Since the start of the Covid pandemic, many Americans have been appalled at the tidal wave of dictatorial decrees that futilely sought to vanquish a virus. Even more shocking was the craven response by many citizens who believed that groveling to officialdom was the only way to survive. But there were warning signs of the collapse of American support for freedom long before the Wuhan Institute pocketed US tax dollars to concoct its first coronavirus.

“Is the best of the free life behind us now?” Merle Haggard asked in a haunting 1982 country music hit song. Nine years earlier, Haggard had scoffed at potheads and draft dodgers in a White House performance of his song “Okie from Muskogee” for President Richard Nixon. But reflecting the widespread loss of faith in the American dream in the 1970s, his “free life” song lamented Nixon’s lies, the Vietnam debacle, and the ravages of inflation.

The issue of lost freedoms helped spur me 30 years ago to write a book titledLost Rightschronicling how “Americans’ liberty is perishing beneath the constant growth of government power.” When I recently updated the political damage report in a book titledLast Rights, the late 20th century seemed practically a golden era of freedom in hindsight. In recent decades, federal, state, and local governments have unleashed themselves from the Constitution and commandeered vast swaths of Americans’ lives.

The worst regulatory abuses of the 1990s still exist and plenty of new bureaucratic depredations have been added to the lineup.

In the 1990s, federal regulators censored beer bottles, prohibiting breweries from revealing the alcohol content on the label. That prohibition ended but federal censorship multiplied a hundredfold. On July 4, 2023, federal judge Terry Doughtycondemnedthe Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history,” including “suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens,” as a federal appeals court ruled last September.Americans’ criticism of Covid policy was secretly suppressed millions of times thanks to federal threats and string-pulling. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court took a dive on this issue on Wednesday, seizing upon bullshit procedural grounds to avoid condemning federal censorship.

In the 1990s, local bureaucrats sporadically cracked down on homeschooling, preventing a smattering of parents from teaching their own kids. During the Covid epidemic, teachers unions spurred unjustified school lockdowns that victimized tens of millions of children. Teachers unions vilified any opponents of school shutdowns as racists and enemies of humanity. Vast learning losses resulted that continue to plague young lives.

In the 1990s, civil liberties groups challenged laws requiring drug tests for new employees. In September 2021, President Biden decreed that 80+ million adults working for private companies must get Covid vaccine injections. Biden castigated the unvaxxed: “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.” Biden’s declaration sounded like a dictator’s threat prior to invading a foreign nation. The following month during a CNN town hall, Bidenderidedvaccine skeptics as murderers who only wanted “the freedom to kill you” with Covid. But the Biden administration deceived Americans by covering up the stunning failure of the vaccines to prevent Covid infections and transmission – a failure that was known even before the mandate was decreed.

After millions of Americans took the jab thanks to his edict, the Supreme Court struck down his order. But neither Biden nor his political appointees have any liability for that illicit command or the side effects of the vax, including the vast increase in myocarditis in young males.

Decades ago, politicians would not have dared to padlock all the churches and synagogues in their domain. But extrapolations of wildly inaccurate Covid mortality forecasts sufficed to nullify the First Amendment’s freedom of religion. Nevada decreed that casinos could operate at half-capacity with hundreds of gamblers at a time for example, but churches could not have more than 50 worshippers regardless of their size. When the Supreme Court refused to overturn that edict, Justice Neil Gorsuchdissented: “There is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel,” the church that sought the injunction.

California’s rulers were even more Covid-crazed. Gov. Gavin Newsom invoked the Covid threat to justify banning all singing in churches. The Supreme Court upheld that boneheaded decree. Gorsuch againdissented: “If Hollywood may host a studio audience or film a singing competition while not a single soul may enter California’s churches, synagogues, and mosques, something has gone seriously awry.” Gorsuch exposed the rascality behind Covid controls: “Government actors have been moving the goalposts on pandemic-related sacrifices for months, adopting new benchmarks that always seem to put restoration of liberty just around the corner.”

State and local officials presumed that the Covid threat entitled them to absolute power over the movement of any citizen. In New York City, a Covid passport regime effectively banned most blacks from many activities of daily life, since they had a much lower vaccination rate than other New Yorkers. Radio host Grant Stinchfield condemned California’s vaccine passports,grousingthat in Los Angeles, “You can shit on the street, shoot drugs in [a] crack tent on the sidewalk and even steal anything [worth] less than 900 bucks but now you have to show papers to get in a restaurant or gym!?!?”

After Washington, DC’s mayor imposed a vaccine passport regime, an upscale Dupont Circle coffee shop welcomed patrons with ominous signs: “Masks on & Vaccine Cards Out!” That was as welcoming as the slogan: “Come Sip with the Gestapo!” That coffee shop went out of business a few months later. (The DC passport regime helped propel Libertarian Institute editor Hunter DeRensis to move to the freer state of Florida.) Former FDA press chief Emily Miller commented: “The purpose of a vaccine passport is for the #ScaredVaccinated to have a false sense of security.”

Politicians sought to “compensate” victims of lockdowns with trillions of dollars of Covid “stimulus” spending that helped unleash the worst inflation of this century. “I wish a buck was still silver” was the first line of Haggard’s 1982 song. The US Congress declared in 1792 that silver and gold were the foundation of the nation’s currency. From 1878 onwards, the US government sold silver certificates with this declaration: “This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of the United States of America One Dollar in Silver Payable to the Bearer on Demand.” In 1967, Congress passed the Act to Authorize Adjustments in the Amount of Outstanding Silver Certificates, “adjusting” the certificates by nullifying all further silver redemptions. President Lyndon Johnson removed silver from the nation’s coinage in the mid-1960s.

In the decades after Haggard’s song, inflation has totaled 225 percent. It has made it far more difficult for average Americans to keep their heads above water and ravaged the ability to plan for one’s future. Inflation has also provided a pretext for endless government interventions, including President Joe Biden’s latest caterwauling about “shrinkflation” (companies selling smaller-sized packages for the same price).

In the 40+ years since Haggard’s songs came out, far fewer Americans continue to cherish freedom. According to a recent poll, almost a third of young American adults support installing mandatory government surveillance cameras in private homes to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.” When did government snoops become guardian angels? Fifty-five percent of American adults support government suppression of “false information,” even though only 20 percent trust the government. Relying on dishonest officials to eradicate “false information” is not the height of prudence.

How can freedom survive if so many people cannot politically add two plus two? A September 2023 poll revealed that almost half of Democrats believed that free speech should be legal “only under certain circumstances” (perhaps excluding criticism of their party’s elected officials). Support for censorship is stronger among young folks whose schooling perhaps smote their natural love of freedom.

Subjugation is becoming the norm and freedom the exception. Would earlier generations of Americans have tolerated Transportation Security Administration agents pointlessly squeezing billions of butts and boobs while never catching a single terrorist? Would they have tolerated the FBI investigating traditional Catholics based on far-fetched fears about their religious beliefs? Would they have tolerated a president’s reelection campaign trumpeting the notion that a vote for his opponent is a vote for Hitler?

Haggard’s 1982 song had a piercing refrain: “Are we rolling downhill like a snowball headed for Hell?” He tacked on an upbeat ending: “The best of the free life is still yet to come.” But he lost hope and lamented before his death: “In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there’s available to an average citizen in America right now…God almighty, what have we done to each other?” As Justice Gorsuch warned two years ago, “We live in a world in which everything has been criminalized.”

Since Haggard’s passing in 2016, freedom is even more of an endangered species. The biggest sea change is the plummeting number of Americans who cherish their own liberty. Many of the protestors who vehemently denounce Donald Trump or Joe Biden are not opposed to dictators per se; they simply want different dictates. No wonder a 2022 nationwide poll found that six times as many Americans expected their rights and freedoms to decline in the next decade, compared to the number expecting an increase.

How many Americans have lost the sound political instincts of their ancestors? Nowadays, politicians merely need to promise salvation to justify further decimating freedom. The prevailing submission to Covid lockdown decrees stunned many observers who expected far more hell-raising protests. The submission to Covid lockdowns and other decrees epitomizes the failure of either (or both) realism and courage among much of the populace. Do Americans recognize that once a president escapes the confines of the Constitution, they will eventually find themselves shackled?

How many Americans have learned the bitter political lessons of the pandemic? As long as most people can be frightened, almost everyone can be subjugated. In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses. Liberty is invaluable regardless of how many politicians seek to destroy it or how many fools fail to cherish it.

• Source: This article was published at Browstone Institute and an earlier version of this piece was published by The Libertarian Institute 

By Shravishtha Ajaykumar

Biological warfare in modern events has always elicited a sharp reaction from authorities and civilians alike. However, those motivated by political power and justifying their approach to the same often are less affronted by biological weapons and their use. 

Global governance of biosecurity

Biological warfare is considered a form of warfare withlow plausibility but high impact; i.e., while the scope of a biological agent being used in an attack may be low, the effect of an attack can be high if the agent has high virulence. Bioweapons usually are not considered major threats under the umbrella of Weapons of Mass destruction (WMD). The use of biological weapons is low in probability due to the existence of international treaties like theBiological Weapons Convention(BWC)—a treaty that prohibits the development, production, and acquisition of biological weapons.

However, treaties alone may not provide a foolproof system. International cooperation through organisations likeINTERPOLis also essential in combating the illicit trade of biological weapons-related materials. These global organisations have already released key governing documents and tools to oversee information sharing, operational support, and investigative support in governing biological threats. These include global biosecurity programmes, police data and management analysis, animal agrocrime and agroterrorism, all by INTERPOL. Additionally, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), in Resolution1540 (2004),resolved the undersigned to prevent non-state actors from acquiring materials that may contribute to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. This resolution has been periodically reaffirmed, with its most recent iteration in 2022. In 2016, the UNSC adoptedresolution 2325to further its efforts towards anti-proliferation.

Across these global governance tools, countries engage in global health security cooperation, collaboration, and monitoring. This includes sharing intelligence, implementing adequate export controls, and strengthening border security. Efforts to enhance global health security, including the monitoring and reporting of outbreaks, play a role in preventing the spread of infectious diseases that non-state actors could exploit. Thus, usually, non-state actors are not significantbiosecurity threats.

Despite the aforementioned treaties and resolutions, advances in biotechnology and the growing accessibility of dual-use technologies have raised concerns about the ungoverned use and research of biological weapons with low prevention methods. Non-state actors may seek to acquire naturally occurring biological agents such as bacteria or viruses, and use them for malicious purposes.

Cults, terrorists, and bioweapons

Non-state users of bioterrorism have been rare, or at least such attacks have rarely been attributed to larger non-state actors; the use has been criminal rather than for terrorism. However, the implications of such attacks have been political and large-scale. In 1984, for example, the Rajneeshee Cult centred in Oregon, United States, attempted to spread Salmonella enterica toinfluencethe local elections in their favour. As the cult hosted a clinical facility, they couldaccessthe seed bacteria through a commercial farmer. The outbreak infected 751 people; however, authorities could not trace the disease to the cult. When they were investigated for other criminal activity, a similar strain of Salmonella was found in the cult’s clinic. Eventually, a few membersadmittedto the contamination using the seed bacteria.

Another case of a cult using bioweapons was the infamousAum Shinrikyoin Japan. The cult allegedly engaged in a biological weapons programme from 1990-1995. This programme was discovered only after thefailed impactof a Tokyo Subway attack using Sarin Gas in March 1995. Investigators then discoveredthree previous failed attemptsof biological attacks, including one of anthrax. While the information surrounding this cult and its bioweapons programme is still fragmented, their attempts at using anthrax and acquiring the Ebola virus are indications of persistent, if not more significant, attacks.

In 1999,Al-Qaedaenlisted a biologist to develop biological weapons in a laboratory situated in Kandahar. The group was allegedly associated with a biochemist who was isolating a lethal strain of anthrax. In 2016, an alleged “Official internal note” from the Belgian Police claimed to suspect biological weapon-based activities by theIslamic State. However, the US’s Homeland Security had refuted such claims, and the note’s authenticity is not yet confirmed.

Enhancing domestic biosecurity

The above cases have occurred despite international collaborations like the BWC. While global governance instruments such as the BWC are essential in ensuring that biological weapons are not used in warfare, and other mechanisms like theConvention on Biological Diversity(CBD) are necessary to oversee trade and environmental responsibility and accountability, they do not cover biosecurity for non-accountable parties such as the non-state actors mentioned above.

Further, all cases have yet another feature in common. All the non-state actors were able to access virulent biological agents untraced. They were only prevented from further research and use when discovered through failed attacks or admission of members.

The inability of policing authorities and treaties to identify illegal research of biological weapons and use of the same highlights the need for more stringent biosecurity measures. While INTERPOL hasprograms and manualsdedicated to restricting bioterrorism, robust biosecurity measures must also prevent and govern access to virulent agents in a domestic capacity. The need for robust biosecurity measures to prevent unauthorised access to biological materials and laboratories is crucial. Secure handling, storage, and transportation of biological agents can mitigate the risk of these materials falling into the wrong hands.

Preventing non-state actors’ access to biological weapons requires a comprehensive and coordinated effort at the national and international levels. It involves addressing the root causes, improving biosecurity measures, and enhancing international cooperation to detect and respond to potential threats. Ongoing vigilance and adaptation to emerging technologies are crucial in mitigating the risks associated with the proliferation of biological weapons.

The first step would be to establish biosecurity agencies in every undersigned country under the BWC that would report to INTERPOL regarding any discrepancies in virulent biological agents’ transfer, trade, and purchase. These agencies function separately but in collaboration with any domestic biosecurity agencies. Additionally, these agencies would have to govern the following, as identified by theGlobal Partnership on Biosecurity Working Group, under the Italian G7 presidency:

1. Safeguard and oversee materials posing risks of biological proliferation.
2. Interacting with local biosafety labs to ensure that all materials and biological agents are accounted for and disposal methods are standard to prevent accidental non-state access. 
3. Establish and uphold efficient protocols to prevent, anticipate, detect, and thwart the deliberate misuse of biological agents. 
4. Enhance domestic and global capacities to identify illegal research on biological agents promptly.

The threat posed by biological warfare is more easily accessible than other WMDs and less easily detectable until it is too late to curb impact. While international collaborations and treaties play a significant role, nation-states must also create agencies to oversee biosecurity and protect populations from biological attacks on humans, animals and crops. There should be a separate measure that focuses on accidents in the form of leakages, research, and development in drug development and food security while collaborating with agencies to ensure limited non-state access, no leakages, and the correct disposal of biological agents. By taking proactive measures and remaining vigilant in the face of emerging threats, we can mitigate the risks associated with biological warfare and safeguard global security.

• About the author: Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation.
• Source: This article was published by Observer Research Foundation

By Iain Murray 

In 2023, the British Conservative Party decided to oust its leader,Boris Johnson, who had led them to a resounding electoral victory in 2019, over aslice of cake. He was succeeded by his Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss. I was delighted by this appointment; while Boris had been an excellent electoral leader, he didn’t have the grasp of the importance of free market economics that Mrs. Truss did. Yet fewer than fifty days later, the same forces that did for Borisdid for heras well. The consequence, we will see soon, is likely electoral oblivion for the Conservative Party.

In her bookTen Years to Save the West(Regnery), Mrs. Truss ably sets out just what has gone wrong for Britain and its most successful political party. She does so by explaining the difficulties she encountered at every stage in her Ministerial career, both from within the party and among the civil service advisers who were supposed to be working for her.

In the education department, her attempts at small reforms around childcare were opposed at every step by what her then-boss, Michael Gove, called “the blob.” (Mr. Gove does not come out of this book without criticism, it has to be said.) The blob consists of a variety of civil service officials, charitable sector workers, journalists, and members of QUANGOs (“quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations”) who represent the institutional status quo. The book demonstrates that there are blobs for each area of government policy, perhaps all sub-blobs of one enormous plasmid that represents the latest form of the famousBritish establishment.

At the education department, the environment department, and the Ministry of Justice, it became apparent that little could get done without the appropriate blob’s consent. As she says towards the end of her book, the victories she did achieve over her career were tiny in proportion to the amount of effort needed.

It is worth noting, as Truss does on several occasions, that the blob is a relatively recent invention. When I worked in the British civil service in the 1990s, it was seen as a matter of principle that the civil servant did the Minister’s bidding without fear or favor, even if the Minister chose to reject the servant’s advice (the clue is in the name). Yet during the Blair/Brown governments the civil service became politicized and — more importantly — vast powers were given to QUANGOs in the name of depoliticizing an issue. Thus, monetary policy was given over to theBank of Englandand the naming of judgeswas entrustedto the Judicial Appointments Commission. At the same time, the charitable sector became more and more dependent on government grants. So did the blob feed and grow.

Mrs. Truss’ chief lament is that the successive Conservative governments of David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson himself did nothing to dismantle this new constitutional arrangement. Indeed, one of Cameron’s first acts was one of spectacular unilateral disarmament, by effectively giving over control of fiscal policy to a QUANGO called theOffice of Budget Responsibility(OBR.) With each such act, democratic accountability was removed from the process.

Parallel to this lack of accountability, however, grew a bizarre reverence for the role of these institutions among the supposed watchmen of democracy, the press. The BBC and other media organs treat the pronouncements of the QUANGOs as if they handed down from the mountain, while the objections of conservative politicians (at least the few who still resist the blobs) are treated as venal and self-serving, despite them being the elected representatives of the people.

It was this combination of forces that took down Liz Truss so quickly, despite her holding the highest office in the land. Interests at the Treasury, Bank of England, and OBR made a series of missteps following the Federal Reserve’s actions to raise interest rates following the post-COVID inflation that it had helped create andproceeded to blamethe results on the Prime Minister’s modestlytax-cuttingmini-budget, engaging in the recent British habit of briefing the press by leaks of memos and the like.

Those missteps had led to a crisis in a financial instrument known as liability-driven investments (LDIs), which were basically a bet on low interest rates continuing. Officials at the Treasury were ignorant of the importance of LDIs to the British pensions industry, which led to a financial crisis. This establishment action was presented to the British public as the reaction of “the markets” to the mini-budget and led to the political crisis that brought down the Truss Ministry. Of course, it was nothing of the sort.

The OBR comes in for particular criticism. Its forecasts are always presented to the British public as if one hundred percent accurate. Yet, as Mrs. Truss shows, they are always wrong. The economic blob is, she rightly states, deeplyKeynesianin its approach. A dose of Hayek is needed.

In American terms, it was the “deep state” that won. Yet, that administrative state is far more powerful in Britain than it is over here. It’s the reason so little works in Britain anymore, and the complete failure to do anything about it by Rishi Sunak, Mrs. Truss’ successor,is the underlying reason why his party isfacing electoral oblivion. Yet, in its anger at the Conservatives, the British public looks likely to give the Labour Party, the party that created this monstrosity in the first place, a thumping majority. As the establishment figures in Britain’s satirical magazinePrivate Eye say, referring to a celebratory round of drinks, “Trebles all round!”

The American edition of her memoir is therefore a warning Liz Truss extends to Americans — don’t let the administrative state get out of control and do your level best to reduce the powers it already has. She also warns against trying to use its power for “conservative ends” — the administrative state is deeply anti-conservative and will corrupt any who try to do so.

While this is the main message of her book, there are other warnings embedded throughout. One that particularly appealed to me was her condemnation of the international environmental blob, and the way it has led the West to deindustrialize and thereby strengthen China. Indeed, perhaps the best idea she has is that free nations (specifically including Japan, a country for which she has a great deal of admiration) should form an “Economic NATO,” based on the power of free enterprise and free trade, to counter the power of China. Sadly, neither party’s dominant trade paradigm seems open to that idea, although I suspect it is the sort of thing that might paradoxically appeal to Donald Trump, should he win a second term.

Another message relates to the more traditional NATO. Her warnings about the ambition and ruthlessness of Vladimir Putin’s Russia are stark. She leaves the reader without any doubt that the West must continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression or face dire consequences. While this message might be unwelcome to America’s modern isolationists, it is a message that deserves a hearing.

In her final chapter, Mrs. Truss outlines six lessons from her career. Her first is that Conservatives must be conservative. A friend with insider knowledge recently described the British parliamentary Conservative party as being made up of one-thirdBlairites, one-third careerists, and only one-third genuine conservatives. Thanks to the power of candidate selection, exercised most aggressively by David Cameron and Rishi Sunak, it is likely that the genuine conservatives will not survive the electoral decimation that is coming their way. Those hoping for a conservative revival in Britain may have to look elsewhere than the Conservative Party.

The other lessons are: 2), Dismantle the leftist state (one might add, while you still have time); and 3) restore democratic accountability. These two lessons are, as I have explained, the core of the book. One can see the third lesson reflected here in various legal efforts to corral American agencies, such as questioning the constitutionality of independent agencies. The second lesson, however, will take Congressional action, most importantly in cutting off the funding that is powering the American version of the blob. This leads to her fourth lesson: Conservatism must win across the free world, particularly in the United States of America. Given the way European and British elections are going, that particularly carries a lot of weight.

Her final lessons are that we must reassert the nation state, given the role transnational progressivism plays in both destroying democratic accountability and empowering international versions of the blob, and rejecting the appeasement of the unfree powers, particularly Russia, China, and Iran.

If the image you have of Liz Truss is of a hapless figure, perhaps promoted beyond her capability, I urge you to read this book. You will see instead that she is a strong conservative, betrayed by her allies, just like her predecessor, to an unrelenting progressive establishment. It is that establishment that needs to be destroyed.  

• About the author: Iain Murray is Vice President for Strategy and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Murray also directs the Center for Economic Freedom.
• Source: This article was published by AIER