Freedom Loving Libertarian. Humanity is one race. #Bitcoin
Joined July 2010
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FreeBased retweeted
I am not a billionaire, so let me try to convince them.
The first question is what does universal health care mean? Health care is not a thing that exists in nature. It is the knowledge, time, and effort of doctors, nurses, and the people who build the machines and discover the drugs. So "universal health care" means someone must provide all of that to everyone, and the question every slogan hides is: who, and on what terms?
The money comes from taxation, which means it is taken from the people who earned it under threat of prison. There is no other source. "The government pays" means your neighbors pay, by force. And the care comes from the doctors. If the state sets what they may charge, what they may prescribe, and whom they must treat, then the doctor works on the government's terms, not his own. Ask what happens when fewer men choose to spend a decade training for a profession the state controls. Britain and Canada answer that question every day: waiting lists measured in months, scans and surgeries that never arrive, patients who die in queues the state calls coverage, and a steady flow of the sick toward the one country that still lets medicine turn a profit. Universal coverage is not universal care. It is a promise of care, rationed by bureaucrats, and the gap between the promise and the delivery is filled with suffering. And the innovations that would have saved the next generation, the drugs and devices nobody invents when discovery is punished with price controls, never exist at all. You cannot count what central planning prevents, which is exactly why its defenders never have to answer for it. You cannot have a right to another man's labor. Claiming one means he works for you whether he consents or not, and there is an old name for that arrangement.
Is it communism? Not necessarily. That depends on the form it takes. But it is socialism and collectivism by definition: the individual's earnings and the physician's work treated as public property, distributed by the state according to need. Same with "decent wages" set by law. A wage is a price for labor. Command a price above what the work produces and the job disappears. That is why every minimum wage hike is followed by kiosks.
Nobody needed a billionaire to explain this. The case against collectivism is not that it threatens billionaires. It is that it treats every man who earns anything as a means to the ends of others. The billionaires, frankly, have done a terrible job making it, which is why I am here.
FreeBased retweeted
Working at Oculus would have been an utter waste of my time except for one thing.
While I was there, I realized what's wrong with leftists.
Not that they have been programmed, that's obvious. Not why they have been programmed. For power, that's obvious, too.
But how they have been programmed.
The exact method that their moral compass has been destroyed works like this:
Target a bunch of people with very few deeds and accomplishments, such as young people or incompetent people, or incompetent young people.
Create for them an environment where they are rewarded with moral approval, not for what they do, but for believing certain ideas.
The ideas don't have to be outrageous, or absurd, or have anything to do with what you actually need them to believe. In fact, it's better to start with something innocuous.
Why? Because the goal isn't to install those beliefs at all. The goal is to repeat this process until you create a person who measures his moral worth by what he believes, not what he does.
Keep at this until you have created a mass of people who not only reward themselves with a feeling of moral superiority for believing the right things, but who will reward each other for believing orthodox things, and who will compete with each other, not to do the most good, but to have the most orthodox beliefs.
Now, change one of the propositions you have programmed them with to a slightly more radical version of itself, and hold this up as a more correct version of the old belief, which has been newly discovered by scholarly investigations into culture and moral philosophy.
Sit back, watch, and give them a few weeks to compete with each other to adopt the new belief, and to condemn the "evil" of anyone who believes the old belief, the very thing they believed last month.
Repeat this process until they are used to rapidly changing their entire belief system in response to an external cue.
Congratulations, you have a population of entirely programmable people whose moral compass is not just broken, but entirely non-existent.
They don't care what any person in front of them actually does. Only that he believe the orthodox thing, which they just learned about in last week's memo.
They are willing to do anything, so long as it is done in support of their current belief system, which can be replaced whenever it's convenient to do so.
They are willing to burn down an entire city with no qualms whatsoever if they are doing it in support of the idea that black lives matter.
They are willing to murder a man in front of his children, and it doesn't matter if his actions were entirely peaceful and good, because all that matters to them is whether he believes the correct things or not.
And a man who builds cheap spaceflight for the human race, develops viable electric cars to save the environment, restores voices to the voiceless, and plans, for his next trick, to heal the blind... well, all those are deeds, so none of them matter. The only thing that matters is that he told people to vote republican once, which is wrongthink.
So what you have a horde of communist zombies, who can be steered to shuffle in any direction and attack the living, eat their brains, and turn them into more zombies.
Once someone becomes one of the zombies, you can't cure him, because a moral compass can only be repaired by understanding the consequences of actions in a new way... and they don't care about actions or consequences. They only care about beliefs, and not about consequences at all.
Their moral compasses aren't just broken. They are absent. There's nothing to repair.
You have to understand that the zombies are zombies now.
FreeBased retweeted
The answer isn’t getting the right person into power.
The answer is limiting power so that the person doesn’t matter.
FreeBased retweeted
If Republicans manage to lose this election cycle, spare us the customary four-year crying tour.
Do not blame the media, the ballot drops, or late-night printing presses.
If you lose to the most incompetent, economically illiterate, and culturally exhausted administration in modern American history, you have only one entity to blame.
Look directly into the mirror in your office.
For four decades, the Republican establishment has operated like an expensive hospice service for Western civilization.
They exist primarily to manage decline, cash donor checks from corporate lobbies, and issue polite press releases expressing deep concern.
When Democrats wield power, they use it like a sledgehammer to remodel every institution in the country.
When Republicans hold power, they suddenly transform into constitutional scholars who insist their hands are completely tied by bureaucratic etiquette.
Your opponents are openly sterilizing children, cratering the domestic energy grid, and actively inviting foreign cartels to police your southern border.
Any serious political movement would defeat this opposition in a historic landslide before noon on Election Day.
Yet the consultants in Washington are currently huddled in beige conference rooms advising candidates to avoid mentioning the culture war.
They honestly believe suburban mothers care more about a two-percent reduction in corporate marginal tax rates than whether their daughters share a locker room with grown men.
It is staggering cowardice dressed up as strategic moderation.
You cannot out-Democrat the Democrats by running as a slightly less competent version of their social vision.
Voters do not respect people who apologize for their own core convictions before the debate even starts.
If you spend nine months whispering about tax brackets while the other side wages total ideological war, you deserve the humiliating defeat coming your way.
The American people do not want a polite custodian of national decay.
They want a leader with the moral courage to dismantle the regime currently dismantling their children's future.
If this November ends in disaster, it will not be because the left was brilliant or invincible.
It will be because the right chose comfort over conflict, focus groups over reality, and compliance over victory.
The base gave you money, volunteers, and absolute loyalty, yet you delivered corporate talking points and pre-emptive surrenders.
We know the establishment Republicans will point every finger imaginable the morning after the polls close.
They will blame conservatives, libartarians, and everyone else but themselves.
FreeBased retweeted
Elon, it is already game over. The question is only how long the clock runs.
Ask yourself why the Democrats even have a shot at all three branches in 2028. Their politics rests on one moral premise: that a man's need is a claim on another man's life. Altruism. And almost no one challenges it, including you. You argue about borders and Senate seats, and concede the premise that produces every policy you fear.
When men like you accept the morality of your opponents, you have already lost. What follows is a matter of time. The Republicans prove it every day. They won't end the welfare state because they believe it is moral and only too expensive. They won't win the war in Iran because they believe America has no right to act in its own interest without apology. Trump thinks tariffs are good. You keep calling this a democracy when it is a constitutional republic built to protect the individual from the majority. Same premise, different flavor, every time.
If you want to save America, there is one way, and it is not an election. It starts with finding the philosophical errors that got us here, learning the answers, and then reaching enough other intellectuals to change the ideas the culture accepts. Elections follow ideas. They never lead them.
Ayn Rand gave men those answers decades ago. Most won't read her, because the morality they already accept won't let them open their eyes. You could be the exception. The rockets prove you can think from first principles. Try it on morality.
FreeBased retweeted
We have some infighting in the UFO community!
Don't care. And I've seen much worse.
In no particular order, I am thankful for everything these folks have done for the Disclosure effort: @jaystratton, @LueElizondo, Dr. @haroldputhoff, Dr. @GarryPNolan, Dr. Jim Lacatski, Dr. Eric Davis, Jim Semivan, @tomdelonge, @ChrisKMellon, David Grusch, Dr. Colm Kelleher, Robert Bigelow, Jim Ryder, Senators Reid, Inouye and Stevens, Mary Elizabeth Elliot, @g_knapp, @JeremyCorbell, Steve Justice, @TheDylanBorland, @SunOfAbramelin, Dr. Kit Green, @DrPhil, @uncertainvector, @DietrichVFA41, David Fravor, all experiencers, all politicians, all members of the media who have covered this, Gumby, and many others.
That doesn't mean I agree with everything they've said. And when that happens, I write or say so, as I'm not one to bite my tongue.
But, so what?
All of those folks have played an important role and we wouldn't be here without that group effort.
One thing: If Lue hadn't come forward in 2017, I'm not sure where we'd be right now with public disclosure. He was EVERYWHERE in 2017, doing so much media and doing it well. I think some people seriously undervalue the effect that had on public attitudes related to the subject of UFOs.
Jay Stratton was the lead guy behind the scenes since 2005, briefing everybody and their brother (up to SecDef, DNI and Mnuchin), helping to put together AAWSAP and building up the UAPTF. Yeoman's work! Losing both of those programs/efforts was disastrous and I try not to think about the lost opportunities and wasted years.
But the media appearances (mostly by Lue) were EXTREMELY important in helping to reduce stigma and educate the public about what's been going on for at least the last 80 years or so.
Look at "The Age of Disclosure." Lue shined in that documentary and was side-by-side with Stratton. I know Lue and Jay may see things differently on who did what, but I was a little surprised to see how Lue's role was minimized in "Out of the Shadows." At a minimum, point out that Lue was the lead guy in educating the public.
Again, that doesn't change the fact that this is a team effort and everybody has played their role. And don't mistake this for me saying that Lue ONLY did media and nothing else. I'm not saying that. Remember, in 2020, Dr. Eric Davis said that his boss, Dr. Hal Puthoff, reported to Lue at the Pentagon during the AATIP days.
Moving Forward: As always, we hope for firsthand witnesses to come forward and not just in SCIFs. That's the next step. And eventually, we need to see OMG videos and physical evidence. I don't know if I'll be alive to see the latter, but I always keep a part of myself hopeful while, at the same time, being a realist and not blowing smoke up anyone's azz.
FreeBased retweeted
Just because you get the government to take someone’s money for you, rather than doing it directly yourself, doesn’t make you any less of a thief.
FreeBased retweeted
Both Democrats and Republicans either refuse to define socialism or claim it's too complicated to define, so instead describe what socialism means to them.
But it's actually very simple. Socialism is when the government owns or controls the means of production and operates them for the collective benefit of all. Capitalism is when the means of production are privately owned and operated for private profit.
Democrats refuse to define it as they don't want the public to know that is exactly what they want. Republicans won't define it either because in many cases they want the same thing.
FreeBased retweeted
This is @saifedean at his best. Fiat educators still haven't recovered from this.
FreeBased retweeted
I'm old enough to remember how the neocons destroyed the Republican party in 2008, the Democrats won huge majorities in both houses.
Of course the Democrats didn't stop the wars, close Gitmo, cancel the Patriot Act or slow down the surveillance state, instead they bailed out the bankers.
The Republicans clawed back into power promising smaller government, lower spending and to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Instead we are now $40 trillion in debt, massive inflation, they ignored the DOGE recommendations, they started another war and insurance costs have skyrocketed.
We have two political parties that never do anything they promise. We aren't voting our way out of this.
FreeBased retweeted
Imagine it's the 1940s. You're a carpenter. Power tools are beginning to replace hand tools for ordinary work. Furthermore, jobs that would have been impossible or ruinously expensive are suddenly within reach.
You show up at a worksite one fine morning and it's being picketed. STOP POWER TOOLS! the signs say. WOODWORKING UNDER THREAT!
Puzzled, you accost one of the demonstrators and ask him why he has a signboard in his hand rather than tools.
"Power tools are a menace!" he says. "How are you going to train apprentices if they can't feel the wood through their hands?"
"What happens when we can chew through aged quality timber faster than we can grow new trees?"
"Carpentry isn't just a set of skills and habits, it's a mindset. It won't be any true carpenters left if we let this go on."
You inquire further and discover that they have plans. Plans to exclude from any job they work on any craftsman who has ever used a power tool or even spoken approvingly about them.
Meanwhile, inside the picket line, a house is going up. Men are working. Cutting and joining the framing is going faster than you could have imagined 10 years ago.
You look at the workers. You look at the demonstrators. One group is talking. The other is getting stuff done. One group looks like the past, the other like the future. In this moment, you get to decide which group you're going to join.
This post was not about carpentry.
FreeBased retweeted
A guy worked at Amazon for 5 years 2 years in the Prime membership growth team and 3 years in operations.
He left in 2024. He's still a Prime member.
He told me: "There are 157 million Prime members in the U.S. At least 130 million of them use Prime for one thing: free shipping. That's a $139/year membership being used as a $7.95 delivery fee waiver. The average Prime member has access to $2,400+ in annual benefits and uses about $300 worth. The rest the pharmacy, the photo storage, the gaming library, the grocery discounts, the free food delivery, the fuel savings, the free streaming music, the free books, the free movies in theaters sits dormant in their account, fully paid for, never activated."
"Amazon doesn't advertise most of these benefits. They're not on the homepage. They're not in the shipping confirmation email. They're buried in a benefits page most members have never visited. And that's by design because every benefit you don't activate is a benefit Amazon doesn't have to fulfill. Your subscription funds the infrastructure. Your inaction keeps the margins high."
"I spent 2 years studying why members churn. The #1 reason people cancel Prime isn't the price. It's 'I'm not getting enough value.' They were getting the value. They just didn't know it was there." DM
Here are the 10 Amazon Prime benefits most members have never activated and the math that proves the membership pays for itself 5x over:
🧵
FreeBased retweeted
Don’t blame baby boomers because they could buy houses for $20k and pay for college with a summer job.
Blame the politicians who printed money from thin air for half a century to fund expansion of government, war and grift.
The money is broken. Fix the money. Fix the world.
FreeBased retweeted
Character over race is a wonderful thing. I’m glad my mom and granddad taught me as much.
FreeBased retweeted
The non-accredited status borders on racism. Abolish all references to accredited / non-accredited class. If a person can spend their last dollar in a casino, lottery tickets, or booze without a test, and without accreditation, they should be free to invest in whatever they choose. My money my choice!
FreeBased retweeted
Henry Kissinger died in November 2023 at the age of 100, and the obituaries called him a statesman. He was a central planner who happened to work in foreign policy instead of the Federal Reserve.
The intellectual disease is identical. A man in Washington believes he possesses the knowledge to arrange the affairs of millions of people he has never met and will never meet. A central planner cannot calculate without prices, profit and loss, or feedback from the people he commands. Kissinger governed nations the way a Soviet commissar governed a steel plant: from a map, with a phone, guessing.
Consider Cambodia. Between 1969 and 1973, the Nixon administration dropped roughly 540,000 tons of bombs on a country the United States had not declared war against. Kissinger approved the targets. He treated a living society as a chalkboard. Central planning fails abroad the same way it fails at home: the planner cannot foresee the consequences of his interventions, so each intervention breeds the next. The result was the Khmer Rouge, who then murdered something close to two million people.
Then there is the money. Kissinger stood at Nixon's side in August 1971 when the United States defaulted on Bretton Woods and severed the dollar from gold. He spent the next years constructing the petrodollar arrangement with Saudi Arabia, guaranteeing military protection in exchange for oil priced in dollars. This was propping up a fiat currency by force, exporting inflation, and financing a permanent war machine that no sound money system would ever have tolerated. Under a gold standard, you pay for your wars in gold, and you run out fast. Under Kissinger's system, you print.
You are supposed to admire the "realism." Realism, in his usage, meant that ordinary people exist to be moved around by their betters. Free market thinkers reject that premise completely. Order emerges from voluntary exchange, not from a Harvard professor with the authority to bomb.
He was brilliant, they say. So was every planner who ever wrecked a system he could not understand.
FreeBased retweeted
A central bank digital currency is a leash with a settlement layer, not money.
Every purchase you make lands in a government database in real time. Your coffee at 7:14am, your bar tab, the cash you slipped to your nephew. All of it timestamped, geolocated, permanent. The physical dollar bill in your wallet does not report to Washington. A CBDC does nothing else but report. That is the entire product. The Federal Reserve tried to sell this in its January 2022 discussion paper as "efficiency" and "financial inclusion," which is the language a locksmith would use while he installs a lock on the outside of your door.
The programmability is the part they prefer you skip past. A CBDC lets the issuer set rules on the money itself. Your stimulus expires on March 31 if you don't spend it. Your fuel purchases cap at 40 liters this month because someone in a ministry decided your carbon budget. Your account freezes because you donated to the wrong trucker convoy, which is not hypothetical: Justin Trudeau froze bank accounts under the Emergencies Act in February 2022 using the clumsy old system. A CBDC removes the friction. No court order, no bank in between, just a flag flipped on a ledger the state owns outright.
Luckily, this terrible idea will die because money is a market phenomenon that emerges from people choosing the most saleable good, and it survives only by trust. Carl Menger explained this in 1892, and nobody has refuted him since. You cannot decree trust into existence. Nigeria launched the eNaira in October 2021 with the full force of the central bank behind it. By late 2023, after two years and a cash-withdrawal crisis engineered to force adoption, less than 1 percent of Nigerians used it. They chose cash. They chose crypto. They chose anything but the surveillance coin.
The state can build the rails. It can mandate, subsidize, and threaten. What it cannot do is make you want a wallet that a bureaucrat can empty, throttle, or expire on a Tuesday. People understand a cage when they see the bars, even when the salesman calls it convenience.
The only question is who are the politicians dumb enough to die on this hill.
FreeBased retweeted
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