Good morning, C&C, I hope everyone had a great week. Yesterday, I felt a TON better, to the point I joined Michelle late afternoon for tolerably-hot sign waving at a couple locations around town. Apart from the sweat streaming down my [CENSORED], it was a good time, and traffic feedback was encouraging — we had a favorable ratio of honks to obscene gestures. I slept in again this morning and now feel about 85%, which I’ll joyfully accept.

Today we’ll tackle something a little different, a topic that’s been on my mind for a while. It is a framework for understanding government mandates broadly, and it’s big enough to explain all the kooky fake astroturf movements like “climate change” and their deranged offspring like INTENTIONALLY processing bugs into snack food.

For lack of a better term, I’m calling the phenomenon “the Mandate Gold Rush.”

🗞 THE C&C ARMY POST 🗞

🔥 But first, here in my county, today is the last day of early voting, which includes all the non-partisan races like school board. PLEASE get out there and vote if you haven’t already, today or Tuesday. The local activist group I started is hosting a gala election watch-party on Tuesday evening (local election night). You can get more info and tickets here if you’d like to celebrate (or commiserate) with like-minded folks as the results come in. Here’s a local website with picks to help if you aren’t up on the school board races. You can vote for all four candidates, regardless of party affiliation.

Now let’s get to it.

🗞THE MANDATE GOLD RUSH 🗞

🔥 Over the last two years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how mandates work, where they come from, and why politicians go along with them. My thinking started with the covid mandates — masks, distancing, jabs, and all their odious relatives — but I quickly realized the mandate problem began much, much earlier than that. Like with wacky energy regulations that hollowed out our appliances since the 1970’s or so, ultimately leaving wet cups and silverware dripping in my expensive dishwasher EVERY SINGLE TIME we run a load (but neatly creating a brand-new endless market for liquid drying agents).

The loopy European Union recently pushed the appliance technique a little too far by mandating that toasters must make the bread perfectly limp instead of toasty, which arguably led to the whole unfortunate Brexit incident.

Famously, and more recently, Obamacare mandated that everyone buy expensive health insurance. But long before government mandated health insurance, it mandated auto insurance, seat belts, motorcycle helmets, corn additives in gasoline (“ethanol”), safety features in cars increasing prices to starter home levels, and mandatory devices to “clean up” your auto exhaust while also helping out by making your car run more inefficiently so you burn more fuel, creating more exhaust.

So here is my basic theory: We’ve allowed our capitalist Republic to be hijacked by a mutant form of neo-fascism, wherein corporations bribe or convince local and federal governments to mandate consumers purchase or consume their products, making the corporations fabulously wealthy while slowly leaching out our liberties through a million mandatory pinholes in our bank accounts.

First I’ll prove it exists. Then I’ll explain why this problem should be high on our list of issues to deal with, because so many of our other problems can be traced directly back to this one.

🔥 We’ve been letting the government mandate many of our purchase decisions for decades now. We’ve allowed it happen. Although, to our credit, they sneakily “boiled the frog,” always framing the incremental intrusions as intended for our benefit, to protect us, to keep us safe, to “reduce our risk.” Safe and secure and risk-free, unlike the dumb Americans who lived before 1970 and who failed to comprehend the benefits of harnessing state violence to make sure people carry the right level of car insurance.

But covid proved one thing beyond cavil: mandates are getting completely out of control and are only ramping up. For a recent post-covid example, to save the environment, just like with the formerly doomed British toaster, California is has doomed gas cars, shoving them squarely into mandate’s laser-guided crosshairs:

So, the first principle is: we participated in our own destruction by conceding that it is government’s job to urgently address any kind of risk that comes long.

Even if we never explicitly conceded that principle, we at minimum have IMPLICITLY conceded it. Even if we complained about it, we never drew the line. We have to own our responsibility for being where we are before we can fix it.

And now, that tiny lizard of concession has grown into a herd of velociraptors. In other words, we let them get away with the sneaky types of mandates for so long that now they’re just taping the mandates to two-by-fours and whacking us in the face every time we come around the corner.

The second principle is: mandates are NEVER for the advertised altruistic excuse of reducing risk and creating safety and security. It’s a lie. Usually mandates work the exact opposite way, like the mandates for covid shots.

Continuing with California’s electric car example, people have observed that the lithium used to create the gigantic car batteries is TOXIC and must be disposed of SOMEPLACE, which then HARMS the very same environment that the batteries were intended to help.

I’m tired of thanking the experts. You do it this time.

Okay … but IS lithium really that bad? Or is it just a conspiracy theory? Could it possibly be worse than CARBON DIOXIDE? I’ll let Snopes explain it to you:

They rated it “Mixture?” Hahahahaha! It’s not “false.” It’s not false because “there IS evidence lithium leach fields can be damaging to the environment,” so there’s THAT. But it’s even worse; Snopes was FORCED to admit that lithium ALSO “poses potential health threats to both birds and humans.” You know they tried REALLY HARD to avoid conceding that one.

All that sounds pretty much like the claim should be marked “true.” But Snopes just can’t admit it’s true, because that would hurt electric car sales. Instead, they engage in the logical fallacy of an appeal to ignorance: “the scientific literature is limited and data is not widely available.” So … we’re just dumping this toxic metal in the ground and just HOPING it doesn’t wipe out the aquifer and all the animals, birds, and humans. Brilliant! Thanks experts!

Of course, Snopes — if only someone would fact check THAT disinformation machine out of its misery — is lying about the “lack of data.” Check for yourself. Go on PubMed and search for “lithium toxicity.” There are hundreds, if not thousands, of results. Here is one totally random example:

I’m just a lawyer, not a doctor, but that particular datum about SILENT doesn’t sound too good, not at all. It might be that we’d prefer to AVOID adding battery lithium to the groundwater, at least until we figure out if it’s going to be a problem or not.

But nevermind! Electric cars! Climate change! Shut up! Science!

So … if electric cars don’t actually HELP the environment, and arguably HURT IT, then what’s the real reason for the mandate? Follow the money.

🔥 To apply the principle of following the money, we have to ask, who benefits from the electric car mandate? Let’s review the main possibilities:

GOVERNMENT: government clearly BENEFITS from the mandate, because electric cars give government more control and power, which is government’s life blood. If everyone is using an electric car, the government can turn the cars on and off. They can effortlessly arrest criminals, and enforce their rules on law-abiding citizens, like when you get to drive, reducing traffic congestion, instead of building very expensive new roads.

POLITICIANS: well, politicians do GREAT. Their kids get cushy board seats on auto companies and parts suppliers, like Paul Pelosi, Jr’s cushy gigs with two major lithium producers that making toxic car batteries. Politicians get to invest in the stocks in the “right” automakers that will get preferred treatment under the brand-new encyclopedias of Byzantine regulations that soon will be excreted by unelected, unaccountable California state agencies.

CAR MAKERS: Car makers BENEFIT from the mandate, because they get to sell their brand-new products to EVERYBODY, products that most consumers DON’T WANT, so the government just created by fiat a gigantic new multi-billion-dollar market. Creating new markets usually takes research and development, tons of investment, and decades of hard work. For a fraction of the price that “innovation” requires, carmakers instantly get the same benefit through mandates.

In other words, they don’t have to make GOOD cars. They just have to make ELECTRIC cars. Think about what an EU toaster version of a car might look like.

CONSUMERS: Well, sorry to say, consumers DON’T benefit, not directly. Consumers get the shaft. (And probably monkeypox.) Consumers are forced to buy an inferior expensive product that they don’t want and don’t need. They no longer get to buy inexpensive USED cars, which are now banned. Used cars are Big Auto’s main competition, and gosh, they really cut into carmaker profits.

Worse for consumers, there won’t even be any real market for used electric cars at all. Nobody wants a used electric car because the battery is probably worn out.

The argument for the mandate is that consumers benefit from reduced carbon dioxide emissions or something. But how, exactly, does it benefit retired third-grade teacher Jane Frolech of San Pedro, California? By keeping the sea level down a couple inches?

Finally, the electric-car mandate also has the salutary effect of wiping out Big Auto’s main competition in the used car market. Nice for Big Auto, nice for politicians owning stock in Big Auto, but bad for consumers.

So, the third premise is: mandates always benefit government, politicians, and well-connected corporate interests, but HURT citizens. Mandates are the best way to hoover money out of ordinary citizens and deposit the loot into the accounts of well-connected insiders.

🔥 I’m sorry to do this to you, but think about the “monkeypox” type of mandate as a further example. Here’s the timeline: first, monkeypox mildly inconveniences a handful of people with bizarre, outrageous, morally deplorable, and probably illegal sexual habits who could easily avoid the monkeypox infection if they’d simply cut out the nonsense for a little while.

So the federal government declares a state of emergency!

Next, a whole bunch of corporate actors receive high-dollar, no-bid contract awards to deal with the “emergency.” Meanwhile, regular citizens pay through the nose for emergency vaccines, marketing campaigns, social service NGO’s, consultants, “monkeypox czars,” and a raft of other maniacal over-reactions. And then hyper-hedonistic gay people get the pox anyway.

Who benefits from this monkeypox emergency? It’s a Mandate Gold Rush for government, politicians, and well-connected corporate interests. And who suffers? Citizens, that’s who.

🔥 So now you have the three premises supporting mandates:

(1) It’s the government’s job to ensure our personal safety and security from any enunciable threat.

(2) Mandates don’t have to actually accomplish the advertised altruistic excuse of creating safety and security. They can work the other way.

(3) Mandates must always benefit government, politicians, and well-connected corporate interests, and citizens have to pay for them.

The Mandate Gold Rush is making a LOT of politicians and insiders wealthy beyond imagination, while beggaring the rest of us, and the mandates aren’t actually improving ANYTHING. Just the opposite.

🔥 To further excuse our lack of diligence, previous generations of mandates were mostly affordable. We could live with dishwashers that don’t dry dishes, even though we now have to buy a whole NEW product that we didn’t want or need: chemical drying liquids. (Which is a hilarious oxymoron, if you think about it.)

But now, apparently having picked all the easy, low-hanging fruit, they are boldly coming for our bodies.

Most mandatory school vaccine schedules now include over seventy (70!) shots per child. Since they’ve also mandated liability waivers for the vaccine makers, it’s pure profit. Even flu vaccines are FREE at Walgreen’s. Who do you think is paying for those vaccines? Barack Obama?

Nope. YOU are. Whether you take the damned shots or not. It doesn’t matter.

Flu uptake is flaccid. The solution is vaccine MANDATES. It started in schools and healthcare, and ended up with the horror movie we all watched over the last two years. We can argue about the exact risk of the shots, but nobody can deny the covid shots kill SOME people. So we’re in a situation where the government coerced people into buying and consuming a product that might actually KILL THEM.

So what can we expect next? Let’s talk about Mr. Gates.

🔥 There’s been a lot of discussion of the fact that Bill Gates has been buying up tons of farmland. Maybe he wants to starve us all out. Or … maybe he wants to become the world’s richest man by getting in on the Mandate Gold Rush.

Bill Gates is investing in creating plant-based “alternatives” to meat. Think about the economics.

Right now, the meat industry is pretty competitive. People can buy meat from local farmers or a raft of well-established firms like Tyson, if you like frozen chicken wings. Profit margins in the meat business are razor thin after decades or centuries of competitive pressures. How can anyone make money?

Gates and his cronies need a revolution, an innovative new technology that can be profitably patented and protected from icky competition. Something consumers will embrace and never look back, like smart phones. Like plant burgers!

Except… most consumers don’t WANT to eat plant burgers. They just want meat. And… plant burgers might not be super good for you. What to do?

You know the answer. MANDATE THEM. To save the climate.

Why just “rich nations?” Probably because plant burgers are going to be super expensive and there will only be a few places to get the patented products. Like from Bill Gates’ three companies.

Think I’m crazy? Think it could never happen? Think people would never stand for a fake meat mandate? You’re wrong. Where do they always start these things? The MILITARY:

The Military Times article explains:

A provision tucked into the House version of 2023′s defense budget bill could require the Navy to serve up Beyond Burgers or Gardein at a number of forward bases.

Note the word, “require.” That’s a mandate. It should be very good for Beyond Burgers’ stock price. But it’s for your benefit. Serving plant meat to sailors saves you money:

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that inflation had reached a 40-year peak of 9.1% over the past year. While rising energy prices are a major factor driving the climbing costs, meat prices have gone up faster and further than other food staples, climbing more than 15% year over year.

It starts in the military then it spreads.

🔥 There’s no upper limit to what they can make us pay for mandates if they frame it right. They can even make you pay for international monkeypox vaccines so that a tiny number of hedonistic outlaws can continue doing horrible, indescribable things to each other without being inconvenienced by a two-week rash.

But maybe the worst one coming down the pike in the name of your own good is … the bug food trend.

They are WAY ahead of us on this one. Bug content — which used to be a reason to yank a disgraced food product OFF the market — is now silently skittering into lots of “health food” products:

Dr Shawn Baker 🥩 @SBakerMD

Starting to slip the bugz in!!

Bugs are NOT good for you. Bugs like crickets have “exoskeletons” — their bones are on the outside — that are made of something called chitins. Here are two sample studies about the potentially harmful effects of chitins, out of a whole LOT of them:

In addition to potentially causing cancer, chitin also hurts your immune system. From the second study listed above:

Immune recognition of chitin also involves pattern recognition receptors, mainly via TLR-2 and Dectin-1, to activate immune cells to induce cytokine production and creation of an immune network that results in inflammatory and allergic responses.

Remember those pesky cytokines? We sure heard a whole lot about them during covid, didn’t we? Seems like excess cytokines is something we’d prefer to avoid.

Anyway. About ten minutes ago, bugs were something contestants had to eat to advance to the next round on Fear Factor. How can they POSSIBLY convince enough ordinary consumers to voluntarily prefer bug-based food products so it would be economically viable for big business?

You know how. MANDATES. Take away the word, “voluntarily.” Think about how they got the corn into gasoline. It could start as simply as regulations requiring a certain percentage of “sustainable” ingredients in ALL meat products. It will grow from there.

And it’s for YOUR OWN GOOD. To save the Earth from a climate that changes.

🔥 Can you see how the Mandate Gold Rush is wrapped up in everything we’ve been suffering from over the last two and a half years? Pfizer and Moderna are now the wealthiest pharma companies in the Milky Way Galaxy. And the rest of us? Well, we don’t even know yet how much the jabs will cost us. The bills keep coming in the mail, and it’s going to take years to find out how much we owe.

We MUST stop the Mandate Gold Rush. I’m just presenting the problem in this post, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but here are a few initial suggestions.

(1) We have to undermine the first premise, that the government’s job is to protect us from whatever risks they can think of. Absent that premise, the others will fall.

(2) We need to educate people about how these mandates are making some people rich while destroying freedom, consumer choice, and boosting inflation, not to mention threatening the environment and our health.

(3) We need to lobby for accountability and transparency. If the government wants to mandate something, it should first have to disclose ALL POTENTIAL INTERESTS who would benefit, and ALL POTENTIAL HARMS that might arise from the mandate. I would include all regulatory mandates in that list, in whatever form.

🔥 The pandemic gave world governments a chance to declare an international emergency, which started a mandate gold rush that makes the original one look like a grainy 1960’s sci-fi movie.

So long as the government can unaccountably spend our money on anything they can describe as “for our own good,” we are involuntary toboggan riders, heading straight down, fast, toward socialism or full-on fascism. I wish I were exaggerating.

The good news is our opponents are not, well, intellectual dynamos.

Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you on the flip side.

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