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The Munk Debate on the Crisis of Liberalism Missed the Plot

by Bruce Pardy
10 November 2023 1:00 PM

On Friday, George Will squared off against Sohrab Ahmari in the Munk debate on “the crisis of liberalism”. But the crisis didn’t come up. 

Will is a prominent conservative commentator who writes for the Washington Post. Ahmari is an author, editor and publisher who has advocated “common good conservatism”. They debated whether ‘Liberalism gets the big questions right’ at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a British Conservative MP and the most dynamic speaker of the evening, joined Will to support the motion. Ash Sarkar, a writer and lecturer who called herself a libertarian communist (“I’m a tall short person”) argued alongside Ahmari to oppose it. 

The proceedings missed the plot. The audience did not get a definition of liberalism, nor a clear sign of what the debaters believed the ‘big questions’ to be. Standard tropes littered the stage. Liberalism produces prosperity, said the Pro side, and has raised millions out of poverty across the world (true). But free trade with countries like China has decimated Western working classes, argued the Con side, who suffer from an epidemic of drug addictions and despair (also true). Sarkar turned out to be a plain old communist whose dogmatic drivel grated on the ears. 

Even the quotes were predictable (Will from Margaret Thatcher: “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”). But the biggest problem was that the speakers equated liberalism with conditions in Western countries as they presently exist. The evening turned into a debate between champions of the current order (Will and Rees-Mogg) and those advocating for more government (Ahmari and Sarkar). Everyone seemed to agree that the West, even today, is liberal.

If only it were so. Liberalism is a political philosophy of individual freedom. The word ‘liberal’ derives from libertas, the Latin word for liberty. “Don’t tell me what to do” is the liberal mantra. Liberals – real liberals, not modern woke progressives, who are anything but liberal – believe that people own their own lives. They should buy and sell what they want, say what they think, have sex with and marry whom they please, worship as they wish, be responsible for themselves, and leave other people alone. And most importantly, they believe that the state should not interfere. Liberalism means that people are free to sail their own ships.

Non-liberal systems of government have one thing in common: some people rule over others. As Frederic Bastiat wrote, the legislator “bears the same relation to mankind as the potter does to the clay. Unfortunately, when this idea prevails, nobody wants to be the clay, and everyone wants to be the potter”. The alternative to liberalism is illiberalism.

For periods, political cultures in Western nations at least aspired to the liberal ideal. The purpose of government, says the American Declaration of Independence, is to secure individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you live in a Western country today, you still have more freedom than most of the rest of the world at most other times in history. 

But Western liberalism is fading. Over many decades, managerialism, not liberalism, has become the West’s prevailing ethos. An expansive welfare state regulates, supervises, subsidises, and controls modern life: markets and financial systems, public schools and universities, health care, media, food production, energy production, telecom services, the professions and even speech. Free market capitalism is in retreat, replaced by cooperation between governments and big business. 

People are subject to the arbitrary discretion of Government agencies which pursue their own agendas. Identity politics reign and the surveillance state expands. Moreover, the public has been convinced that Government administration is necessary. Civilisation has become too complex, they believe, not to be managed by an expert bureaucracy. 

Genuine individual autonomy has become so foreign to our expectations that the word ‘liberal’ now has a different meaning. To be called a liberal does not mean that you believe in liberty but in the nanny state. Today’s liberals are not individualists but ‘progressives’ seeking to shape society in their best judgement. They support higher taxes, social justice, wind turbines and non-gender pronouns.

During Covid, the erosion of real liberalism accelerated. Suddenly, in the name of an airborne virus, state authorities assumed unprecedented powers to control movement and behaviour. They imposed the most serious peacetime restrictions on civil liberties in modern history. Governments colluded with pharma companies to abbreviate established processes for developing and approving vaccines, and then to mandate their use.

In the Munk debate, none of this even came up. No one mentioned Covid restrictions. No one mentioned the decline of the rule of law and weaponisation of the legal system for political ends. No one mentioned Government censorship or media collusion. Will cited Covid vaccines – one of the most significant Government projects in Western history — as the triumph of a free market. Ahmari claimed them as the successful outcome of Government intervention. Ironically, no debate could have demonstrated better the West’s crisis of liberalism.

Bruce Pardy is Executive Director of Rights Probe and Professor of Law at Queen’s University. This article was first published by the Brownstone Institute.

Tags: CensorshipCOVID-19LiberalismLockdownMunk DebateProgressive LeftVaccineWoke Gobbledegook

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13 Comments
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JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago

It’s worth noting that in Summer 2020, there was a BSI publication on this topic ( bsi-guide-for-personal-safety-equipment-0520 – still available here: https://www.bsigroup.com/globalassets/localfiles/en-gb/product-certification/personal-safety/bsi-guide-for-personal-safety-equipment-0520.pdf ).

It emphasised the use of the term “face covering”, not “masks”, on pain of being out of line with trading standards if the wrong term was used. In fact, many products on sale had tiny labels in small font (that most punter wouldn’t read) to avoid being dealt with by Trading Standards. UK Government sites also used the same term, for similar reasons. It was a con, and an opportunity to sell junk, made in the far east etc.

69
0
FerdIII
FerdIII
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

Real term: face anus wraps.
Sometimes named: diapers for irremediably stupid and ugly.
Both Found in: the retard book of ‘the science’

21
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago

You know masks do nothing positive.
I know masks do nothing positive.

But who are we?!

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

Last edited 2 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
58
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Mogwai
Mogwai
2 years ago

And here is what GAVI have to say in response to the latest Cochrane review on masks. Well of course they won’t take the conclusion lying down and gawd are they desperate to discredit the findings;

”Face masks and respirators work in two ways: they protect the wearer from becoming infected and they prevent an infected wearer from spreading their germs to other people.
Most RCTs in this Cochrane Review looked only at the former scenario, not the latter. In other words, the researchers had asked people to wear masks and then tested to see if those people became infected.
A previous systematic review found face masks worn by sick people during an influenza epidemic reduced the risk of them transmitting the infection to family members or other carers. Preventing an infection in one person also prevents onward transmission to others within a closed setting, which means such RCTs should use a special method called “cluster randomisation” to account for this.
Data from a RCT of N95 respirator use by health workers showed even their unmasked colleagues were protected. Yet some of the trials included in the review did not use cluster randomisation.”

Edit: It wasn’t GAVI, they just published this from another site. This is the original article from The Conversation, and I spy one of the authors is our friend Prof Trish/Trev. You can see the authors’ conflicts of interest to the right of the article. ‘Nuff said;

https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992

Last edited 2 years ago by Mogwai
34
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Trev the Geek
Trev the Geek
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

“…This is the original article from The Conversation, and I spy one of the authors is our friend Prof Trish/Trev.”

You just had to bring that old thread up Mogs. It still makes me snigger when I see the post’s featured image – and the comments of course. 🤣

13
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 years ago
Reply to  Trev the Geek

Just checking you’re in the building Trev. 😁

6
0
Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
2 years ago
Reply to  Trev the Geek

The Conversation…
Yet another organisation compromised by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Conversation also bans people who challenge the status quo…on vaccination policy for instance. I was banned from making comments on The Conversation in April 2016. So much for ‘the conversation’…
See: The Conversation – a marketing arm for the university and research sector.

1
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

The pro-maskers are really grasping at straws now, lol. Source control can be even more self-evidently debunked by those famous videos demonstrating smoke leaking through the masks and around the edges.

Last edited 2 years ago by True Spirit of America Party
20
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JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  True Spirit of America Party

Reminded me that around the height of the panic, I saw someone wearing one, with a shopping bag in one hand and a live cigarette in the other! I didn’t stop to watch how they smoked, though.

7
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

The basic lie here is that Face masks work in two ways. They don’t. They’re a physcial barrier between inside and outside areas and this physical barrier is supposed to prevent certain things from crossing from one area to the oher. If the barrier is effective at stopping these things from crossing from one area to the other, it’ll be equally effective for inside -> outside and outside -> inside. If it’s not effective for one, it can’t be effective for the other, either. It’s just that there’s an objective metric for testing effectiveness for the outside -> inside direction (wearer becoming infected) and there isn’t one for the other as the intended effect is a non-event: Person remains uninfected. One would need to observe the person forever, ie until death, in order to be sure that infection will never have occurred.

That’s a special case of asserting that a negative must be proven which is impossible as it would require omniscience, cf

https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/phil_of_religion_text/CHAPTER_5_ARGUMENTS_EXPERIENCE/Burden-of-Proof.htm

NB: It’s really important to understand that Corona’s witnesses always rely on claims which can’t be proven to justify their policies. Which means they’re basically Bauernfänger (literally farmer catchers, swindlers relying on the relative ignorance of farmers about urban affairs to trick them into something).

22
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

For me, the giant elephant in the room which I don’t see being discussed is that we don’t want to stop the spread of viruses.

The idea that we don’t want respiratory viruses spread is, in my view, insane and incredibly destructive.

We used to understand this. We used to talk about colds getting around, letting children catch them and human immune systems getting stronger from them.

To me it’s like telling everyone to stop walking because they might sprain their ankles. And most important of all, old people must never walk because they are at greatest risk of falling and breaking a hip or something else.

No, you do the opposite. You walk a lot, and often and do all you can to strengthen you muscles so that the day you step on something in a funny way, your muscles are as strong as possible and have the best chance of keeping you on your feet.

If by any chance masks do stop the spread of viruses, which is seriously doubtful, the last thing we should do is wear them.

The world has gone mad. Completely mad. They’ve tried to re-engineer so much of human society in just three years (and made such enormous inroads) that we”re losing track of the most basic reality.

60
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Not only that, it’s based on an assumption that most people won’t understand the physics of it all. After all, we’re talking about a tiny compound with a size of around 100 nm. So small it will pass through most fabric that we have available, and is quite likely to be part of the air we breath, particularly inside places with a lot of air circulation.

15
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Very well said. As I’ve posted elsewhere, eradicating the spread of mild infectious diseases is quite possibly a very dangerous thing to do – even if it were possible at reasonable cost and without disruption to normal life, it might lead to utter catastrophe.

18
0
Judy Watson
Judy Watson
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I cannot help but think of the measles parties of old. To be replaced by the chickenpox parties (I have known this to happen).

5
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

About the authors of this:

C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from mask manufacturer Detmold for testing of their masks and is on an advisory board for mask manufacturer Ascend. She receives funding from Sanofi for investigator-driven influenza research, and from NHMRC and MRFF. She has been an expert advisor for Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) In the matter of a proceeding under the Labour Relations Act, 1995 between ONA and Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation.

Abrar Ahmad Chughtai had testing of filtration of masks by 3M for his PhD. 3M products were not used in his research. He also has worked with Paftec on research in respirators (no funding was involved).

Dr Fisman has served as an expert witness for the Ontario Nurses Association and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario in legal challenges related to safer working conditions in healthcare and schools. Dr. Fisman has served on advisory boards for Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Merck, Seqirus and Sanofi vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and S. pneumoniae. He holds current funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and Health Canada.

8
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago
Reply to  GMO

For those of you who don’t know, the Ontario Nurses Association is very pro-mask.

8
0
wryobserver
wryobserver
2 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

I spy an oxymoron. Let’s consider the second point – that masks stop infected people from spreading the virus. If they are infected and they know it they should be isolating, and if they are isolating they don’t need to wear a mask…

6
0
JayBee
JayBee
2 years ago

Masks are splashguards (Mike Yeadon) and dust filters.
Respirators from P100 upwards can work against viruses, but only with full PPE and for max. 45 minutes, during which one has to stay quiet.
(Steve Kirsch had an article on a study showing that about 6 months ago).
In practice, only 3% leakage of the splashguards and dust filters already results in 100% inefficiency against either, and their mishandling is by now legendary and inevitable.
In practice, they simply cannot work, even if they were efficient, which they aren’t, least of all in educational or business settings where people speak and thereby moisturize them.

Masks were introduced solely for psychological and power display reasons and in particular to prepare for and normalise other assaults on bodily autonomy, like invasive testing and gene-therapy mandates.

79
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Correct. And in the real world, almost no-one bought any kit that could do what was promoted. No training, or education to do with it’s use either. A lot of junk was sold, with tiny labels (in less than 8 point text) that most would not read, to the effect that they were not actual medical masks at all. They were labelled in larger text on the front of a pack as “face covering”. Almost all supermarkets did that; the only benefit was improved sales income.

22
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

So true. For all practical purposes, the masks as worn in practice were utterly useless and not fit for purpose.

17
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago

TBH I don’t much care whether they “work”. Covid was/is a mild inconvenience for most people, in the same bracket as flu. I’m not prepared to wear a muzzle on the offchance it might stop me spreading “covid” to someone.

62
0
RDawg
RDawg
2 years ago

Just a reminder that if your workplace is still insisting on mask mandates, get in touch with the Workers of England Union who will fight for you. Unlike the other bigger national unions who happily go along with government diktats.

Go to https://workersofengland.co.uk

You can be based in England, Scotland or Wales. All are welcome.

63
0
Monro
Monro
2 years ago

‘….public health officials must act in a precautionary manner to take action even when evidence is uncertain (or not of the highest quality), particularly when the harms and costs of such action are likely limited.’

Dr Soares Weiser, Cochrane’s Chief Editor

Herein lies the problem within the medical profession once again:

Ignorance.

Cochrane’s Chief Editor is talking manifest nonsense:

EU (from whence the ‘precautionary principle emanated) legal advice regarding the ‘precautionary principle’

‘the general principles of risk management remain applicable when the precautionary principle is invoked. These are the following five principles:

  • proportionality between the measures taken and the chosen level of protection;
  • non-discrimination in application of the measures;
  • consistency of the measures with similar measures already taken in similar situations or using similar approaches;
  • examination of the benefits and costs of action or lack of action;
  • review of the measures in the light of scientific developments.’

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/the-precautionary-principle.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20European%20Commission,be%20determined%20with%20sufficient%20certainty.

The man, if he had any decency, should resign forthwith.

13
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Indeed, he is turning the precautionary principle (the original Rio Declaration Earth Summit 1992 version) completely on its head.

7
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago

Indeed. Publication bias is very real. Another example is the Fargo school mask study, which is still a preprint and not yet published even a year later, versus the highly and fatally flawed Boston school mask study that got pal-reviewed and published in the NEJM rather quickly. Guess which study found that masks didn’t make a difference, and which one claimed that masks worked?

22
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago

For some it is the assumed ‘Truth’ that masks work and therefore any other opinion is wrong and therefore should be censored.

They never question their assumptions, presuming that they are infallible and can never be wrong.

10
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago

For me, what is most important is free debate and allowing open science to find the actual truth.

Not allowing free science to discover the facts and truth is not real science but ideology.

If some says ‘The science is settled’ you know they are talking ideology, not real science.

12
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago

If the objective is to stop the spread of viruses then the best method is no contact with other people.
Everyone should stay in a closet by themself and never leave.

11
0
wryobserver
wryobserver
2 years ago

Suppression of adverse views is normal behaviour, of which scientific examples go back to the persecution of Galileo. It has however just occurred to me that, given the Danish mask study was one of the first, we should remember Tycho Brahe, who developed the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, and elevate both to the Galilean pantheon.

2
0
carter20
carter20
2 years ago

Great, you always feature in m articles and will do so again this week

 https://dailysceptic.org/why-children-should-not-be-masked/.

Masks don’t work so why are people continuing to push for them ?
https://hughmccarthy.substack.com/p/masks-dont-work
   
Not Masks Again
https://hughmccarthy.substack.com/p/not-masks-again

1
0
Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
2 years ago

The desperation to mask/muzzle people is beyond sinister.
Adrian Esterman in South Australia has made it his life’s work to try and keep people muzzled…what is going on with these people?!
There are so many individuals with ‘doctor’ and ‘professor’ titles seeking to interfere in other people’s lives, and steal their personal autonomy and bodily integrity.
On what authority do they do this?
It’s way past time to call them out, make them accountable for their influence on policy.

4
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago

Free speech and open free science is the enemy of the ‘woke progressive’ ideology so they want to censor, ban, demonize and smear any other opinions other than their own.

3
0

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