freeDUMB

see main freedom liberty for older

see Freedom 3 godterm

merri ok

xian esp susceptible to lt dk rhet?

1020 for extreme examples of STOOPID? --> scary evocation of god term

see agno

freedom for qanon trumpistas patriots means doing absolutely anything you FEEL like regardless on how it affects any/everyone else eg wear a mask in secure area during insurrection refused/mocked by gop, led to 3 so far dems infected incl jayapal; anyone who makes you do anything you don't want is a tyrant taking away your const rights.

chanted inside capitol during insurrection

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AN 7 26

On Tuesday, the White House announced the launch of President Donald Trump’s “Freedom Fuel Network” of gas stations offering lower fuel prices in Philadelphia, but while the administration clearly expected applause, critics were quick to point out the grift and irony of the endeavor.

“FREEDOM FUEL HAS ARRIVED,” blared the White House X account, claiming, “the FIRST Freedom Fuel Network gas station has LANDED in Philadelphia, lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President. President Trump is leading the charge to lower gas prices this summer – putting more money in your pocket.” This was shared along with a video showing customers thanking Trump while a voiceover boasted about a series of area gas stations that will keep prices an average of 50 cents lower than other state stations, locking the “47” into the price in honor of Trump.

“Going through all that trouble and the best they can do is $3.47 per gallon?” responded disinformation researcher Jared Holt. “What a joke.” And as CBS News White House reporter Kathryn Watson reminded, “Fwiw, gas averaged $2.87 on February 1 before the war.”

Ironically, this comes at a moment when Trump has been leveling vocal attacks against the so-called Democratic “Communist menace.” During his 4th of July speech, for example, he ranted, “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

One commenter may have had the president’s words in mind when saying of the Freedom Fuel decree, “I thought we were fighting against communism?”

This isn’t the first time Trump’s contradictory stance toward the political ideology has been raised. As the Libertarian publication Reason noted, Trump has repeatedly taken Federal stakes in private companies like Intel and U.S. Steel – a practice that is typically associated with communism and socialism.

But perhaps the sharpest criticism of the Freedom Fuel plan came from GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan, who claimed, “The Freedom Fuel Network, the 25 stations that lowered prices the President has referred to, was registered June 23, 2026 to Corporation Trust Company, which Trump has used himself before. It was registered 3 weeks after T-Mobile took over some Shell stations offering $1.99 gas.” If this is true, then the president could be poised to benefit financially from the scheme, which would represent yet another conflict of interest in an administration riddled with them.

De Haan also added, “The stations lowering prices via the Freedom Fuel Network in PA, NJ, etc are simply being subsidized – the stations are losing money – which is being paid for by someone or some entity. The stations are likely losing 20-50c/gal.” In other words, if De Haan’s numbers are right, it appears that the American taxpayer is subsidizing Trump’s Freedom Fuel while he takes a cut.

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6 26 STRM TV AD

GRAND CYN UNIV EVANG? ONLINE RIPOFF PPT DUDE BLUE BLAZER ONE WD FREEDOM

Material Contributors - What Does Project 2025 Say?

Daren Bakst

Authored the section about: Section 3.1: Department of Agriculture

Served in the Trump Administration: No.

In His Own Words

In this March 2024¹ article authored by Daren Bakst, he claims that EPA rules about tailpipe emissions amount to “a chilling abuse of power” and “wanton disregard for individual freedom”, rather than as protective of the environment.

AN 5 26

Under the guise of “freedom,” the DeSantis administration including Surgeon General Joe Ladapo has established policies that have directly contributed to the measles outbreak that has spread across the state.

Yet, despite the proliferation of this disease, which has placed Florida fourth in the United States with 152 confirmed cases in 2025-26 and 145 confirmed cases so far this year, state officials have acted as if “there’s nothing to see here.”

Collier County is the center of an outbreak that began in January at Ave Maria University. The number of reported cases out of Collier has remained steady at 106, with most cases affecting those aged 15 to 24. According to the Florida Department of Health, Florida is up to 150 cases this year as of the week ending May 2. Officials note that there is “a continuing slowdown in infections after outbreaks earlier this year.”

rww 3 24

john Eastman, a right-wing attorney who is in serious legal trouble for his intensive efforts to help former President Donald Trump stay in power after losing the 2020 election, continues to raise funds for his legal defense fund from Trump’s religious-right supporters. Eastman was the featured speaker at an online event hosted Monday night by the Salt and Light Council, a group that promotes “biblical citizenship.”

Eastman portrayed himself as making a heroic stand for truth and against tyranny, as he did last fall while fighting efforts by the California Bar Association to have him disbarred. Eastman used that trial to make the case that his 2020 claims about election fraud and illegality were legitimate but had never been fully considered by the courts. The judge’s decision in the disbarment trial was expected by March 1.

During his Salt and Light presentation, Eastman promoted his page on the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo, where people have contributed more than $630,000 to his legal defense fund so far. He said he’s “about a million in the hole beyond that right now,” adding that he thinks his total legal costs will run between $3 million and $3.5 million.

Eastman’s appearance made it clear that he remains as unrepentant about his work for Trump as he was last August, when he promoted debunked claims about the 2020 election and asserted that “the very existential threat that the country is under” justified his and Trump’s actions. On Monday’s Zoom call with Salt and Light activists, Eastman made similar claims. Citing the Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln, Eastman said, “And now, in this century, this is the fight comparable to those—the defense of freedom.” He went on:

And will this great shining city on a hill that has been a beacon to the rest of the world continue to be that beacon of light? Or will we go into an age of darkness? I can’t imagine anything more important than that fight. And so here we are on the front lines, and let’s just make sure we’re as well armed for it as we can.

Eastman portrayed himself as a defiant warrior for freedom and the future of the country:

Our country is on a precipice of losing our freedoms. And for whatever reason, I’ve been cast in the forefront of this battle. I’m on the battle lines, I’m on the ramparts. And I consider it one of the greatest honors of my life to be in the front of this fight for freedom, and fighting against tyranny. And I will do, I will engage in that fight with every fiber of my being as long as I’m able.

And he seems to have no doubt that he is up to the task:

I’ve been fighting for principled positions for my whole career. I’ve got one of the best law degrees and academic careers you can have. I clerked at the Supreme Court of the United States. I was a dean. I’ve got the skill set, God has given me the skill set to be in a position to fight this probably, at least as well as anybody else in the country. And so that’s what I do. And I’ll do it, you know, I’ll do it with a law degree as long as I have it. And I’ll do it without the law degree if they try and take that away from me, because this is an important fight to have.

Eastman had harsh words for his opponents, whether he was talking about the people trying to impose “a one world order,” public school teachers who undermine parents’ authority, members of the congressional Jan. 6 committee, or officials seeking to silence people who question the official line on vaccines, critical race theory, or transgender youth:

The folks we’re dealing with are evil. They don’t consider destroying our country as collateral damage for their overall mission, they consider that icing on the cake for their overall mission. I mean, we have to understand that we are dealing with pure evil, and the way you gotta, just you got to arm yourselves in truth and light, salt and light.

He urged the Salt and Light activists to get their churches politically engaged:

Your congregations, that’s a massive force, get them engaged, sign them up to vote, get the voter guides out in their hands and let them know who the decent people are, and who the folks that are mouthing platitudes are, whether in the primary elections or the general election. Get them engaged. Get them educated. This is an army that cannot be stopped if we would just launch it.

Salt and Light Council founder and President Dran Reese portrayed the ongoing legal prosecutions over the 2020 election in spiritual terms, praying that God would “overcome the devil in this case around John Eastman and President Trump.”

Video excerpts (full video linked above):

===

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Exclusive: Circuit Court Ruling on Biden DOE's Appliance Regulation 'a Win' for Americans

PJ Media

Climate Depot's Marc Morano called the DOE's revoked regulations “a complete bypassing of democracy through the unelected regulatory state” and ...

Exclusive: Circuit Court Ruling on Biden DOE’s Appliance Regulation ‘a Win’ for Americans

CATHERINE SALGADO | 6:52 PM ON JANUARY 09, 2024

The Biden Department of Energy (DOE) just lost a case on its heavy and damaging regulation of laundry and dishwashing machines, and a consumer advocate is celebrating the move as “a win” for Americans’ “consumer choice.”

Fifth Circuit Court judges Clement, Wilson, and Oldham ruled on Jan. 8: “In 2022, the Department of Energy tightened the regulatory regime surrounding America’s dishwashers and laundry machines. Petitioners sued. The Department’s actions were arbitrary and capricious. So we grant the petition and remand to the Department.”

The Biden administration has been attempting to wage a war on appliances on multiple occasions and fronts, partly due to its radical and unscientific climate alarmist agenda.

Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild is one expert who sees the court ruling as a victory. Consumers’ Research is a consumer advocacy organization that says it is “focused on educating consumers on the policies, products, and services of concern to them and to promote the freedom to act on that knowledge and understanding.”

This new ruling against the DOE appears to be pro-freedom and pro-consumer. “This is a fantastic ruling for American consumers,” Hild said in exclusive comments to PJ Media.

Hild explained that the DOE appliance regulations came out of the Biden administration’s Environmental, Social, and Governance goals (ESG, or woke standards poisoning our government and businesses). “These regulations were part of Biden’s ESG agenda, that was more about pushing a radical environmentalist agenda than protecting and serving consumers, and today is a win for consumer choice and our standard of living,” Hild said.

*For Our VIPs:I’m So Glad I Have a Gas Stove Right Now

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mma 4 23

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (CO-HOST): This entry of RFK Jr. into this race is a real problem for Democrats, but it could also be a problem for Republicans should he become the nominee. And that's a big if, of course, but it's interesting, Will, you often talk about how the left and the right, kind of — there is a circle, a place where left and right actually meet — and I think for a lot of Americans it was during COVID where a lot of Republicans and conservatives who had more faith in corporations sort of lost that faith as they saw how horribly pharma and big government had colludedand in many ways to suppress information andtake away people's rights. And then people on the left were also going wait a minute, we're health liberty people, we don't like being forced to take things. And a lot of them are old-school liberals who never trusted big pharma.There are a lot of powerful forces that don't want JFK to get elected because he's been a truth-teller in many ways.

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an ah 1 23

In Washington, D.C. smoking is banned from office buildings. But that rule doesn’t apply to the U.S. Capitol Building, where House Republicans have lifted a ban on smoking in that branch of Congress.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and other far-right pundits have been quick to applaud the move. Sounding a lot like the late radio host Rush Limbaugh, Carlson told viewers, “Nicotine frees your mind, and THC makes you compliant and passive.”

In a scathing article published by The Nationon January 23, journalist Joan Walsh slams House Republicans and their supporters for promoting something as unhealthy as smoking and argues that they are “killing” their “own voters.”

READ MORE: 'The smell of freedom':Tucker Carlson and House Republican defend tobacco smoking inside the Capitol

“I honestly thought it was fake news,” Walsh writes. “Just after Kevin McCarthy became House speaker, giving away his power to right-wing antagonists the first week in January, I read about Congress members smoking on the GOP side of the aisle. Just a projection from my liberal allies of Republicans’ intent to erode public health, I assumed. Funny GIF to come. But it was true. Rep. Tom Cole was smoking cigars in his office. Others were reportedly smoking cigarettes in other places.”

Walsh notes that “House lawmakers’ private offices aren’t governed by” either the District of Columbia’s anti-smoking ordinance” or “a Bill Clinton executive order” that “prohibits smoking in federal buildings that are under the authority of the executive branch.”

“Under McCarthy, smoking is allowed not just in members’ offices, but in public areas too,” Walsh explains. “Now comes more carcinogenic propaganda from right-wing losers. Last week, Fox’s Tucker Carlson began preaching a return to smoking as a return to American values. Tobacco is so much more American than increasingly legal and available weed, he told his stoned-on-lies audience.”

On Fox News, Carlson made cigarette smoking a culture war issue, telling viewers that liberals “hate nicotine” but “love THC.”

Walsh comments, “I shouldn’t be surprised at Carlson’s tribute to tobacco…. Republicans have long opposed anti-smoking measures, at least partly out of fealty to Big Tobacco. Former GOP Speaker John Boehner became infamous for handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor in 1995. As Indiana governor, Mike Pence railed against tobacco restrictions and insisted ‘smoking doesn’t kill.’ But the recent pro-smoking crusade seems to be inspired more by culture war imperatives than by defending the tobacco industry.”

The journalist points out that Limbaugh spent decades vigorously defending cigarette smoking on his radio show — before dying of lung cancer in 2021.

“Killing your own voters seems like a bad electoral strategy,” Walsh writes. “Salon’s Amanda Marcotte calls it ‘getting lung cancer to own the libs.’ Sadly, Republicans are mostly giving their base voters what they think they want.”

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random wingnuttery rww

Oklahoma state Senate candidate Jarrin Jackson warns that “godless commies want to take over the world … by manipulating the weather.”
Curt Landry the spiritual significance of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Shane Vaughn declares that “Satan hates AMERICA because HE LOVES CONTROL (COMMUNISM) and America stands forINDIVIDUAL FREEDOM.”
Misogynistic racist incel Nick Fuentes insists that it is okay for him to be attracted to Black women because he’s an eccentric genius: “There’s something about it because it’s naughty, because it’s transgressive. … If you don’t understand this, you’re an idiot.”
Finally, Tim Barton asserts that the United States has more mass shootings than other nations “because we still havefreedomhere. We haven’t had communism, we haven’t socialism, we haven’t had Marxism.”

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see civil virtue/ responsibility

aha2 bowling alone (globalization/ outsourcing, corporatization walmarting of rural rust belt] led to kids leaving, all sorts of other problems, rw talk radio proposed enemy/scapegoat solution ol time religion --> echo/escalator polarization that just made problems worse which called for trump i alone can fix it --> nazis on florida overpass /cda truckers....

aha: echo is isolation from Earth1, legit press info (ie ideas/info you do not want b/c does not fit your POV) and escalator= AMPLIFY/ BOOST/ PROPAGATE TO MORE PPL AND MORE INFLUENTIAL/INFECTIOUS PPL/ SOURCES; boost is boosted by algorithm and hype hate anger fear is monetized which is both an incentive and an extra further boost --> runaway mode

an 2 22 edit bd

On February 15, Bloomberg ran a story about the “freedom convoy” that seemed to illustrate Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran minister who was part of the German resistance to the Nazi Party and to Adolf Hitler’s rise. His book, The Cost of Discipleship, is a meditation on “The Sermon on the Mount” in which Bonhoeffer splits the Christian concept of grace in two.

On the one hand is “cheap grace,” which is “without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

On the other hand, Bonhoeffer said, is “costly grace.” It “confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him.”

Indeed, resisting fascism by submitting “to the yoke of Christ” and following him cost him dearly. At age 39, the Nazis hanged him.

His theory of stupidity is featured in a letter written to friends a few years earlier. The letter, which is now known as “After Ten Years,” argues that evil like the Nazis isn’t the worst thing. Stupidity is.

“One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force,” he wrote. “Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

Bloomberg reporters Jen Skerritt and Robert Tuttle were covering protests of the Canadian government’s requirement that truck drivers delivering freight across the US-Canadian border must be vaccinated.

Protests in Alberta and Manitoba, dubbed the “freedom convoy,” took the form of blockades of bridges and trucking routes, at odds with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s declaration of emergency powers.

Skerritt and Tuttle interviewed one trucker. His name is Jake Klassen. His two campers and semi were in the blockade. He said Trudeau’s emergency powers were an attempt to “take everything from us.”

Then there is this part:

Klassen said he hasn’t been able to visit his nine-year-old daughter in months. She is receiving palliative care at St. Amant, a care residence in Winnipeg, but due to restrictions that require visitors to be fully vaccinated, Klassen and his wife can’t see her.

“Yes, that's absolutely stunning and sad,” said Victoria Barnett.

Barnett was director of programs on ethics, religion and the Holocaust at the National Holocaust Museum. She’s the author of many books on interfaith history. She edited a 2017 translation of “After Ten Years.” I asked if Jake Klassen exemplifies Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity.

Maybe, but as part of a bigger phenomenon. “After Ten Years” was his attempt to understand the first 10 years of National Socialism and what had happened to his compatriots, his church, his country.

He's trying to figure out why most Germans caved to Nazi ideology and why they became integral to what happened. The historian Klemens von Klemperer (himself a refugee) called the Third Reich a "consensual dictatorship" -- which is a pretty good description.

Go into that a bit more please. How was it consensual?

His main point is that stupidity is a moral failure, not an intellectual one. He's reflecting on the process by which people willfully become part of a larger movement or political group, etc. As they become increasingly involved, two things tend to happen:

They become isolated(or they isolate themselves) from those who disagree with them or challenge them (and I would say also from news sources that would challenge their worldview) and
They get a lot of reinforcement. One of the things that happened in 1933 after Hitler came to power was that Nazi Party organizations were founded for every demographic group – teachers, housewives, kids, etc. Everyone suddenly had a badge, a uniform, meetings to go to, new friends to meet etc. — and that was a big factor in creating a new sense of a larger German community serving a "grander" purpose (in the Nazi mindset).

A big part of that, of course, was identifying enemies and those who needed to be excluded -- Jewish citizens, political opponents, critical journalists, etc. But that early formation of consensus made life much harder, even by the end of 1933, for people who didn't agree with it.

What you're describing is collectivism, no?

The self-understanding of the German Volk was a collective concept personified by the "Fuhrer.” That's a big part of authoritarian or fascist regimes. Authoritarian leaders can do things without parliamentary approval, because they represent the "true" will of "the people."

But that also created a dynamic in Nazi Germany in which there was this mass adoration – almost a mass hysteria – for the person of Adolf Hitler. There are paintings portraying him as a messianic figure.

Bonhoeffer said there is no defense against stupidity. But if it's a moral failing, wouldn't a defense be private and public morality?

Ideally, yes.

Bonhoeffer's essay is an exploration of why that didn't happen. (Elsewhere, he explores the lack of civil courage) But Nazi Germany is a disturbing case study in the failure of leaders, institutions (such as the church), etc., to stand up in an effective way to National Socialism.

The best and bravest people were either arrested early on or got out. But he's pondering (and I think this is autobiographical) the failure of good decent people critical of the regime to be more effective.

That didn't happen. (Along the way, one must acknowledge that many of them became complicit). But by staying in and working from inside the regime, they also failed to offer a clearer example of resistance.

That's why by 1942 Bonhoeffer believes (as he writes here) that "only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity."

The trucker above says he's seeking liberation, too. Liberation from responsibility. How would Bonhoeffer persuade a man that he has agency and can visit his dying daughter by making the right choice?

One thing DB ignores is the psychology of all this. (He describes stupidity as a sociological problem). In Nazi Germany, we're also looking at the pressures and dynamics within a fascist police state.

In other circumstances, however (eg, the truckers' protests), this gets back to the peer pressures within a group that’s getting its information only from certain sources, in which there is a lot of pressure to conform to the will of the group (and a reward for doing so).

I've studied this in terms of the psychology of group behavior in Nazi Germany, but the literature on personality cults, mob behavior, etc., shows that the longer and more deeply a person gets involved in something like this, the less individual agency they perceive they have.

For Bonhoeffer personally -- he wrote as a theologian and person of deep faith -- that faith has the capacity to make someone see more clearly. But “After Ten Years” is a rather bleak assessment.

I'm reminded of something Michael Josephson said in 1989:

Success can be defined so many different ways but right now it is defined in a kind of how high is your position, how many people work for you, how high is your salary. When you get into that kind of yuppie version of success,you’re going to sacrifice things along the way.There’s not enough commitment to the ground rules of civil virtue.

A society focused on "success" (greed, selfishness) is a society in which a man won't do the right thing to see his dying daughter and as a consequence, will make sacrifices he can’t reverse along the way.

He's making an important point about what we value publicly and how that affects the individual's ethics and sense of responsibility.

I've been very disturbed by some of the very callous reactions during the pandemic – eg, the minimization of the deaths in nursing homes, the rush to get back to normal when thousands of people are still getting sick and dying (and when large sectors of the population -- children under the age of 6 -- can't yet be vaccinated).

But as I saw somewhere, the scale of the callousness has been on display for some time now in how we've dealt with school shootings, the high level of violence in our society and the much higher levels of violence experienced by people of color and the poor.

A society is measured in part by what we are willing to live with and by whether we are willing to change to make life better. Bonhoeffer, in his text, addresses this when he writes about the responsibility we are willing to take upon ourselves for the sake of a different future.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to be doing what Bonhoeffer wished more Germans had done. He called out conservatives in the Parliament for standing with the Swastika and the Confederate flag.

I interviewed a number of Germans back in the 1980s when I was working on my first book (a collection of oral histories from people who had been in the Confessing Church) and I recall Kurt Scharf (a very brave pastor, who would later became a bishop) saying thatif Germans had held mass demonstrations and marched in 1933 in solidarity with German Jews, they might have changed things.

Impossible to know in retrospect, that’s what’s important here (and for understanding Bonhoeffer as well) -- taking a public position not only draws a line for what can be tolerated, but it also serves as a model to others that it is possible to speak out. That's what he was writing about in the section on the lack of civil courage among Germans.

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mothertrucker: nobody can make me do nuthin

an 2 22

Canadian officials have a message for US Republicans hyping anti-vax protests in Ottawa: Butt out

Sen. Ted Cruz (Screengrab)

Alex Henderson February 08, 2022

In Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, anti-vax truckers have been protesting a Canadian law that went into effect on January 15 and requires truckers entering Canada from the United States to show proof that they have been vaccinated for COVID-19. And far-right Republicans, from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to Sen. Ted Cruz to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have been pandering to the United States’ anti-vax fringe by praising those truckers in Ottawa.

Some Republicans have been donating to their cause. But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a message for those Republicans: butt out.

During a debate in the Canadian Parliament, Trudeau explained, “Individuals are trying to blockade our economy, our democracy, and our fellow citizens’ daily lives. It has to stop.”

Trudeau stressed that the border restrictions will not last forever.

“Canadians trust science,” Trudeau declared. “A few people shouting and waving swastikas does not define who Canadians are.”

Other Canadians who have been critical of the anti-vax protests in Ottawa range from Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.

In a letter to Trudeau, Watson complained, “What was initially described as a peaceful protest has now turned into a siege of our downtown area.” And Mendicino, obviously referring to Republicans in the U.S., said, “We need to be vigilant about potential foreign interference.... Whatever statements may have been made by some foreign official are neither here nor there. We’re Canadian. We have our own set of laws. We will follow them.”

Although former President Donald Trump is not an anti-vaxxer — he said he has received a COVID-19 booster shot and has encouraged others to do the same — he took offense at Trudeau’s comments, calling the Canadian prime minister a “far-left lunatic” and saying that he has “destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates.”

According to the Associated Press, there have been incidents of violence in connection with the raucous Ottawa protests.

AP reporters Rob Gillies and Tracey Lindeman note, “Steve Bell, the city’s deputy police chief, said aperson from Ohio was arrested in connection with a threat against Ottawa police headquarters. Meanwhile, Ottawa police were investigating a fire at an apartment building that was apparently set by protesters. Matias Munoz said residents of the building south of Parliament Hill were already at their wits’ end Saturday night as the noise of the protest blared through their homes for the ninth night in a row. When he came downstairs Sunday morning, Munoz said the carpet and floor were charred, and there were blackened fire-starter bricks strewn across the lobby.”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/lawrence-jones/fox-host-claims-booster-shots-are-plot-hold-your-freedom-hostage-until-you-comply

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an 12 21

...Bombarded with criticism for his childish stunt, the 35-year-old Schmeck told the Oregonian, “Now, I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech.”And Obeidallah slams Schmeck for painting himself as a victim.

“Schmeck is now doing the cliché conservative move of saying he's being unfairly criticized because people have slammed his ‘joke’…. Aww, poor ‘victim’ Schmeck,” Obeidallah argues. “Apparently, he thinks he should be able to tell Biden to basically go f**k himself while on a family-friendly holiday call,but no one should be able to take issue with his actions. Sorry, that's not how freedom of speech works.”

Obeidallah continues, “If you want to troll a president to apparently make others on the right happy, you can expect criticism. If you don't want criticism because you are painfully thin-skinned, then don't say ‘Let's go, Brandon’ on a live Christmas Eve special. It's as simple as that.”...

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aha-let: claim 1st amend is just cover for freedumb priviledge // PC cancel culture BS = ID victim = Powell Memo not level field

// lib lamestream media reality has leftwing bias

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/law-professor-expertly-shuts-down-sen-ron-johnson-s-false-claim-that-social-media-biased-against-the-right/

no lnx twt

Law professor expertly shuts down Sen. Ron Johnson's false claim that social media is biased against the right

Meaghan Ellis October 30, 2021

One law expert had a particularly insightful response to Ron Johnson's (R-Wisc.) arguments suggesting social media oversight typically tilts in favor of the left. During the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on Friday, October 29, Johnson shared his grievances about social media appearing to be more favorable for liberal media.

However, Dr. Mary Anne Franks pushed back against Johnson's claims as she decimated his suggestion of liberal bias on social media platforms. Franks, a professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, masterfully explained how right-wing extremism is at the root of the problem and why right-wing content must be regulated.

While she did acknowledge that Americans have a right to free speech, she also explained why it does not apply in this particular case.

"Yes, we do have a First Amendment," Franks said. "We do have a right to free speech but we also know, of course, that private companies are not obligated under the First Amendment to take all comers. They are allowed to make their own decisions about what is considered to be high-quality and low-quality content. They can make any number of decisions and I think we would applaud them in many cases to make those decisions.

In a hearing in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Gov Affairs today, @ma_franks had a sharp response to S… https://t.co/jqiJcjDNjv

— Justin Hendrix (@Justin Hendrix) 1635450216.0

She went on to pinpoint the real problem with right-wing content and why it appears to be censored more than left-wing content. In short, it has to be.

"When it comes to the questions of conservative vs. liberal bias, this is not a notion that I am suggesting here. This is not about intuitions or impressions although I know that those can go in many different directions," Franks explained.

She continued, "This is about what the data actually suggests. The data actually do indicate that right-wing content is more amplified on these social media platforms than left-wing content and that right-wing content is more disproportionately associated with real-world violence; not hurt feelings, people being upset but, in fact, actual violence, actual armed insurrections, actual notions of terrorism, and anarchy."

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aha me v we // rights responsibilities ayn lurks here; radical reductionssm eg alt rt dude why shd i have to pay for birth control [incel has pt?]

10 21 an

i know you want to know if I know what US Senator Joe Manchin wants. I do not. I do know, however, that our national discourse over taxing and spending is so warped he opposes a so-called billionaire's tax while favoring a tax on billionaires not called a billionaire's tax. Such word games conceal the truth.

Taxes pay for a full and equal democracy.

This is not how the GOP would prefer we talk about taxes. They would prefer a national debate centering on individuals living an atomized existence, separate from and unequal to others, while encouraging individuals to think of themselves as "taxpayers" who are "liberated" from the moral obligations of fellowship, community and citizenship.

There was a time when this perspective was thought radical — either it was a cover-up for greed or for something more sinister. That's why Ronald Reagan, before he was president, cited a widely admired transcendentalist writer to make that view seem respectable. In 1964, while stumping for conservative Barry Goldwater, Reagan said: "Henry David Thoreau was right: that government is best which governs least."

Thoreau was right, but Reagan was wrong. That line comes from "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849), in which Thoreau famously developed the principle of moral conscience superseding the citizen's uncritical adherence to law. The occasion was Thoreau's refusal to pay taxes he believed the government was using to fund imperial expansion, on the one hand, and advancing slavery, on the other.

So the government that Thoreau said would be better if it governed least was, to his way of thinking, an anti-democratic government — a government that, before Abraham Lincoln became president, was not of, by and for the people but instead of, by and for the interests of proto-fascist slavers in the American south. That's why Thoreau accepted prison time for failing to pay his taxes. He refused to be morally complicit in his government's crimes against humanity.

By the time Reagan stumped for Goldwater, the government had become of, by and for the people more completely than any time in the country's history. By then, President Lyndon Johnson had signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act, followed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, together representing American democracy in its fullest flower yet. This is the proper context for knowing what you need to know about anti-tax rhetoric, which struggled in the 1960s but has dominated our national discourse from the time of Reagan's election through today. What you need to know is this: anti-tax is anti-democracy.

With the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it began illegal for the United States government to do what it had been doing since the American founding — treating non-white people, but especially Black people, as if they were not equal citizens fully and morally entitled to the same rights and privileges as their white counterparts. Of course, an equal democratic union did not sit well with some white people.

Before 1964, anti-tax rhetoric was, to them, rich people bitching about paying their fair share. After 1964, it sounded different. It sounded, to them, like the very obscenely rich defending their "freedoms" and their "rights." With enough time and effort, the anti-tax rhetoric of the very obscenely rich was no longer thought to cover up for greed or something sinister. It was thought downright principled. By standing against the government, and standing up for "taxpayers," the GOP seemed to have a noble lineage going back to Henry David Thoreau.

Beneath the rhetoric was a belief long-standing and deeply rooted in the blood and soil of America — that nonwhite people, but especially Black people, don't count in this experiment in self-rule. "The people" doesn't include them. "The people" is us.["real am"] A government treating them as equals to us, therefore, is not a government that "sovereign citizens" can support with their tax dollars in good conscience. The whole of the "conservative movement" in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, was a movement to defund a government that would not, because it could not, treat Black people like second-class citizens. A democratic government governing the least became the best of all governments.

That Joe Manchin is trying to have it both ways is, in a sense, not surprising. He has one foot in two worlds. A world that Reagan built, in which billionaires are "job creators" who should not be "punished" for being successful. And a world being built right now, I think, on the ashes of Reagan's in which billionaires are increasingly seen, for all the right reasons, as abominations offensive to all lovers of democracy.

---

// Prager

...Amplifying vaccine skepticism and refusal

The Federalist has repeatedly provided a platform to individuals refusing to comply with vaccine mandates and amplified and encouraged vaccine skepticism:

AfterNBA players Kyrie Irving and Jonathan Isaac spoke publicly about their choice not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine despite the basketball’s league requirements, the Federalist heralded them as the “most cogent and principled defenders of liberty, common sense, and basic civic decency in America."

The Federalist published a round-up of various groups of people around the country “using the power of protest to send a message” against “draconian” vaccine mandates. The article also asserted workplace vaccine requirements were attacks on the working class as “companies were lording their firing power” over their workers.
George Mason University professor Todd Zywicki was profiled on the outlet after he spoke out against the university’s vaccine requirements for faculty and staff.The Federalist framed Zywicki’s case as a “blueprint” for others trying to circumvent “anti-science COVID-19 policies” as Zywicki received a medical exemption from the vaccine mandate after he argued that his natural immunity made vaccination unnecessary. Though antibodies from a previous infection can defend against reinfection, experts still recommend receiving the COVID-19 vaccine for prolonged protection across coronavirus variants.
The outlet featured country musician Travis Tritt because of his efforts in “calling for freedom” against vaccine mandates. The article also highlighted Tritt urging others to speak out against vaccine mandates because such supposed “injustices” can be defeated only “with a unified front against them.”

---

strict fr pathological strain?

1021 an

So much depends on respectable white people. Those are white people who care about appearing respectable to other white people, who themselves care about appearing respectable to other white people. They are the great globular middle of American politics that determines electoral outcomes in this country.

For the longest time, they sided with the Republican Party on account of tax cuts and other goodies. My hope is that, for the foreseeable future, they will side with the Democrats on account of tax cuts and other goodies being a banner for hiding the fact that sadism is the GOP's point.

Sadism isn't only about sex, though it can be, obviously. When I say "sadism," I mean the pleasure derived from seeing other people suffer. The Republicans have no policy goals. Their only goal is creating legal and political conditions in which the in-group is protected while the out-group is punished. But it doesn't end with punishment. It can't.

When the out-group gains power, the in-group feels powerless. When the in-group feels powerless, the in-group feels oppressed. When the in-group feels oppressed, it cries out for freedom. But in order to feel free, the in-group must do more than merely punish the out-group. It must derive pleasure from seeing pain and suffering. This is what I want respectable white people to understand. When they vote for tax cuts and other goodies, they are doing far more. They are helping the GOP's authoritarian base feel a freedom that depends on suffering.

When white police officers pulled a Black paraplegic man out of his vehicle by his hair last month in Dayton, Ohio, on illegal drug suspicion, that might appear to be another case of police brutality. (Body cam footage of the incident was released Friday. An investigation by the police department is underway.) But to the authoritarian base of the Republican Party, what the Dayton cops did was the goal itself. Seeing the man's pain produced pleasure. It made them feel free.

It is sadism. It is not cruelty. Cruelty is not the point. Sadism is. You can be cruel without meaning to. You can be cruel without taking pleasure in pain. You can be cruel because you can't help it (on account of repeating past traumas, for instance). But sadism takes intention. It takes the desire to set aside priorities, like tax cuts and other goodies. It is its own cause. It is its own effect. This is another thing I want respectable white people to understand. Sadism isn't an unintended consequence. It's the point. When you vote for the Republican Party, when you give money to Republican candidates, you are joining a concerted effort to bring more suffering to more people, and you are complicit in the derivation of pleasure from suffering. You have become a sadist.

This sounds extreme. That's because sadism cancels equality. If the Republicans had some degree of commitment to equality, they might seek conditions in which the in-group feels free regardless of whether the out-group feels pain. But there is no equality. Therefore, there is no equal protection under law. Therefore, there is a one-to-one relationship between in-group freedom and out-group pain. Put another way, it's quite impossible for the in-group to feel free when the out-group does not feel pain. Sadism is the GOP's vital link.

Given the reality of this one-to-one relationship, you can see they don't mean freedom when they say freedom. They don't mean the presence of choice. They don't mean the absence of coercion. They don't mean freedom in any conventional sense. What they mean is the pleasure of seeing other people's pain, because their freedom can't exist without their suffering. Respectable white people need to understand this. Cries for freedom are in fact cries for sadism.

Just as they don't mean freedom when they say freedom, they don't mean borders when they say borders. Ten Republican governors went to the southern border to pressure the president to do more about immigrants coming in. Most of them were from non-border states. And that's the tell. The border they are defending isn't the border. It is the border between us and them, between the GOP's authoritarian base that can't feel free unless someone suffers, like immigrants, and everyone else who can feel free as they share power with others.

This is the last thing I want respectable white people to understand. There is no middle way. There is no neutral position. "Every state is now a border state," said Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany last week while visiting the border. Every state is a border state. Every issue is a border issue. Every person is a border person who must choose a side. Are you with us or against us. Sadism is the point.

---

see sov citizen me vs we; VXR: bodily integrity is last stand/refuge // virgin not penetrated totemic for safety of castle vs invaders?!

body is last thing i have control of, not my city, country b/c POC gt replacement, my econ future/membership in middle class precarious, factory jobs outsourced overseas to chicom and POC peasants.

BUT ironically there is a social component, i am not alone/crazy, i'm part of a tribe of patriots who love god and country // brave founding fr/minutemen STORY 1

aha: recall origins in Heartland reverse engineer: if AGW real, world gov't no capitalism

also fork 1 origin // sununu collectivist jackboots story 1 threatened

vax everywhere = neg?

gw denial eroded faith in sci for decades and made us vuln to vaxxer BS --> civil war?!

fox murdochs burn down the world for money and power (vax and AGW) ; koch gopanti-gubmint erode norms,

fox briefly forgot trump TV hacks and acted like a news org and reported FACT that trump lost AZ, immediate threat from oann newsmax reb mercer soc media play

no lnx

Black flag:Understanding the Trumpists' latest threatening symbol

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 12, 2021

It's an old truism that the "real bad men" (and bad women) "move in silence and violence." That's certainly true for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen, and other followers. But for Donald Trump himself, and most of his political cult, that rule does not apply....

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/trumpists/

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bully // tyrant oppressor

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10-21 an ME

Florida county is facing a multi-million dollar fine for requiring its government employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19. According to The Daily Beast, the Florida Department of Health issued a fine of $3.57 million to Leon County, Fla.

The county, which houses Florida's state capital Tallahassee, is accused of "'blatant violation' of Florida's controversial 'vaccine passport' law that prohibits governments and businesses from requiring residents to show proof they were vaccinated against the coronavirus."

According to the health agency, the county has violated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R) order prohibiting vaccine mandates a total of 714 times by requiring employees to provide proof of vaccination. So far, 14 government employees have been terminated for failure to meet vaccination requirements.

Now, the Republican governor has released a statement criticizing the county for its mandate.

"It is unacceptable that Leon County violated Florida law, infringed on current and former employees' medical privacy, and fired loyal public servants because of their personal health decisions," DeSantis said in a statement announcing the fines. "We will continue fighting for Floridians' rights and the Florida Department of Health will continue to enforce the law. We're going to stand up for Floridians' jobs, stand up for Floridians' livelihoods, and stand up for freedom."

In the wake of DeSantis' announcement of the fine, some Florida officials have released statements expressing concern and outrage.

"Unbelievable!" Sen. Loranne Ausley (D-Tallahassee, Fla.) said in a statement. "We don't need the State bullying our communities or private businesses who are simply trying to serve the people and get on the other side of this pandemic. It's going to take all of us standing together to make this happen."

However, officials are not the only people angered by the fine. Describing DeSantis' action as "political posturing," Christopher Link, of Tallahassee, Fla., explained how the imposed fine will impact residents.

"It's all just political posturing," Christopher Link, a Tallahassee resident, told the publication on Tuesday. " t makes no sense and only hurts the taxpayer. The fact that the better good for the health of the state is so wrongly politicized is insane. The crazies have taken over, really."

He added, "This pandemic has been going on for over a year, and I've never really felt like the priority in Florida was about saving lives. Just careers."

---

1021 ah

As much as there is to criticize about Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the right-wing Republican senator made perfect sense when he recommended getting vaccinated for COVID-19 during a recent speech at a GOP event in his state. But anti-vaxxers in the crowd responded by booing, jeering and heckling him, and liberal Washington Post opinion writer Eugene Robinson — discussing that embarrassing incident in his October 8 column — poses the question, "How dumb can a nation get and still survive?"

It's a perfectly legitimate question in light of the fact that Graham, in August, was infected with COVID-19 — which, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has killed more than 4.8 million people worldwide, including over 710,000 in the United States. Graham had been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 but was infected anyway; he was an example of what medical experts call a "breakthrough" case. However, it wasn't a really serious or life-threatening infection; the senator didn't need to be hospitalized and was never on a ventilator — andduring his speech in South Carolina, he attributed the vaccine to the fact that his case of COVID-19 wasn't more serious.

But anti-vaxxer wingnuts didn't want to hear that, and they responded by booing him loudly.

Robinson writes, "COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease that has killed more than 700,000 Americans over the past 20 months. The Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines all but guarantee that recipients will not die from COVID. I have, or had, an acquaintance who refused to get vaccinated, despite pleas from his adult children to protect himself. He got COVID-19, and it killed him. Most of the deaths the nation has suffered during the current Delta variant wave of the disease — deaths of the unvaccinated — have been similarly needless and senseless."

The Post columnist points out that Graham, unlike his unvaccinated acquaintance, is still very much alive — and he slams the booing of Graham by anti-vaxxer Republicans as "just plain stupid."

Robinson writes, "How did we become, in such alarming measure, so dumb? Why is the news dominated by ridiculous controversies that should not be controversial at all? When did so many of our fellow citizens become full-blown nihilists who deny even the concept of objective reality? And how must this look to the rest of the world?"

The booing of Graham isn't the only example of "droolingly stupid" behavior by Republicans that Robinson calls out in his column — he also slams Republicans who play "frequent games of chicken" with the United States' debt ceiling, obsess over Critical Race Theory and promote the Big Lie.

"Conservatives in state legislatures across the country are pushing legislation to halt the teaching of 'Critical Race Theory' in public schools," Robinson explains. "I put the term in quotes because genuine Critical Race Theory, a dry and esoteric set of ideas debated in obscure academic journals, is not actually being taught in those schools at all. What's being taught instead — and squelched — is American history, which happens to include slavery, Jim Crow repression and structural racism."

Robinson adds, "I get it. The GOP has become the party of white racial grievance, and this battle against an imaginary enemy stirs the base. But the whole charade involves Republican officials — many of them educated at the nation's top schools — betting that their constituents are too dumb to know they're being lied to. So far, the bet is paying off.And then, of course, there's the whole 'stolen election' farce, which led to the tragedy of January 6."

===

---

1021 an

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/supreme-court-2655250387/

Yesterday, I described a situation in which local boards of education are being squeezed between two separate but related forces. On the one hand are shadowy nonprofit organizations funded by the very obscenely rich that are staging "protests" against masks, vaccines, the teaching of anti-racism and other things they don't. I call them the death-threat squads. They harass, intimidate and threaten board members in such numbers as totrigger waves of resignations. Their goal isn't changing minds. It's silencing enemies. The tactic works.

But it only works due to the help of a tandem force in question. On the other hand are local law enforcement officers, even whole police and sheriffs' departments, who do not or will not enforce the law in order prevent such crimes from being committed. Why? Because they are sympathetic to the interests of those who are committing the crimes. For this reason, a national school board group called on the president to help. The US attorney general is now taking steps to investigate.

I'm summarizing yesterday's column, because I want to stress this pattern — the squeeze play — that's between active agents of the very obscenely rich and passive agents of the state. I want you to be aware of how these lawless forces work in tandem, though not necessarily in explicit coordination, to shape not only our views of politics but our understanding of freedom, too. I want you to see more fully that what they are doing now is how they want America to be, a nation in which the in-group can harass, intimidate and threaten the out-group, and the out-group is legally and constitutionally bound to put up with it.

Consider an upcoming case to be heard before the United States Supreme Court. It's the biggest case on Second Amendment rights since Heller in 2008. Heller established the right to self-defense. The state is forbidden to outlaw guns for personal use and safety. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, plaintiffs hope to take Heller a step further to establish the right to conceal one's weapon.

It's important to understand the context of Bruen. Heller was decided before America elected its first Black president. After the election, the"gun-rights" movementsprang into action. I said this yesterday, but didn't say why. It's because democracy "unexpectedly" empowered non-white people. For many white people, empowered non-white people, especially Black people, means disempowered white people.

Something had to be done. Since American democracy could no longer be trusted, they turned to their guns. They turned to tactics to fight the feeling of being "enslaved." Thanks to Heller, they could legally carry their guns in public, in places where they'd never need a gun, like the library. They said they were exercising their rights. They were lying. They were doing exactly what the school board death-threat squads are doing now. (Local law enforcement officers said then as now that nothing can be done.) They were harassing, intimidating and threatening people they don't like. They were doing that because harassing, intimidating and threatening people makes them feel free.

The need among some white people to feel "free" in the face of a treacherous democracy that empowered non-white people — thus robbing white people of their freedoms — was so fierce that a day that might otherwise have triggered a national reckoning on gun violence was barely noticed. While most Americans saw the slaughter of 20 innocents at Sandy Hook as an overwhelming reason to increase gun regulation, the "gun-rights" movement was focused on something else: the 2012 reelection of Black president and chief avatar of tyranny.

I used to say the Republican reaction to the Sandy Hook massacre was the rapid expansion of laws deregulating access to firearms and their use. I was wrong. Those laws, including concealed carry laws, were a reaction to Barack Obama's reelection. They were a reaction to American democracy betraying white people for a second time. (The good guy with a gun is not just a good guy who shoots back. He's a white guy who's "free" to shoot whomever he pleases. That's what makes him good.) It is the expansion of these laws, and all they symbolize, that's set to be heard by the Supreme Court. I don't have reason to doubt this court will establish a concealed carry right. Once that happens, the right to military weapons might not be far behind.

Thus the high court will do its part in squeezing freedom out of Americans. On the one hand, the in-group gets to harass, intimidate and threaten the out-group with guns, concealed and/or open. One the other, local law enforcement gets to shrug, pointing helplessly to the Supreme Court and its interpretation of the Constitution. The out-group does indeed have the right to equal protection. What we're seeing, in stages, is a slow-motion conspiracy to pretend otherwise.

Which is the point. Freedom for the out-group is equal to tyranny for the in-group. More accurately, freedom for the in-group is dependent on the out-group living in fear of the in-group. Without that fear, the in-group just doesn't feel free enough. That's why freedom isn't and can't only be doing whatever you want. Freedom must mean harassing, intimidating and threatening the out-group while enacting laws and interpreting the Constitution so the out-group can't fight back.

---

rww 921

several Republican members of Congress, North Carolina state legislators, various candidates for office, and radical religious-right activists gathered at Temple Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina, last weekend for the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Salt & Light Conference.”

Among the politicians in attendance was Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who used his time in front of his home state crowd to declare that he is waging a “spiritual battle” in the supposedly “evil and vile” Washington, D.C., against people like Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her “cold, evil eyes.”

“I believe that the power of prayer will save this country in the coming decades,” Cawthorn. “When I’m in Washington, D.C., I know a lot of you consider the place to be evil and vile, and I am here to tell you with first-hand knowledge, it is evil and vile. But I will tell you when I’m there, I don’t feel an overwhelming sense ofdarkness as if the devilhas complete dominion of that area because I feel a spiritual battle going on on Capitol Hill. And patriots like all of you in this room, on your knees, praying that we have the cover within the spiritual fight is what it will take to save this country.”

“I have to look Nancy Pelosi in her cold, evil eyes every single day,” he continued. “She just passed a bill yesterday trying to say that we can abort babies on demand all the way up until right before the day of birth. When we hear this, when we hear the fact that if a baby comes through a botched abortion alive, sitting there on the table, they then still have the right to murder that child, we realize that when I quip and say, ‘I look her in her cold, evil eyes,’ it’s not a joke. These people hate us.”

“I will tell you, the only way that we take our country back is when strong, God-fearing patriots decide it is time for us to stand up and say, ‘No’ to your tyranny,”Cawthorn declared. “It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows, to say no longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in. We are going to stand valiantly for God’s incredible, inerrant truths that predate any version of government. Because my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, and our children will never know what freedom is. It’s our duty to stand up. I encourage you—let us stand united as men and women of faith to fight for our country!”

---

san jose nyc and san fran req proof vax to go to bar, sports, rest, sj nazi BS 821

https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/south-carolina-school-board-covid/ nAZI CONC CAMPS

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trump Jr. mocked for tweet claiming troops refusing vaccine will get 're-education'

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

August 26, 2021

Donald Trump Jr. is being mocked after retweeting a post from the far right wing website The Daily Caller that claims troops refusing the Military's mandatory coronavirus vaccination program will go through "re...

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someone says freeDUMB just assertion of white malexian priviledge

Rand Paul tells vaccinated Americans to 'mind your own business'

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

August 05, 2021

U.S. Senator Rand Paul blasted millions of Americans who are fully vaccinated, telling them to "mind your own business" after complaining about those who say they don't want to eat in restaurants where everyone...

---

bitcoin dude, not secure

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/have-you-seen-the-maga-inspired-freedom-phone-here-s-why-you-should-stay-as-far-away-from-it-as-possible/

---

wbur

:{:{}:

People have been having debates — sometimes arguments — with friends, family, coworkers and strangers about the personal responsibility of wearing a mask and getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Heated conversations are also unfolding around guns following two back-to-back mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado. Opinions emerging from these debates often touch upon personal freedoms, liberty and responsibility as Americans living in a democracy.

These themes continue to surface as Americans grapple with what individuals’ responsibilities are to each other while also enjoying personal liberty, linguist George Lakoffsays.

“Liberty comes through legitimate authority, usually through political authority. The question then is, if you have liberty in that way, do you have responsibilities to other people who have liberty? That is, you're not free to limit other people's freedom, and that's a very important idea,” he says.

While Americans have First Amendment speech, an individual can’t yell “fire” into a crowded theater, for example. And with the Second Amendment, Americans have the right to bear arms but aren’t allowed to shoot people.

But personal freedoms and liberty through the context of Amendment rights is a nuanced concept.

“We're equipped to understand it simply, intuitively, because democracy requires empathy,” Lakoff says. “... Without empathy, without the very idea of caring about other people, there can be no notion of democracy.”

That means the definition of liberty is not the same as freedom, he says. Liberty, a political notion, “has to do with a legitimate authority imposing a freedom within a range of the laws given by that legitimate authority,” he explains, while freedom is “sort of neutral.” Politicians often use the language of freedom and liberty to suit their goals, whether it be masks, guns or many other divisive topics. Republicans in general tend to talk more about freedom than liberty, Lakoff says.

Last month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke to conservatives about taking a hands-off approach to the pandemic.

“We are in an oasis of freedom in a nation that’s suffering from the yoke of oppressive lockdowns,’' DeSantis said. “We look around in other parts of our country, and in far too many places, we see schools closed, businesses shuttered and lives destroyed.”

DeSantis’ use of “oppressive lockdowns” means the governor is pushing a narrative that public health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus are oppressive to people and companies who don’t care about whether or not they are contributing to the dangers of COVID-19, Lakoff says.

“The effect is to say that a government that cares about its people is not legitimate. That's the effect,” he says. “It says that people are free, independent of what its government says about taking care of the health and well-being of the people at large.”

Liberals approach the language of freedom and liberty very differently, he says.

For example, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer commented last week on legislation that's been proposed to restrict access to guns following the recent shootings.

“We cannot seem to finish grieving one tragedy before another takes place. It's a reminder that we must confront a devastating truth in the United States — an unrelenting epidemic of gun violence steals innocent lives with alarming regularity,” Schumer said.

Schumer is clearly saying no, no one should be able to go out and buy an AR 15-type weapon, Lakoff says. At one time, assault weapons were banned thanks to the work of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 1994, but the legislation expired and wasn’t renewed due to congressional Republicans who were supported by gun manufacturers, he says.

When American virtues such as liberty and freedom were being debated by the country’s founders, semi-automatic weapons weren’t even conceptualized. At the time, rifles had to be hand stuffed with a round, gunpowder-filled bullet that could only fire one shot, Lakoff says.

It seems like no matter the debate, productive conversations on liberty and freedom are difficult to have when contention is sewn into the politics of the U.S. Lakoff says there’s no real way around it when one national party takes such a strong stance in one direction.

---

Lynn Menegon produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.

This segment aired on March 30, 2021.

---

===

Marjorie Taylor Greene says Nancy Pelosi's COVID policies are 'exactly' like the Holocaust

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/marjorie-taylor-greene-2653074645/

===

no twt pix dress all blk looks like skater chick

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)is leading the charge among House Republicans to refuse to follow Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rule continuing the mask mandate, with at least a dozen far right lawmakers flouting their obligation.

"Masks are oppressive and nothing but a political tool. End the oppression!" Greene tweeted Tuesday.

As with many issues from the far right House members, they are literally the cause of their own issues. The House mask mandate has remained in place because, according to CNN, less than half of the House members say they are vaccinated. One hundred percent of House Democrats are, the unvaccinated are all Republicans.

Forbes' Andrew Solender reportsamong those refusing to wear masks on the House floor are "some of the House's most vocal right-wingers: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Laure Boebert (R-Colo.), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas)."

The hypocrisy isn't limited to refusing to be vaccinated.

Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, according to Solender, "says he 'got into it' with the GOP lawmakers and joked that they are pro-choice when they told him the mandate is a 'violation of their right to decide for themselves.'"

They replied 'absolutely not, it's a totally different thing,' he says."

The U.S. is approaching 34 million cases of COVID-19, and just passed 600,000 coronavirus deaths.

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The very fact that Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate is happening, and that it will be happening over the next seven to 10 days, means it's constitutional. Full stop.

Quite literally, the Senate Republicans are saying it's unconstitutional to prosecute a former (Republican) president, because they want it to be unconstitutional to prosecute a former (Republican) president. But the fact that a former (Republican) president is being prosecuted—starting today—invalidates the premise of their constitutional argument. Indeed, it wasn't an argument. The truth is in plain sight. When it came to a Democratic president who lied to a grand jury, the authority of the Congress would not be denied! When it comes to a (former) Republican president involved in the attempted murder of his enemies, that authority is a bit much, don't you think?

Gerald Ford, when he was the House minority leader during the Watergate era, famously said "high crimes and misdemeanors" are "whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers them to be at a moment in history." Same thing for the question of whether it's constitutional to prosecute a former president. If a majority of the United States Senate (or rather a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate in the case of conviction) says it's constitutional, it's constitutional ipso facto. So, again, with feeling: Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate begins today. That it's happening at all, and that it could lead to conviction, means it's constitutional.

With there being zero chance of the United States Supreme Court getting involved in a dispute between the branches of the United States Congress, the question is settled. It's over. Indeed, there never was a question. (The truth has been in plain sight.) Because there never was a question, we should ask ourselves: why are the Republicans pretending there's a question when there's no question? Once you start asking yourself that question, the trial's outcome, which is not in doubt, starts to be less important than the reason the Senate Republicans are asking the question in the first place.

The reason the Senate Republicans are questioning a certainty (i.e., Jesus *God*, yes, it's constitutional to prosecute a former president, will you please knock it off already?) is the**same reason all Republicans are so often certain about things that might actually be in question. The truth is always a threat. Deference to truth is always tyranny. What's important is authority. Their authority. Their authority over you *and everyone you love*. And once you start seeing the deep authoritarianism of most of the Republicans in the Congress, once you start seeing the deep authoritarianism of millions of your fellow Americans**, you also start seeing lying isn't something they do merely to get what they want. Lying is something they do, because lying is the point.

:{:{Remember that Rand Paul and other Senate Republicans have something you don't. **They have a global right-wing media apparatus to not only amplify their lies, but :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:*bend perception*:{ away from political reality and toward a favorable fictional one. To lie at this grand a scale is to create a world in which morality is perverted, politics is barbarous, and whole populations can be pushed around and told what to believe, and not only that: they :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:*want to believe*:{, because the lies have become so totalizing that everything being upside down, backwards and prolapsed seems normal, rational and worthy of defended in the name of:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{ *muh freedom***. :(style="background-color:#ffcc66ff"):}:When everyone says the sky is green when the truth is in plain sight, everyone is not merely trying to deceive you. Everyone is maintaining a perversion in which speaking truthfully could inspire your murder.}:

The House Democratic impeachment managers are going to push through the Republicans' lies in order to reveal the whole truth to the American people about their former president, which is this: Donald Trump committed a heinous presidential crime worthy, at the very least, of being disqualified for life from holding public office. This is as it should be, but let's not forget what the lies themselves reveal.

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all sorts of rw nonsense in the name of? goes back to mussolini?

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Gun-Loving Conservative Columnist Accidentally Killed After Letting Teen Boy Hold His Firearm

Brad Reed Raw Story

December 29, 2016

M.D. Harmon, a conservative columnist who frequently wrote in favor of gun ownership rights for the Portland Press Herald, died this week after being accidentally shot by a teenage boy.

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aha rhet morph from civil war (proslavery) to 1776, no one says so, but builds on Tea Party tobacco koch BS

https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/infowars-alex-jones-funded-and-fomented-mob

no vid

great banner pix saved jnzmegaphone

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and coordinated with the White House in the organizing of a January 6 event that culminated in a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In comments made on Infowars broadcasts and during speeches delivered in Washington, D.C., in the days before January 6, Jones and his fellow Infowars host Owen Shroyer frequently used violent and revolutionary rhetoric in calling for the overturning of legitimate election results.

Five people lost their lives during the violent incursion in the Capitol that immediately followed an inciting speech given by the president on January 6. Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she attempted to breach the Speaker’s Lobby, which is close to the U.S. House of Representatives floor. U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters. Three other Trump supporters died after experiencing medical emergencies, including one who was trampled to death by the mob.

Some Trump supporters made it clear their purpose in the Capitol was to hunt down and kill lawmakers. The quick thinking of [AA] Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who faced down the mob alone, diverted rioters away from the Senate floor, as captured in a stunning video taken by HuffPo reporter Igor Bobic.

Jones’ Infowars outlet was promoting a January 6 event as early as December 31. In a video posted to Infowars’ streaming platform Banned.video, a man ranted about the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election, saying, “These liberals think they can just do whatever the fuck they want. You know why that is? It’s because we sit there and we say we want to talk it out.” The video transitioned to promotional material for Infowars’ January 6 event and included a voiceover of Jones saying “It’s 1776 time,” a reference to the Revolutionary War. vid]

on January 2, Jones said during a broadcast that “it takes money to put my crew and security in D.C., and it takes money to organize this, and we put a lot of money -- myself -- into paying for the event Trump is going to be at and the other event.” He then encouraged viewers tobuy nutritional supplements from the Infowars Store and told them they “are funding the second American Revolution.” AHA ITS TEA PARTY DERIVATIVE]

The next day, Jones again discussed his involvement in planning and paying for the event. During his broadcast, he excoriated Trump supporters who were hesitant to travel to Washington, D.C., claiming, “I’ve seen people making a lot of excuses. ‘Oh, antifa is dangerous.’ It’s a lot more dangerous walking across the street.There’s hardly no antifa. They are a bunch of cowards.” (After mayhem unfolded at the Capitol, Jones and his outlet falsely blamed antifa supporters for the violence that took place.) He added, “It’s not about Infowars getting the credit for this, it’s about the fact that no one would step up and put the money in. ... I stepped up and put the money in for the 5th and for the 6th and then a donor came along, a great patriot, and paid $400,000-plus for the rest of it. I’m in over $130,000, and I'm not complaining about that. I had to do it when no one else was two weeks ago.”

Jones, Infowars host Owen Shroyer, and other Infowars employees then traveled to Washington, D.C. During a January 5 speech in downtown Washington, Shroyer said, “Americans are ready to fight. We’re not exactly sure what that is going to look like, perhaps, in a couple of weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election of Joe Biden.” He went on to “salute” Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) for their efforts to overturn the election and said of the people gathered there, “We are the new revolution.”

Meanwhile, Jones was at an event outside the Supreme Court, where he told a crowd, “We are facing Satan, and the answer to Satan’s 1984 is George Washington’s 1776.”

That evening, Jones and Shroyer regrouped to give more speeches in downtown Washington. Shroyer told a crowd, “Thomas Jefferson once said when the government fears the people, there is freedom. But for too long now the people have feared the government. … I can tell you that thecrooked politicians that occupy our Capitol are in fear right now. Do you know how I know this? Because they are scurrying around in secret tunnels to avoid ‘we the people.’ Right now as we speak they’re scurrying around like the little rats that they are to try to avoid you.”

When Jones took over the lectern, he told a cheering crowd that“we have only begun to resist the globalists” and that “they have tried to steal this election in front of everyone.” Jones also said,“I don’t know how all this is going to end, but if they want a fight, they better believe they’ve got one.”

He went on to say, “This will be their Waterloo. This will be their destruction.” (Waterloo refers to the pivotal battlefield defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte that ended the Seventh Coalition.) Jones also said that Winston Churchill “gave a famous speech where he said all I can promise you is blood, and pain, and war, and suffering. But the alternative is even worse:total slavery.” He then led the crowd in a “1776” chant.

The violent rhetoric continued the next day at Infowars’ event, which immediately preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During a January 6 speech in downtown Washington, Jones again told a crowd, “We declare 1776 against the New World Order.” Shroyer spoke from his own bullhorn while standing beside Jones, saying, “They said you lost this election in a landslide to [Joe] Biden. We said, ‘No, we don’t buy your bullshit.’ But, guess what? You want to feed us bullshit? We’re going to bring it right to your front door and you can eat it yourselves.” (Some Trump insurrectionists at the Capitol did in fact smear their own feces throughout the building’s hallways during the attack.)

At one point, Jones told the crowd to head to the Capitol “peacefully,” in contradiction to much of what he had said about what should happen on January 6. He also attempted to rile up the crowd by falsely telling them that Biden’s win in Arizona had been reversed and that “we have only begun to fight. This is 1776.” As people began to make their way to the Capitol, Shroyer yelled from a bullhorn that Democrats are “tyrants” and led the crowd in a “death to tyrants” chant. Jones then can be then heard attempting to privately confer with his crew, saying, “Let’s take it to the Capitol.”

While Jones and Shroyer did not enter the Capitol building and instead retreated to a “secure location” during the insurrection, an Infowars cameraperson, who identified himself only as “your boy Sam with Infowars.com,” did go inside as both a mob participant and a recorder of the events. Shortly before entering the building, he said, “We have had enough,” and “I got to be honest, this is not a peaceful protest.” Once he crossed the threshold, he yelled, “Guess what? We are in the Capitol, baby!” From a video uploaded to Banned.video with the title “Patriots Storm Congress Raw Footage Includes Execution of Ashli Babbitt,” it is apparent that “Sam” was just feet away from Babbitt when she was fatally shot near the Speaker’s Lobby. Although recent Infowars videos identify him only as “Sam,” older videos posted to Banned.video reveal that he appears to go by the name Sam Montoya.

As the attempted insurrection unfolded, Infowars’ Harrison Smith, who was guest-hosting The Alex Jones Show because Jones and Shroyer were in Washington, praised the “patriots” who were storming the Capitol, at least one of whom participated in beating officer Sicknick to death. The following day, Jones again claimed to have spent “close to a half a million dollars” organizing the gathering in Washington and also said that he organized the event in coordination with the White House.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Jones called on his supporters to “surround” the Georgia governor’s mansion and “rise up” because officials in that state refused to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory. In December, Shroyer praised the efforts of Trump supporters to violently disrupt the Oregon state legislature’s consideration of a COVID-19 relief bill.

Throughout the Trump presidency, Jones has often hyped the prospect of a second American Civil War that would pit conservatives against liberals, including saying that he would personally participate in violence and help execute supposed traitors. In recent months, Jones has hosted Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes, who said during his Infowars appearances that his followers were on alert for a command from Trump to start carrying out mass violence against Democrats in Washington, D.C., and at other locations.

For his part, Shroyer said during a November 18 broadcast that prominent Democrats and members of the mainstream media “deserve” to be the victims of mass violence if Trump is not allowed to continue to be president, despite his defeat. He added, “I know I won’t have to be the one to get my hands dirty. I can sit right here in studio and just broadcast the whole thing.”

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woman shot herself (in face?) w/ bra gun? gop MOC died w/o seatbelt in SUV b/c she wd not go thru sec to fly?

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/texas-supreme-court/

truscott salon

they didn't bother with writing articles of secession this time. No, Ken Paxton, the disgraced attorney general of the state of Texas, did that for them when he filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the presidential election. On Wednesday, Missouri and 16 other states filed a brief with the court seeking to join the Texas lawsuit, which alleges that the four decisive swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia violated the Constitution by allowing mail-in voting in the November election. On Thursday, a majority of the Republican caucus in the House, 126 members of Congress, signed on to the lawsuit along with the instigator in chief, Donald Trump. Twenty-five states and territories signed a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit. Friday evening, the Supreme Court rejected the suit out of hand.

The 18 states and 126 members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, are seceding from democracy.It amounts to nothing less than an act of sedition by the entire Republican Party, 70 percent of whom believe that Joe Biden's election was illegitimate, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday. In contrast, 98 percent of Democrats think Biden's victory was legitimate, along with 62 percent of independents.

The last time anything like this happened was in 1860, when the election of Abraham Lincoln led almost immediately to declarations of secession by seven states between Dec. 20, 1860 and Feb. 1, 1861. Two months later, on April 12, the bombardment of Fort Sumter began, and the Civil War was underway.

It's not a shooting war — yet — but Texas didn't just file a lawsuit this week, it set a match to the Constitution of the United States. It isn't just that these Republicans don't recognize Joe Biden as our next president. They don't want to be part of the democracy that this country was founded on. They don't respect the votes of their fellow citizens. They don't want what more than 80 million people wanted when they cast their votes in this election. They want what Donald Trump wants.

Thankfully, it's not the whole country. The Quinnipiac poll found that 60 percent of registered voters think that Biden's victory was legitimate. But it wasn't the whole country in 1860, either. It was only after the election of Lincoln that the Southern states seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery.

This time there isn't a single issue, there's a single man: Donald Trump. In this way, what's happening right now in this country is eerily similar to what happened in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s with Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Trump has identified and used the same sort of mass hysteria Hitler did — a sense of resentment among his supporters that somehow they have been left behind and misunderstood and humiliated, and that only he, Trump, understands them and is willing to stand up for them and will bring back their rightful way of life.

So far, Trump has only played around with the kind of violence that Hitler made use of to achieve power and then consolidate it. Trump used implied violence in the chants of "Lock her up" that energized supporters at his rallies in 2016 and throughout the campaign of 2020. By staying silent this year when armed protesters occupied the State Capitol in Michigan, Trump implied his support, and his exhortations to "liberate" states that were mandating lockdowns to fight COVID were taken by many as invitations to violence.

Now armed protesters have gathered outside the home of the Michigan secretary of state, and Georgia election officials report that they are receiving death threats and racist voice mails. The Republican Party of Arizona has retweeted exhortations from those who say, "I'm willing to give up my life for this fight," suggesting it's time to "die for something." The New York Times reported this week that the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission has said that "people on Twitter have posted photographs of my house." Another tweet mentioned her children and threatened "I've heard you'll have quite a crowd of patriots showing up at your door."

The conservative website The Bulwark reported this week that far-right websites have been posting addresses and other personal information about Republican elected officials in Georgia, superimposing target crosshairs over images of their faces. Right-wing Republicans are in full cheerleader mode trying to turn Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of murdering two people and wounding another at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest, into a hero of the Trump cause. A Democratic state representative in Pennsylvania told the New York Times that "we've been getting emails all the time, all hours of the day and night," and that "they're getting more angry, and a lot of calls are saying we won't be forgetting."

This kind of stuff is not a joke. The fantastic lie that has gripped the Republican Party started out with everyone going along with Trump's fantasy and kind of humoring him. But now it's taken a deadly turn. Trump has been calling Republican state representatives on the phone and pressuring them to go along with his demands that they ignore the votes that have taken place in swing states and appoint electors that will vote for him. If they step out of line, they're branded as traitors, cowards, RINOs. He's doing this kind of stuff to his own people, to loyal Republicans who have voted the party line since they were in short pants.

When you add in what's been happening in red states with COVID, it's jaw-dropping. Governors and Republican-controlled state legislatures are so intimidated that they won't pass mask mandates and bar closures, not to mention rules against mass gatherings. COVID cases and hospitalizations in red states are off the charts. They are lining up refrigerated trucks outside hospitals in states like North and South Dakota. Republicans are killing their own people in craven attempts to keep Donald Trump from attacking them on Twitter. God only knows what's going to happen in those states when the COVID vaccines become widely available, although we're getting some idea with reports of people standing up at meetings of county commissioners pledging not only that they won't wear masks, they'll also refuse to be vaccinated.

The Mason-Dixon line is psychological this time. These people have lost their minds. They have seceded from sanity and reason. This Civil War isn't being fought with rifles and pistols. It's a war fought with lies and delusions. This week it passed the number of Americans killed in World War II, and its victims are just as dead as the bodies buried at Anzio and Normandy. Americans are dying every time Mitch McConnell stands up and blocks a COVID relief bill. They are dying every time a Republican senator like Ron Johnson presents testimony from an anti-vaxxer as if it were a sane person instead of an outright idiot. They're dying by the thousands with their mask-less hubris. They're dying for Donald Trump, but at least for now, our democracy has not died with them.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-and-the-right-share-a-darwinist-herd-mentality-and-preference-for-sacrificing-the-weak-to-capitalism/

carl pope salon

Donald Trump's promise in an ABC News town hall last month that the United States would soon achieve herd immunity for the coronavirus, and conflating that with herd mentality, may be explained because Trump is counting on the latter to rescue his second term. It's otherwise impossible to imagine a campaign whose endgame is to recover the lost loyalty of voters over 65 selecting as its closing argument, "Not enough of you have died yet."

It's a safe bet that none of his 2016 Republican primary challengers would have embraced the idea that the solution to the pandemic was more American casualties than the Civil War and World War II combined. But many of Trump's Republican comrades-in-arms have embraced, often eagerly, a default preference for herd immunity — harkening back to the harsh social Darwinism that underlies much of modern conservatism. Early on in the pandemic there were Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Rep. Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana and radio host Glenn Beck, all of whom argued that the loss of more American lives was preferable to scaling back the economy. Then, when the issue became wearing masks, some opponents argued "if I'm going to get COVID and die from it, so be it …" Of course they really meant, "If you are going to get COVID ..." Wearing masks was a deprivation of freedom — although this argument seems never to have been extended by Republicans to the prohibition on public nudity.

As the pandemic surged again, by October Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was referring to "unjustified hysteria" about covid, and asked, after he became infected, ""Why do we think we actually can stop the progression of a contagious disease?" (The obvious answer is that we have been doing so, with increasing success, since the 1854 cholera pump moment. That is rejected by many on the right, because stopping a pandemic may require the government to prevent citizens from endangering others.)

Herd immunity can sometimes reduce mortality from a disease, but over the centuries has failed to end the curse of influenza, tuberculosis, smallpox, polio, rabies or dengue fever. It fits neatly, however, into a social Darwinist framework. Those who die are the "weak" — the poorest, the youngest and the oldest young —or can at any rate be classified as weak and deserving to die, because they died.Survival of the fittest requires discarding the weak.Remember the "let them die" hecklers who populated some of the 2011 Republican debates on health care.

This underlying value distortion — my personal freedom extends to my right to endanger you — spreads out across a range of other issues.Today's Republican reluctance to curb pollution even when it is demonstrably is killing a power plant's neighbors, to keep pesticides that kill farm workers out of the fields or to do anything at all about the climate crisis, which conservatives have privately conceded for years was real and caused by carbon pollution, are all illustrations of how the toxin of social Darwinism still contaminates much of the right's thinking about freedom.

So Trump's response to the COVID crisis — and the willingness of the Republican congressional establishment to enable it — illustrates a deep-rooted flaw in the American right. In a world in which we are, like it or not, all bound together, a tolerable conservatism is one that is willing to protect me from irresponsible neighbors, whether those are COVID-risking teenagers, irresponsible gun owners or multinational chemical companies.

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