Rits

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

🚨JAVIER MILEI LEAVES WEF AUDIENCE SPEECHLESS

"Feminism, diversity, inclusion, equity, immigration, abortion, environmentalism, gender ideology"

"These are all various heads of the same beast aimed at justifying state expansion"

[F. A. Hayek Quotes @FAHayekSays]

Thomas Sowell once asked, “What was Hayek's message, that it stirred so many people in so many ways?”

“Avoiding the facile dichotomizing of the political spectrum into left and right,” Sowell wrote, “The Road to Serfdom attacked fascism, socialism and communism as kindred forms of collectivism, relying on kindred arguments and tactics in undermining the kinds of institutions which made freedom possible.”

[Mark Changizi @MarkChangizi]

How Liberty Survives the Next Mania

I used to think the key to preserving liberty was education—arming people with the ethical and utilitarian arguments for free markets, free expression, and minimal government. Convince enough people, I thought, and the culture will self-reinforce these principles.

COVID disabused me of that notion.

At the start of the pandemic, even many of the most self-described classical liberals—people steeped in the history and logic of liberty, people who had themselves preached its virtues—abandoned them wholesale. They clamored for lockdowns, mask mandates, censorship, and emergency powers. They didn’t just go along reluctantly; many became some of the most vigorous enforcers of the new orthodoxy.

It was a stark reminder: most of the worst forms of statism don’t emerge through slow, creeping encroachment. They erupt in a sudden social mania. The Chinese Cultural Revolution came in a flash. Lenin’s Bolshevik takeover in 1917 overturned Russia almost overnight. Nazi Germany transformed from parliamentary democracy to totalitarian regime in the space of months. The Iranian Islamic Revolution swept away a modernizing monarchy in a single year.

These frenzies are not stopped by widespread knowledge of liberty. In fact, history shows that the most educated classes—those best versed in liberal theory—are often among the first to justify the mania on “pragmatic” grounds. When fear or fervor grips them, they reframe their abandonment of principle as an urgent necessity.

This means that the preservation of liberty is not primarily a battle of persuasion. It’s a battle of architecture. The goal is to build systems—political, cultural, and informational—that can withstand temporary but overwhelming surges of authoritarian impulse.

In epidemiological terms, liberty needs firebreaks.

During COVID, the United States had one great advantage: federalism. Each state retained substantial autonomy. Culturally, the states also varied widely in their instincts toward central authority. Together, these differences created both de jure and de facto borders for the spread of the COVID-statist memeplex.

That’s why there was such enormous variation in policy and culture from state to state. Florida and Texas didn’t become anti-lockdown and pro-freedom bastions because their residents had read more Hayek than those in New York or California. They became so because their state governments had the legal authority, the political culture, and the will to diverge sharply from the national mood. This divergence created choice, competition, and safe havens. It gave the mania somewhere to meet resistance—and eventually to lose steam.

The lesson: liberty survives not by perfect ideological commitment, but by the imperfect fragmentation of power and culture.

[more below]

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

funny how this is true in every country with “free” healthcare.
you’re forced to bankroll a bloated, inefficient public system you might never use, then end up still paying for private care because the wait times are insane and the quality is mediocre.
you pay twice for worse service, just to keep bureaucrats, middle-managers, and freeloaders fat and happy.
worst medical model on earth.

[Atlas Thugged @AtlasXThugged]

Leibniz 🤯

Why don’t we see this level of breadth anymore among intellectuals?

[Bryce M. Lipscomb @BryceMLipscomb]

Javier Milei’s approval rating has soared to 63%, with 70% of Argentinians saying they now support Libertarianism.

Mileism is sweeping through Argentina and Free Market Capitalism is winning the day.

[Mark Changizi @MarkChangizi]

You have missed the entire moral of totalitarianism and crimes against humanity. To you, it’s all top down driven by cabals. No. It’s bottom up mass hysteria. You’re leaning on a children’s notion of how complex emergent networks work. As if we explain starling formations by identifying the bird or group of birds who’s steering them.

Event 201 was one of hundreds of such things, not plans to attack us, but stupid authoritarian springs set to launch if an emergency of type X occurs. To “help” us. They truly believe that, but they’re socialist statists with no clue or notion of civil liberties.

Those such events, and millions more authoritarian ideas on how to react, were part of the problem. And they’re culpable for it.

But they were NOT plans in advance to attack us with a fake or real Plandemic for depopulation / reset / tracking / vaccines / etc. (In fact, Event 201 bullet 3 said DO NOT DO LOCKDOWNS.)

Societal level evil is totally unlike everyday level evil, yet the latter is your only model for the former.

[Austin Padgett (LudwigNeverMises) @LudwigNverMises]

The winners of the 21st century will be the countries that dismantle centralized and unaccountable regulatory bureaucracy.

The Dutch Republic, despite their small size, rocketed to the top of global power rankings in the 1600’s by being the first to dismantle their guild system.

Trade was controlled by monarchies who coordinated regional guilds into larger monopolies creating an oligarchy around highly lucrative trades.

After a century of Spanish controlled monarchy the Dutch abandoned their King in 1588, forming the Dutch Republic, also known as the United Provinces. A little known precursor and inspiration for the United States.

Without the centralized control on standards, regional Dutch guilds began to differentiate and specialize.

If one province loosened their restrictions on textile production, allowing non guild members to participate in certain parts of the process, others would be pressured to follow suit or become uncompetitive in that trade.

Without a strong Monarch to hold it together it was a free for all. This kicked off early mass production, leading to the development of batch processing, assembly lines, rudimentary automation and advanced supply chains.

By the mid 1600’s the Dutch had become the leading producer of textiles in Europe. This was devastating to the oligarchies formed by the French, English, and Spanish monarchs.

Despite all the protestations that guilds were necessary to maintain high quality production standards and exports, the countries with strong guilds were falling behind in every way.

After trying and failing to stifle the Dutch trade with tariffs, French leaders, unwilling to give up their monopolistic control of trade, concluded that military action was necessary to curb Dutch economic power.

The English helped the French in an invasion which by all contemporary accounts should have crushed the Dutch republic.

However, the Dutch were so much more advanced technologically they were able to implement complex engineering solutions and mass produce entirely new military gear which allowed them to innovate tactically.

New spear points were designed with a broader leaf, sharper tips and a wide circular base which would devastate cavalry with stopping power while enabling the retraction of the spear. Canals were flooded and water redirected with precision to block armies. The Dutch supply chains kept them constantly well equipped.

In a brutal six year war the Dutch defeated the French, pushing them out, absent minor territorial loss.

With the Dutch holding firm, the English were forced to accelerate the dismantling of their own guild system. This made them competitive, eventually surpassing the Dutch trade empire and levels of industrialization.

The French monarchy upheld the oligarchy for another century before collapsing in a violent revolution.

Although equally or more wealthy for centuries before industrialization, neither the French or Spanish have caught up to their northern neighbors since.

The US had fewer trade restrictions than anywhere in Europe making us the powerhouse of the late 19th and 20th century.

However, the old world regime has been reaserted through increasingly centralized power in D.C. which functions indistinguishable from the previous imperial monarchies.

We must throw off the unaccountable bureaucrats who presume to be our kings, and destroy the regulatory cartels they uphold.

The winners of the 17th century were the countries that decentralized power from the monarchy, which eroded the guilds monopoly on the regulation of trades and sparked the industrial revolution.

If the US revives our founding values, decentralizes power to the states and crushes the centralized bureaucracy we will enter an unprecedented era of prosperity, security and human flourishing.

If we defeat this final incarnation of the ancient regime, the flame of liberty will shine forever.

We will be the beacon on the hill we were always meant to be, technologically unassailable and reaching towards the stars.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇺🇸 ELON AND VIVEK'S "DOGE" MISSION: EXPOSING GOVERNMENT WASTE IN REAL-TIME

In what might be the most refreshing approach to government reform yet, Elon and Vivek are bringing radical transparency to federal spending through their new Department of Government Efficiency ("DOGE").

According to Elon's latest post on X, they'll publicly post all actions online and even create a "leaderboard" of the most wasteful spending.

The timing is striking - a new GAO(Government Accountability Office) report just revealed billions in government waste through mismanaged assets, hiring irregularities, and inadequate oversight.

Elon and Vivek's approach seems tailored to address these exact issues, combining Elon's tech efficiency with Vivek's regulatory expertise.

What makes this different from previous reform attempts?

The real-time transparency and public feedback loop.

"Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!" Elon posted, suggesting a crowdsourced approach to identifying waste.

Trump has compared it to the Manhattan Project for its potential impact.

While critics might dismiss it as theatrical, the combination of entrepreneurial efficiency and public accountability could represent a genuine paradigm shift in how government operates.

Source: GAO, Reuters, Fox, @VivekGRamaswamy

[ELON CLIPS @ElonClipsX]

Elon Musk on D.O.G.E: We'll drain many swamps and be very transparent about it.

“We're going to be very open and transparent and be very clear about this is what we're doing [with the Department of Government Efficiency], here are the issues, this is the math for what's being spent.

We're going to make the spending lower. And if somebody's got a better idea for how to make the spending lower, tell us. But if we don't, we're going to bankrupt the country. And so, we got to do something. And it's got to be some pretty big moves.

[Audience] Drain the swamp!

[Elon] I'd say, drain the swamps. There are so many swamps.”

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, October 26, 2024

[Bill D'Agostino @Banned_Bill]

When you use AI to replace every mention of "our democracy" with "our bureaucracy," everything starts making a lot more sense.

[Rits @ritsplasman]

Dreamteam

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

If only there were a political movement focused on making the government get out of the way and just leave you alone. An ideology to answer the growing prison-planet problem. Name it something that evokes the spirit of liberty, you know? We could all use some of that.

If only.

[Bret Weinstein @BretWeinstein]

Rescue the republic. Unify.

[The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox]

Argentina President Javier Milei Promotes Freedom at Davos 2024 (Full Speech)

Yesterday, Milei said he wanted "to plant the ideas of freedom in a forum that is contaminated by the 2030 socialist agenda." Today, he did just that — and more:

"The main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause."

[Spike Cohen @RealSpikeCohen]

Here is the man who was just elected President of Argentina, detailing his plans for the government.

[Rits @ritsplasman]

@JvdMeulen Hij doet het weer als het goed is!

[Rits @ritsplasman]

@duolingo Thank you! 👌

[Alastair Trickett @aptrickett]

The fact that in the minds of consumers the environmental comparison of these two (or any) food systems has been reduced to looking at CO2 emissions alone, is a triumph for “plant-based” Corporate Advertising and a disaster for the rest of us.