We’re publishing an original essay today by David Stacey about the failure of the Economist to critically evaluate the pro-lockdown case. You’d expect the Economist, which prides itself on its mastery of data and its political independence, to inject a note of scepticism into its coverage of the global pandemic. Instead, it’s just slavishly regurgitated the official narrative. Here’s an extract:
With its data analysts, its unquestionably talented writers and economically literate worldwide readership the Economist was surely well placed to rise above the global Covid hysteria and rigorously pursue its masthead ambition of “taking part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress”.
From the start, however, it has, along with the rest of the legacy media, been consumed by an ostensibly virtuous but myopic fixation on “death with covid” mortality figures to the exclusion of all else. At the same time as Andrew Lewis observed in a letter to the magazine on July 24th 2021, portraying those who oppose lockdowns as “crackpots motivated by conspiracy theories”. Each week the Economist’s pages have been filled with the evidence of the disastrous costs of lockdowns (which it unfailingly refers to as the “cost of covid”) and the economic and social crises they have created, while failing to show that the lockdowns made any material difference to the spread of the virus. The Economist had the opportunity to provide serious, fearless, real-world, data-driven coverage that challenged the official “truth”, shone a light on the unprecedented vested interests and explored other strategies, the economic impact of which might have been less disastrous, not least for developing countries. Countries with whose welfare the magazine has previously aligned itself, where tens of millions have been plunged into poverty.
Worth reading in full.
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So far I like the cut of Milei’s jib. A breath of fresh air and common sense.
Billing the head of JSO would certainly be appreciated. A pay up or porridge deal should do the trick.
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
Although, of course, the state has no income. It’s income cones from shaking down the public.
It didn’t take Milei long to act like a hypocrite.
You are total granite Stewart always totally consistent.
JSO can protest and I would not charge them for security, but I would certainly charge them or jail them for damaging art works, buildings etc.—- Damaging things is not legitimate protest. ———I would expect no leniency if I had a JUST START OIL T short on and threw paint at my bank window, and I don’t think I would get any.
Its that thing that the left don’t do terribly well. Consequences for their actions…
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
That’s not really true. In 2017, there was a G20 meeting in Hamburg. These are traditionally also gathering points of the (so-called) anticapitalist/ anarchist hard left who’ll stage ‘protests’ against them. The city was essentially stripped of police in order to ensure the safety of all the meeting politicians. Because of this, the protestors went rioting in several city districts, smashing up and looting shops, torching cars etc.
Milei’s argument still doesn’t hold water, though: The largest parts of these costs will have been paying all the security-related government employees who would have needed to be paid come rain or shine, ie, regardless of the demonstration. And the actual numbers deployed were chosen by the government for some reason only known to it. People have freedom of assembly, however, should they actually assemble, fines in the order of thenthousands of dollars will be issued to people not guilty of any criminal conduct effectively means There’s no freedom of assembly.
I tend to agree
My starting point would be that the right to peaceful public mass protest is sacrosanct and charging people for it isn’t appropriate. If people are engaging in deliberate obstruction then they should be moved on or arrested. The greyer area is when the obstruction is a natural result of a lot of people being in the same place at the same time. I think it’s reasonable to encourage protestors to choose where they go in order to minimise inconvenience to others without losing the impact of the protest but I don’t feel that coercion is warranted
I like the idea of charging JSO for any damage done, then passing that on to donors. Never happen though
What a Christmas gift, that headline really did make me laugh out loud
Good for Milei, if I’m not mistaken a similar principle applies to football matches and pop concerts, so why not.
If you truly believe in what you’re protesting, you’ll be happy to foot the bill, in the knowledge that you will be safe while protesting and as a taxpayer you will not get further burdened.
Merry Christmas everyone, have a good one.
Yep, we are on the same page Jane.
Have a lovely Christmas
There’s a very real danger that this could end up being the thin end of the wedge. Once a government charges protesters blocking roads during a protest it’s a very small step to charging other protests for the policing costs involved and before we know it protest is the preserve of the well off.
The best solution would be to massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law during a protest to help cover the cost of dealing with their law breaking rather than simply charging groups who organise a protest.
“massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law”
I largely agree with your comments but the problem is that the legal system is now largely corrupted. JSO routinely break the law with their pathetic vandalism and deliberate road closures. Bill the tw#t funding this crap and things might change. If he doesn’t pay send him down.
Looking forward to the day when Extinction Rebellion are charged for the disruptions they cause. 10,000 motorists on the M25 x £10.42 an hour…. A few days of that will soon drain ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ the George Soros funded twats of funds.
Damn right.
“a heavy deployment of police, paramilitary officers and anti-riot forces, cost 60 million pesos, or about £57,500, at the official exchange rate.”
We should employ Argentinian police. At those prices we could fly them over here to deal with protests and riots and fly them back and it’d still cost less than using ours.
Yes that’s 1,043 pesos to the pound if my calculator is correct.
They will also strip protestors of Welfare. That’s going to hurt.
No. Just those protesters who block streets – if I understood that correctly.
Mind you that also means they expect to be able to identify these people.
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Have a peaceful Christmas everyone.
In order to do this they must be closely surveilling the event and have the technology to trace the protesters they have identified. Its easy to applaud the concept of charging the protesters but the mechanics involved in that process are part of the apparatus of the surveillance state which, I think, most here would be against.
Correct. Trudeau tried it against the Canadian trucker protest during Covid. Not just cutting off welfare payments but freezing their bank accounts. I don’t think many on here would have supported that action.