hospitals may have to cut back on services. Some may even close. This will make it even more difficult for rural and inner-city Americans to obtain quality, affordable healthcare.

Postponing needed surgeries will have serious consequences. Many patients whose surgeries have been delayed will find that their once easily treatable conditions now require intensive and expensive care.

Some people are forgoing disease management and checkups that could keep them from developing more serious problems. The coronavirus lockdowns have even caused the canceling of chemotherapy treatments.

According to the physicians’ letter to President Trump, the coronavirus lockdowns are preventing 150,000 Americans a month from finding out they have cancer. Skipped routine cancer screenings mean cancer is not detected in an early stage, when it is most easily treated.

The coronavirus lockdowns have upended the lives of Americans to “protect” them from a virus with a 0.2 percent fatality rate, with the majority of those fatalities occurring in nursing homes and among people with chronic health conditions. Instead, the rational response would be to protect the vulnerable, and let the rest of the people live their lives. But politicians and government-anointed “experts” do not respond rationally to a “crisis,” especially when a panicked reaction can increase their power and prestige.

The lesson of the unnecessary lockdowns is clear: Government bureaucrats and politicians, even the media’s beloved Dr. Fauci, must be stripped of the ability to infringe on our liberty and prosperity.

from Listen to the Doctors, End the Lockdowns