BASEDPolitics Brad Polumbo writes, “Right-of-center Americans are understandably frustrated with the various social media platforms, given their ham-handed censorship and obvious political biases. But too many are falling for false solutions… that would give the government more control over the internet.

This is a terrible idea, for the reasons Rogan laid out on Friday.

‘You trust the government to regulate the internet?’ the host asked after his guest, Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner, who said he ‘absolutely’ trusted the government to regulate what we say online. ‘You trust the people who got us into the Iraq War under false pretenses to regulate the internet?’

This first point is spot-on. Trusting the government to regulate so-called ‘misinformation’ online naively presumes that politicians and bureaucrats have some divine insight into what’s true and what’s false. In reality, the government itself often pushes dis or misinformation, about everything from nutrition to health policy to the economy.

Furthermore, this naive approach also assumes that government actors will actor benevolently, in the public interest. But we shouldn’t make that assumption, Rogan explains.

‘They’re going to regulate the internet in a way that suits their best interests,’ he said. ‘The same way they do with the environment, with energy, with everything.”

Read the entire column.

The post Joe Rogan just perfectly explained the problem with regulating Big Tech appeared first on Liberty Tree.

“If Republicans regain a majority in the Senate this election, Paul stands to become chairman of the health committee, and he has promised to subpoena Fauci’s records and bring Fauci out of retirement to answer more questions.”

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 10, 2022

The City-Journal’s John Tierney writes, “For all its virtues, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has never been considered a realistic film. Critics complain that Frank Capra’s movie is at once too corny and too cynical: one brave senator singlehandedly defending the public good against the thoroughly corrupt political and journalistic establishments. But we’ve been seeing a version of that plot for two years now, thanks to Senator Rand Paul’s lonely battle against Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control, and the mainstream press.

Like the politicians meekly following orders in the film, most of Washington has bowed to the CDC’s Covid edicts, but Paul has never tired of challenging the agency’s futile policies and dubious science. Like the movie’s media baron Jim Taylor, Fauci’s cheerleaders in the press and on social-media platforms have shamelessly pushed the party line—and worked hard to squelch opposing views, though they prefer to use ‘fact-checkers’ rather than the street thugs whom Taylor hired to silence a rival newspaper. Journalists have smeared Paul, and censors have removed some of his scientifically accurate heresies from YouTube, but no one can stop him from regularly berating Fauci at the televised hearings of the Senate health committee.”

Read the entire column.

The post Rand Paul’s lonely battle against the government’s tragic COVID response appeared first on Liberty Tree.

When the state can categorize you as being part of a group it considers a threat, real or imagined, that’s all the justification the government needs to ignore your constitutional rights.@jackhunter74 for BASEDPolitics:https://t.co/eJj8TYs3z9

— Hannah Cox (@HannahDCox) February 7, 2022

Government officials once said that National Security Agency surveillance in no way collected the private data of American citizens. Thanks to Edward Snowden, in 2013 we learned that the U.S. government was collecting everyone’s information en masse. Government promised that the 2001 Patriot Act (passed after 9/11) would only be used to target Islamic terrorists. Today, it is used more to fight the war on drugs and other criminal activities that have little to no connection to terrorism.

In 2018, the FBI finally admitted it had spied on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Just this week, a new report showed that the NSA was still spying on all of us with few to no restrictions.

This kind of abuse is nothing new. In the mid-20th century, the NSA and FBI would spy without a warrant on suspected “domestic enemies” of the U.S.

Among those ‘enemies?’ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yes, as we celebrate Black History Month, there was a time when the most cherished hero of the 1960s civil rights struggle was viewed by our government not as a champion of racial equality but the ‘most dangerous Negro of the future of this nation,’ as the FBI called him.”

Read the entire column.

The post When the U.S. government illegally spied on Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared first on Liberty Tree.

In unprecedented times of uncertainty with an already embarrassing track record of governmental errors and missteps, the answer is not less freedom but more. @freethepeople #COVID19 #MedicalFreedom https://t.co/nQm8VYtXPQ

— Michael Feuz (@MikeFeuz) February 2, 2022

Free the People’s Mike Feuz writes, “Over a decade ago, the 111th congress slammed through the controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act more popularly known as ObamaCare. It was the next major step in the already continual centralization of government involvement and control of Americans’ personal health care. In the decade following, the trend has only continued as more and more personal health care decisions now begin and end with bureaucracy.

Now, two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more governmentalization of health care has deprived us not only of our health but our freedoms. Politics and bureaucracy have corrupted the health care industry and subjected us to the will of bureaucracy and the lobbyist class.”

Read the entire column.

The post The pandemic response should end the government health care debate forever appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Free government masks. What’s wrong with this picture? So stupid it hurts. pic.twitter.com/nZrhBT2tb8

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 2, 2022

The post So stupid it hurts appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Brad Polumbo writes, “The federal government has spent an astounding $42,000 per federal taxpayer on so-called ‘stimulus’ efforts since the pandemic began. Where did all that money go? Well, as it turns out, one of the biggest stimulus programs, the Paycheck Protection Program, failed miserably.

$800 Billion Stimulus Program Failed Terribly and Mostly Benefited the Wealthy, MIT Economist Finds.@brad_polumbo has the story: https://t.co/y5rItRw7KH

— FEE (@feeonline) January 18, 2022

At least, that’s the finding of a new study from MIT economist David Autor and nine coauthors. They examined the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which gave ‘loans,’ most of which won’t have to be paid back, to businesses. It was created by Republicans and Democrats in Congress alike in hopes of helping businesses preserve their employees’ jobs for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.

The study tracks the money to see where it ended up and what it achieved. The results… aren’t pretty.”

Read the entire column.

The post $800 billion stimulus program failed terribly and mostly benefited the wealthy appeared first on Liberty Tree.

It’s a dangerous world when only government approved science is allowed to be shared. https://t.co/TjRg2dI564

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 16, 2022

The post It’s a dangerous world when only government-approved science can be shared appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Hannah Cox writes, “Many of those speaking out against Twitter’s decisions called for the repeal or reform of Section 230, antitrust legislation to ‘break up’ Big Tech, or, on the most extreme end, for social media platforms to be nationalized…

You get a choice on whether or not you want to use these platforms, and if you do then you play by their rules. That part is only a problem for people who believe they are entitled to the fruits of another person’s labor. Suggesting these platforms owe you an account is theoretically the same as arguing that people have a right to healthcare services. You don’t, and the minute you attempt to use the government to compel private actors to give you something is the minute you become an enemy of the free market and free speech…

If Americans are concerned that the government is pressuring Big Tech to censor certain viewpoints, it makes absolutely no sense for them to think giving the government more power over these companies would lead to less censorship.

My latest:https://t.co/8kuLueo91s

— Hannah Cox (@HannahDCox) January 6, 2022

And if Americans are concerned that the government is pressuring these companies to censor certain viewpoints, it makes absolutely no sense for them to think giving the government more power over these companies would lead to less censorship. There’s no logic behind this sentiment.

Make no mistake, the solutions to this problem offered by nationalist types—like Section 230 repeal or antitrust legislation—would only entrench the powers of existing companies and give Democrats—who are pushing for more censorship—exactly what they want.”

Read the entire column.

The post If government is pressuring Big Tech to censor conservatives, more government won’t help appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Hannah Cox writes, “In the dystopian novel 1984, the government relied on the use of telescreens and informants to enforce its massive, repressive regime. And while that was fiction, events in our modern society are eerily similar to it.

There’s a troubling trend emerging: Americans are being encouraged and even incentivized to turn their fellow citizens in to the government for a myriad of reasons…

These are serious issues. As limited government advocates have warned for some time, the entwinement of government and healthcare could ultimately lead to the government determining who gets healthcare, what kinds of services the doctors may provide, and the infringement of the bodily autonomy of patients. We may not yet have the government monopoly on healthcare progressives desperately want, but one could argue we are already seeing many of these rights violations nonetheless.”

Read the entire column.

The post Government increasingly is asking citizens to turn each other in. Here’s why that’s so dangerous appeared first on Liberty Tree.

A new Gallup poll released Thursday showed that a majority of Americans say the government is doing too much.

Fifty-two percent said government is doing too many things that should instead be handled by individuals and businesses.

Only 43 percent said the government needed to do more.

When Gallup conducted this poll last year they found that 54 percent of Americans wanted the government to have a more active role in fixing the country’s problems.

Americans again favor a reduced government role in solving problems facing the country after supporting a more active government role last year. https://t.co/vLEomXyRd2

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) October 14, 2021

But that’s not all. Support for government intervention appears to be down across the board and in all parties.

The Hill observes, “Thursday’s poll found that members of all parties were less likely now than they were a year ago to favor a more active role for government, with the opinions of independents changing the most.

Fifty-seven percent of independents say the government is doing too much, compared to 38 percent who held the same opinion last year.”

That’s almost a twenty point drop in independents’ faith in government.

Read the Gallup poll.

The post Gallup: Majority of Americans say government should do less appeared first on Liberty Tree.