Except I was wrong.

Libertarians in Red States may still naively hold this view because they didn’t have their lives upended like those Libertarians who lived in blue states. Red States significantly fought the lockdowns. In Blue States, we were arrested for kayaking or fishing.

When fishing was banned in my state, I was throwing red flags. Yet all my Leftist friends stood by the ban. “If you’re all standing around next to each other fishing, you’re going to spread the Coronavirus,” they said. There was not a single critical thought amongst them. As Leftists tend to surround themselves on coasts amongst natural resources, you’d think more of them have been fishing before. But they haven’t. “Just buy fish from the supermarket instead,” they insisted.

Yet, anyone who has ever been fishing before knows there is much more distance between yourself and another fisherman than there is between yourself and another customer at the meat counter. For a Party of Science, it is strange that the Left can’t account for currents. It’s crazy we don’t want our fishing lines to get crossed, therefore we stand a good distance away from each other. But that’s only where The Left began to fail at science during the pandemic, as they’ve failed every other step along the way.

We saw time and time again how restaurants and salons were shut down, only to become private events for politicians…. In Blue States. A single barber refusing to shut down was statewide news and controversial. Snitch Lists arose where people reported “Non Essential Businesses” for remaining open, which was a phenomenon largely reserved for Blue States. The reports largely targeted churches and gun shops, and leftists in Blue States used it as a tool to target political adversaries. It was political from the very beginning. COVID patients forced into nursing homes only happened in Blue States.

We are now two years into the pandemic, and lifting restrictions is a cause of The Right. Once a fringe position, School Choice is being adopted into the mainstream on the right due to mask mandates and Critical Race Theory. Meanwhile, The Left has been doubling down on harm to children, pushing for vaccine mandates on elementary age school children, while fighting tooth and nail to oppose curriculum transparency. They’ve been calling concerned parents terrorists. 

I’ve always had concerns with public school, as I myself am a product of it. I lived through it and was disenfranchised by it. In the last two years however, it’s clear Blue State society at large is trying to weaponize children against their parents via school curriculum. Don’t let the enemy mold your children.

Now, the Blue States are pushing vaccine mandates on children. The vaccine does not prevent the transmissibility of Omicron. The argument is that it does prevent a worse reaction. Yet, children have had little or no reaction to COVID-19 throughout all of the variants. The vaccine itself has a larger compromising threat to children than COVID does. So this makes absolutely no sense. It’s only The Left that’s pushing this.

The Left and The Right are clearly not the same. The Left is worse, and by large orders of magnitude. The Right is also quickly adopting more Libertarian positions in the wake of the pandemic. It’s time to leverage that. 

The post I Thought the Left and Right Were the Same, Until the Pandemic appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Anyone who claims that Ivermectin is simply horse dewormer or horse paste can take a hike into the ocean and their opinions can be discarded. Before it was called those things, it was called The Wonder Drug From Japan. Satoshi Ōmura and William Campbell were awarded a Nobel Prize in 2015 for their discoveries in the development of the drug, discovered in the 1970s. It was found to be beneficial to humans in 1988 for treating Onchocerciasis, but has since been used for humans to treat Strongyloidiasis, Ascariasis, cutaneous larva migrans, filariases, Gnathostomiasis and Trichuriasis, as well as for oral treatment of ectoparasitic infections, such as Pediculosis (lice infestation) and scabies (mite infestation).

Per the research paper housed on NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV, 

“Today, ivermectin is being increasingly used worldwide to combat other diseases in humans, such as c (which infects some 35 million each year), scabies (which causes 300 million cases annually), Pediculosis, Gnathostomiasis and Myiasis—and new and promising properties and uses for ivermectin and other avermectin derivatives are continuing to be found.58) These include activity against another neglected tropical disease, Leishmaniasis.59,60) Of perhaps even greater significance is the evidence that the use of ivermectin has both direct and indirect beneficial impact on improving community health.”

But horse paste.

Kitasato University in Japan, where Ivermectin was first developed, has been conducting a clinical trial of Ivermectin to treat symptoms of COVID. 

Japan is a country that has seen far lower COVID rates, along with South Korea. As the New York Times reported in December this year, COVID very specifically targets fat cells, so perhaps Japan’s 3% obesity rate has been a significant factor.

The study consists of 240 participants, half who will receive Ivermectin and half who will receive a placebo. The study actually began in September of 2020, with data collection taking place in October of 2021. It is now in Phase 2 of the study phase, with an estimated study completion date of May of 2022. 

Participants must be aged 20 or older, weigh at least 40kg, have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and may be male or female. 

The brief summary reads: “investigating the negative rate of SARS-CoV-2 PCR by a randomized controlled trial. Subjects are assigned to two groups, the placebo group, and the ivermectin group. The target number of each treatment arm is 120, a total of 240 cases. A single oral administration of 200 ㎍/kg of ivermectin or an ivermectin-free placebo will be administered on an empty stomach. Time to negativization of SARS-CoV-2 PCR as the primary endpoint with additional efficacy and safety of the process will be investigated.”

The study is being conducted by Kunihiro Yamaoka, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Rheumatology and Infectious Diseases.

While Ivermectin is a relatively recent hot topic in America, this has apparently been on Japan’s radar for quite a bit longer.

The post Japan Studying Ivermectin As COVID Treatment appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Moms for Liberty, a parental rights advocacy group focused on education, is grabbing national headlines as it rapidly expands throughout the U.S.

The Washington Post dedicated 2,000 words to the group in a piece which likened them to the Tea Party and the “moral majority” movement of the 1980s.

The COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of schools drove education to the forefront of political debates in 2020. Ongoing controversy surrounding vaccines and mask mandates, racial and sexual materials in school curriculum and transgender student policies has prompted concerned parents to organize and get involved in local and state politics.

“Parents are finding racially divisive, sexually explicit, and anti-American assignments in their children’s backpacks. Moms for Liberty chapters work to resolve concerns, review curriculum and request changes in their school districts,” Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty and former school board member, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Moms for Liberty, founded in January, has quickly grown to 140 chapters in 32 states with 56,000 members, according to Descovich.

Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party, told the DCNF that school board fights have awakened an entirely new demographic of voters, and Moms for Liberty is engaging them. Whether Democrat, Republican or Independent, parents are realizing that the government has tremendous power over their lives and that they need to be involved, he explained.

“They’re being painted as extremists because they pose a threat to the status quo,” Ziegler said. “Moms for Liberty is getting parents involved in their children’s education, and that should be applauded.”

“It’s clear that the Left and the mainstream media is in panic mode. They are desperate and doing everything they can to discredit and silence the tidal wave of concerned parents – who will undoubtedly make their voices heard come election time,” Bridgett Ziegler, co-founder of Moms for Liberty and member of the Sarasota school board, told the DCNF.

Jennifer Jenkins, who unseated Descovich from the Brevard school board in 2020, claimed the group’s members have targeted her and picketed her house, according to the Post. Descovich says the individuals involved in these incidents are not members of the group, and she has publicly denounced the acts multiple times.

Jenkins appeared on MSNBC on Oct. 14 and claimed protestors outside her house brandished weapons at her neighbors. While Jenkins filed multiple police reports involving harassment and vandalism outside her home, none of those reports mentioned weapons.

As schools boards delve into topics such as mask mandates and social justice issues, school board races become more hotly contested and their decisions receive increased scrutiny. But parents’ increased interest in the politics of public education is bleeding into elections at a larger scale.

Education is the most important issue among likely voters in the Virginia gubernatorial race, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, and a Fox News poll found Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin beating his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe by eight points Thursday.

Numerous political pundits view Tuesday’s race in Virginia as a bellwether for 2022 elections.

This article is republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post How A Moms Group Could Shake Up 2022 Elections appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

For example, Ohio implemented a “Vax-a-Million” initiative where it drew weekly lotteries for a $1 million prize among those who got the vaccine. Similar programs have cropped up around the country, such as “VaxCash” in Maryland and “Vax and Scratch” in New York. In all, states spent at least $90 million, likely more, Business Insider reports, on these kinds of vaccine lottery efforts.

Given the significant sums involved, it’s worth questioning: Did these pro-vaccine government initiatives actually accomplish their goals? 

The answer provided by a new study published in JAMA Health Forum is a resounding “no.” Researchers examined the 19 states with vaccine lottery schemes and compared them to states that did not enact such programs. The authors conclude that the impact these lotteries had on increasing vaccination rates was “very small in magnitude and statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

“There’s a lot of hype around these programs, and we can’t find any evidence that they helped,” economist and study co-author Andrew Friedson told Business Insider. “Each state’s doing several drawings, and these drawings are around a $1 million a pop, although some of them are less. With 19 states, you’re looking at a large amount of money that’s been spent on this.”

That’s all money that could’ve gone to more productive purposes—or better yet, left in taxpayers’ pockets to begin with.

Yes, in the grand scheme of how much governments spend, $90 million is not actually all that much money. But this utter failure is unfortunately emblematic of the government’s general level of efficiency.

After all, the federal government has lost up to an astounding $200 billion on COVID-19 “stimulus” fraud. That’s more than five times as much as it spent promoting vaccine development, to put the sum in context. And the government loses hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year to improper welfare and entitlement payments.

So, the millions wasted on failed vaccine lotteries are, sadly, no outlier.

Why is the government inherently incentivized toward waste and inefficiency? Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously answered this question when he explained that, fundamentally, the government’s job is to “spend somebody else’s money on somebody else.”

“If I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get,” Friedman concluded. “And that’s government.”

This intuition explains why local governments were so willing to risk millions on lotteries with so little foresight. It’s easy to propose handing out multi-million-dollar prizes (promoting behavior people would’ve done anyway) when you’re handing out someone else’s money.

It’s us taxpayers, not elected officials, who are left eating the loss. Regrettably, politicians will continue to be this cavalier with our money unless they are held to account.

WATCH: TikTok’s 5 Worst $15 Minimum Wage Arguments (DEBUNKED)

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This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The post States Spent $90 Million on Vaccine Lotteries and Accomplished Nothing appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

In an over 18 minute interview with Dr. Fauci, Hewit asked him to address what Fauci claimed are hurtful lies regarding COVID-19 vaccines spread by Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and other NBA players who refuse to get vaccinated, as well as the government overreach that occurred as a result of how the pandemic has been handled.

“These are people; they’re not stupid people, and yet they have somehow or other been convinced of things that are just not factual, Hugh. You look at the data. The data are overwhelming that these are highly effective and safe. If you look at the track record of vaccines in general, what they’ve done for society and the benefit-risk ratio overwhelmingly weighs in favor of the benefit.” Dr. Fauci said.

When asked if he would step down as head of the NIH if it would result in an overall increase in the number of vaccinated Americans, Dr. Fauci firmly stated that he would not resign.

“I’ve lost confidence in the CDC and the FDA, and I actually believe a lot of Americans, a significant part of America, now have lost confidence in you, Dr. Fauci.”

“Is there a point where you will say I do more harm than good because people don’t listen to me anymore and step aside?” Hewitt asked.

“No, absolutely, unequivocally no, Hugh. Sorry. I mean I agree with a lot of the things you’ve been saying. You come from a different perspective than I do, but I think the thing that gets lost in the discussion and that people need to understand—and I do know that some people don’t understand it and don’t accept it, you know smart people, who evaluate it in their own context—is that we have been dealing with an evolving situation,” responded Fauci .

Even when Hewitt asked Fauci if he’d resign in favor of a fresh face that hadn’t flip-flopped on their position on COVID-19 if many more Conservatives would get vaccinated, Fauci declined and suggested Hewitt was creating a false narrative.

“Hew, I think that is a completely false narrative that people are not getting vaccinated because of me. I am very sorry—I’ve known you a long time, and I respect you, but I totally reject that people are not getting vaccinated because of me. Are you kidding me, Hew? Come on!”

Watch the full interview below:

The post Hugh Hewitt Asks Dr. Fauci to Step Down to Increase Vaccinations. Fauci Says “No!” appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The tweet read: “Natural immunity >> vaccine immunity

So why force or coerce those with natural immunity from prior infection into taking the vaccine?”

Twitter labeled the tweet as misleading. Twitter disabled the ability to favorite or comment on the tweet, leaving Retweeting or Quote Tweeting as the only option.

According to Twitter, they’ve purposefully limited the ways in which people can interact with the tweet in order to diminish its reach.

However, prior to Thomas Massie authoring this Tweet, Bloomberg released a Tweet effectively making the same statement, based on a study.

The only difference between the Tweet from Thomas Massie and Bloomberg, is that Massie asked the logical follow up question. 

If a prior COVID infection provides better resistance against Coronavirus than vaccines do, then what incentive does a previously infected person have to get vaccinated?

The answer to that question is that there is clearly no benefit.  There is no scientific benefit, nor is there a moral argument to be had. This demographic of previously infected is also a threat to the idea of vaccine passports, if people who clearly do not need a vaccine opt not to do it, which is their right.

Yet Twitter, being the arbiters of whatever truth to whatever narrative they fancy, has censored an actual sitting Congressman who posted absolutely nothing misleading. His post was forthright and truthful, and the question he posed was logical.

The post Twitter Censors Rep Thomas Massie Over (Not) Misleading Tweet appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The post Australia Proves it is Basically an Island of Prisoners With COVID Restrictions appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Yet at the same time that all this alarm is mounting, the actual number of COVID-19 deaths is at a nadir. Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In [the] USA, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”

He shared this graph from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at, relatively speaking, extreme lows. Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

In USA, #COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. pic.twitter.com/bc3zRxIAiO

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) July 28, 2021

Now, some would cite rising COVID-19 case counts or hospitalizations in certain parts of the country as evidence that the pandemic is indeed once again spiraling out of control. But many COVID-19 cases recorded as positive are either asymptomatic or come with very mild symptoms—especially the cases confirmed among vaccinated individuals—so high case counts are not necessarily proof of a serious problem. Hospitalizations are concerning, yes, but primarily insofar as they lead to high numbers of deaths, which, thankfully, is not the case so far with the Delta variant. 

Others would say that deaths are a “lagging indicator” that come in several weeks after the increased spread of the disease. But the Delta variant has been spreading in the US for months now, and deaths have remained relatively flat, in part due to widespread vaccination. 

“It is striking that COVID mortality is at such low levels despite the fact that we are seeing an increase in cases of late,” Stanford Professor of Medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya tells FEE. “By immunizing the elderly and many other vulnerable people, we have provided them with excellent protection against severe disease in case they get infected. Also contributing is widespread natural immunity from recovered COVID patients. Though cases may rise, deaths will no longer follow in proportion.  We have effectively defanged the disease with our successful vaccination rollout.”

So, there’s simply no reason to expect the long downward trend in deaths shown in the above graph to suddenly spike upwards. And we can’t make public policy based on worst-case scenarios.

“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded,” as Nobel-Prize-winning economist Freidrich Hayek put it. “And once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.”

Examples of this timeless truth abound throughout history up until present day: from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II to the now-permanent infringements on our civil liberties after 9/11 to the sweeping expansion of government control during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, whether politicians like it or not, the COVID-19 crisis is largely over. So don’t fall for cynical arguments from power-hungry individuals who want their “emergency” powers to become permanent.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Image: Our World in Data

The post US COVID Deaths at Lowest Level Since March 2020: Harvard, Stanford Professors Explain appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Image: Flickr, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

The post Boris Johnson Unveils Reopening Plan, Says UK Must ‘Learn To Live With This Virus’ appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The other party punches you once in the gut. Sure, it hurt. Now, you’re filled with rage. Your adrenaline is flowing like whitewater. There’s anger in your face and fire in your eyes as you clench your fists.

The other party knows they’ve messed up. They start walking backwards with a worried look on their face as you begin making strides forward. They put their hands out while walking backward, saying “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. Come on, let’s not do this.”

The party that struck first is no longer a threat. They’ve effectively surrendered. Your gut still hurts and you’re still pissed. This is no longer a scenario of self-defense. They’re done. There is no longer an active or imminent threat as they walk it back.

Are you within your right to retaliate?

Yes, you are within your right to ruin their shit. Plenty of people would stand by and watch them get pummeled. After all, they clearly had it coming. Nobody feels bad, except for the pummelee who was hoping to escape a consequence.

Let’s keep this framework of pain and retaliation in mind as we move forward.

Let’s say that this other party does successfully evade the consequence. Perhaps they ran. You see them again two years later. Would it be reasonable to retaliate then? Most would say no, as the pain had long wore off and that this would be starting a new altercation altogether.

Now let’s imagine in that first incident, instead of striking you in the gut, they struck you in the head. Ever since, you’ve suffered migraines or seizures as a result of the head injury. The pain is permanent and plagues you often. It’s negatively altered your way and quality of life.

They managed to avoid consequence, say because you were rendered unconscious during the initial incident. You run into them again two years later, and it’s payback time. 

This is where we might run into some pushback. Bystanders would have an incorrect perception of what is occurring as it is the victim appearing to be the aggressor. However if they knew the full story, they’d probably let it go. The damage caused is substantial enough to alleviate a social statute of limitations. I don’t care that it was two years ago. I’m still living this way, and you never got your just desserts. The time has come.

A week ago, French President Macron was slapped in the face while greeting citizens. Watch below:

Pragmatic and Pacifist type Libertarians said that this act was wrong. Brad Polumbo, a writer for FEE Online, took to twitter to state that politicians suck, but what happened was never okay. He was then surprised at receiving some pushback.

First, we don’t know much about the background of Damien Tarel, the man who slapped Macron. That is aside from Tarel being a medieval combat enthusiast, a tidbit that BBC took great lengths to highlight front and center in order to trivialize him or paint him as absurd.

The BBC article did not mention to what extent he was affected by France’s lockdowns. Everyone in France was affected to some degree as their lockdowns were some of the most draconian in the world.

The fact of the matter remains that the cure was worse than the disease. Lockdowns had little to no impact on the spread of Covid-19, and the economic and health impacts of the lockdowns themselves caused far greater harm than they prevented. There was an astounding 51% increase in suicide attempts by girls aged 12-17. 

Yes, these lockdowns caused real damage and pain to ordinary people. Going back to our examples at the beginning of this piece, this is long term pain. The consequences and pain to impacted individuals is far greater than a punch to the gut that dulls and disappears after thirty seconds. 

I would much rather take a blow to my abdomen than lose my means of earning a living, or God forbid, a child to suicide. Yet in the former it is acceptable to strike back at the responsible party, but not the latter? Bullshit.

If Damien Tarel had been impacted by the useless lockdowns and lost anything, then Macron got off easy with a slap to the face. He is responsible for a good deal of long-term woes and permanent pain. 

None of these lockdown politicians will ever face consequences for what they did. Some may get voted out, but most won’t. They will never concede that they did anything wrong, nor show any remorse. They will continue repeating that science was on their side and they acted in the best interest of the public, when the opposite is true. Their reelection bids depend on it. Andrew Cuomo will never face consequences for killing senior citizens and hiding it. 

The same pro-lockdown voters who dogmatically believe that Andrew Cuomo did everything right while Ron DeSantis did everything wrong will continue to impose the people on you who took everything from you.

There is nothing morally incorrect about striking back at a person who has caused you this kind of harm, regardless if they’re a politician. As far as the people who will continue to impose these politicians on you? 

There’s a case to be made that it’s okay to strike those people too.

The post Violence in Retaliation is Justified, Even When Political appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.