The Anointed and Free Speech, Part Four

      72 Comments on The Anointed and Free Speech, Part Four

In the previous three posts, we looked at why The Anointed aren’t big fans of free speech or the wide-open discussion and debate free speech enables:

1.   They believe they are very, very smart.
2.   They believe the rest of us aren’t very, very smart and are therefore easily fooled and led astray.

In comments, a reader posted a link to an excellent blog post by Charles Hugh Smith that makes the same point:

Perhaps what has failed here is the narrative that everything fails and falls apart if it isn’t centrally managed and curated, a narrative that inevitably leads to censorship under the guise of “protecting you, the easily confused sheep, from these nasty wolves.”

Censorship then enables another, much more well-organized and centralized pack of wolves (the ruling elites) to prey on the obedient sheep at their leisure, without fear of any disruptive dissenting narratives.

What the ruling political elites and their mainstream media shills fear is a wide-open, chaotic and very Darwinian competition of concepts and ideas.

I’ve got to start reading his blog.  Sounds like my kinda guy.

Whether The Anointed like it or not, that chaotic and very Darwinian competition of concepts and ideas is happening.  Thanks to the internet and social media, the information gatekeepers have lost control of the gates.  The rest of us are now communicating directly with each other.  The results haven’t been good for The Anointed, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb pointed out in his essay The Intellectual Yet Idiot (his term for The Anointed):

What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.

… With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30 years of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating at best only 1/3 of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers (or Montaigne and such filtered classical knowledge) with a better track record than these policymaking goons.

My, my, my … with the great unwashed masses rebelling and trusting their own instincts, or their grandmothers, or each other, or bloggers and podcasters whose ideas and advice they’ve found useful, how are The Anointed supposed to protect people against their own stupidity?  (As you may recall, The Anointed believe anyone who defies them must be stupid, or evil, or perhaps both.)

One way or another, The Anointed believe they must coerce people who disagree with them into shutting the hell up.  As we saw in our last post, demanding retractions of critiques and opinions they don’t like is one favorite tactic.

Another favorite tactic is to personally attack the messenger, as opposed to arguing against what the messenger has to say.  That’s where the “anyone who disagrees with us must be evil” attitude shows itself.  Yelling “racist!” over disagreements that have nothing to do with race is certainly near the top of The Official Anointed Playbook.  So are comments like this, uttered by our ol’ buddy Dr. David Katz while responding to the Nina Teicholz critique of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines:

The report does take into account sustainability, something that the committee noted was not traditionally in their purview. “Ms. Teicholz seems inclined to ignore that altogether; perhaps she does not care whether there is anything for the next generation to eat or drink, but I suspect most of us do,” Katz noted.

Got that?  If Teicholz argues that the guidelines aren’t based on good science, well then by gosh, it means she doesn’t care if our kids and grandkids end up starving and dying of thirst – a looming disaster the U.S. Dietary Guidelines would of course prevent.  Gee, she must be a terrible, terrible person.  Best not listen to anything she has to say.

When demands for retractions and personal attacks fail, there’s always the final option: bring the rebellious naysayer up on charges.  Initiate some kind of prosecution, preferably one with the threat of real punishment attached.

As you probably recall, a state board threatened to prosecute blogger Steve Cooksey for promoting a low-carb, paleo diet for diabetics on his Diabetes Warrior blog.  Here are some quotes from a Carolina Journal article about that incident:

The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition is threatening to send a blogger to jail for recounting publicly his battle against diabetes and encouraging others to follow his lifestyle.

Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes makes it a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without a license. According to the law, “practicing” nutrition includes “assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups” and “providing nutrition counseling.”

Hmmm, certainly sounds like a case of The Anointed feeling threatened by a wide-open, chaotic and very Darwinian competition of concepts and ideas.  After all, there are plenty of bloggers and health professionals in the world promoting the low-fat diet recommended by the American Diabetes Association.  Are they afraid people will try Cooksey’s advice and discover it actually works?  Yes, I think that’s part of it.

In South Africa, The Health Professions Council of SA brought Professor Tim Noakes up on charges for a tweet – that’s right, A TWEET! — in which he advised a young mother (in response to her question) to wean her baby onto high-fat, real foods.  The sane response there would have been to send out tweets and press releases explaining why HPCSA disagrees with Noakes.  But we can’t expect The Anointed to behave sanely when there’s a risk ordinary people might come to believe their advice is wrong.

Meanwhile, in the land down under, The Anointed initiated another prosecution.  Here are some quotes from ABC in Australia:

Gary Fettke is an orthopaedic surgeon and an advocate of a low carbohydrate diet.

He said he became passionate about nutrition after amputating limbs of diabetic patients whose diets were a big part of the problem.

“What I’ve been advocating for some years is cutting sugar down, particularly all the refined sugars in the diet,” he said.

“Over time that’s evolved, and it’s evolved to what I call low carb, healthy fat.

“It’s just eating lots of vegetables, pasture-fed meat and the right amount of oil in the form of things like nuts, avocado, cheese, olive oil and fish.”

Geez, that sounds really, really dangerous.  Humans never would have survived and evolved on a wacky diet like that.

According to Dr Fettke, an anonymous complaint from a dietician at the hospital sparked an investigation by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).

Two and a half years later the watchdog found he was working outside his scope of practise and was not qualified to give specific nutritional advice, and he was ordered to stop speaking about the low carbohydrate, high fat diet.

“The committee does not accept that your medicine studies of themselves provide sufficient education or training to justify you providing specific advice or recommendations to patients or the public about nutrition and diet, such as the LCHF lifestyle concept,” it read.

Now, stop and wrap your head around that last statement.  Dr. Fettke isn’t qualified to give nutrition advice because he’s just a doctor?  Have you EVER heard of a doctor who recommends a low-fat diet with lots of healthywholegrains! being prosecuted anywhere in the world?  Of course not.  Dr. Fettke summed it up nicely himself:

“You go to your cardiologist and he tells you what to eat, you go to a neurosurgeon and he tells you what to eat, gastroenterologist and all of them, by definition, don’t have a major training in nutrition and yet they’re all giving advice.  You cannot push a way of eating onto a person. All I’ve ever done is told patients that there is a choice, that there is an option that’s out there.”

Ahh, but The Anointed don’t want the great unwashed masses to know about options.  That could lead to a wide-open, chaotic and very Darwinian competition of concepts and ideas – which would of course be very, very bad.  No, The Anointed much prefer something like this:

AHPRA has released a statement reaffirming that it expects medical practitioners to provide appropriate dietary advice to patients.

And “appropriate” means whatever The Anointed say it is.

That’s why we can never stop fighting these arrogant morons.


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72 thoughts on “The Anointed and Free Speech, Part Four

  1. Jason Bucata

    As I recall from the Gary Fettke situation, one of the things that was truly surprising is that one of the prosecuting attorneys made a comment that they couldn’t be expected to agree with a low-carb lifestyle because it requires a lot of meat and other expensive foods, and that wouldn’t be fair to poor people.

    So evidently the correct thing to do is to ignore the fact that cheap grains aren’t healthy, so the poor don’t feel so bad about their poverty, that they can’t afford to eat healthy? That’s probably not entirely true anyway, but… wouldn’t the best fix for the poor be to address their poverty? It almost stands to reason… (Besides which, we could probably find plenty of other ways in which poverty literally kills people, without even trying.)

    This feels extremely similar to that critique about sustainability. “It’s bad for the planet to raise cattle, because meat requires 100x (or whatever) the resources per calorie than plants, so we should simply all become vegetarians–and if that implies high-carb then so be it.”

    That humans appear to thrive on meat, seems to belong in the “inconvenient truth” category.

    1. Tom Naughton

      Absolutely. That’s why so many of The Anointed are against low-carb and paleo diets. Evidence about the health benefits be damned; they believe meat is bad for the planet, so they’ll keep insisting it’s bad for human health.

    2. Orvan Taurus

      And carefully omitting or overlooking that pasture-raised cattle eat plants that humans do not. In some cases, using land that cannot be readily used for raising human-edible plants. Food animals are calorie concentrators, grazing so humans don’t have to.

    3. Angel

      If The Anointed are so worried about the poor not being able to afford meat, maybe they should start subsidizing meat production instead of grain production.

  2. Jason Bucata

    As I recall from the Gary Fettke situation, one of the things that was truly surprising is that one of the prosecuting attorneys made a comment that they couldn’t be expected to agree with a low-carb lifestyle because it requires a lot of meat and other expensive foods, and that wouldn’t be fair to poor people.

    So evidently the correct thing to do is to ignore the fact that cheap grains aren’t healthy, so the poor don’t feel so bad about their poverty, that they can’t afford to eat healthy? That’s probably not entirely true anyway, but… wouldn’t the best fix for the poor be to address their poverty? It almost stands to reason… (Besides which, we could probably find plenty of other ways in which poverty literally kills people, without even trying.)

    This feels extremely similar to that critique about sustainability. “It’s bad for the planet to raise cattle, because meat requires 100x (or whatever) the resources per calorie than plants, so we should simply all become vegetarians–and if that implies high-carb then so be it.”

    That humans appear to thrive on meat, seems to belong in the “inconvenient truth” category.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Absolutely. That’s why so many of The Anointed are against low-carb and paleo diets. Evidence about the health benefits be damned; they believe meat is bad for the planet, so they’ll keep insisting it’s bad for human health.

    2. Orvan Taurus

      And carefully omitting or overlooking that pasture-raised cattle eat plants that humans do not. In some cases, using land that cannot be readily used for raising human-edible plants. Food animals are calorie concentrators, grazing so humans don’t have to.

    3. Angel

      If The Anointed are so worried about the poor not being able to afford meat, maybe they should start subsidizing meat production instead of grain production.

        1. JillOz

          Only for others, not for themselves.
          Prime case: Michelle Obama’s recommendations for ‘food” at US high schools which starved the kids, while her girls were properly nourished at their private school with lots of prime meat, vegetables and proper meals.

  3. Katerina

    Healthy pasture-fed meat is first of all bad for Big Food industry. Their way of earning money is severely threatened by the growing understanding that buying meat, butter, cheese, milk from the local farmer is the key to a long and healthy life.

    When I grew up and had to decide my career path my mother told me to study chemistry. Back then in 1980s she believed that everything will be chemistry in the future. Today when I go shopping I cannot other then agree with her. If you read the list of what is added to usual foods in all these cans and packages you will find out that even our food is chemistry today. Eating fresh food specially meat seems to be a threatening idea for all these “chemical food makers”.

  4. tw

    Charles Hugh Smith is terrific. Been reading his stuff for years.

    It is amazing to me that without Twitter and other social media outlets these criminal bureaucratic organizations would be getting away with these outrageous “show” trials without any risk or public exposure at all.

    There needs to be some checks and balances to these processes. Regulation designed to protect should not be exploited to silence and destroy.

    1. Tom Naughton

      That’s what’s great about living in the digital age. We can shine a spotlight on these morons and their kangaroo courts.

  5. Rick Bauer

    The Wisdom of Crowds is winning in spite of the Intellectual Idiots. This morning in Walmart, I saw, in the frozen food section, clean, paleo frozen dinners. One brand is called Beetniks.

    Halo Top Ice Cream is a LCHF high protein ice cream — excellent (I’ve had it) is not only available at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s etc. but also local supermarkets like Acme, Shoprite, etc. In fact, it has gotten to mainstream stores faster than Haagen-Daz, which was exclusively in health food stores when it first came out.

    Lastly, here in New Jersey, the State Assembly passed a law to make it legal to sell raw milk in the state.

    1. Tom Naughton

      Three cheers for the legislature for having some sense.

      My wife found potato chips at Kroger that are made with three ingredients: potatoes, sea salt, avocado oil. That’s a sure sign the real-food movement is catching on.

      1. Rick Bauer

        What is the brand name or is it Kroger’s brand? I want to look for that up here in NJ.

    2. BobM

      I saw Halo Top ice cream being advertised, but I wouldn’t call it “high fat”. It has 18 calories fat per 60 calories total (30% fat).

      https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555e46ffe4b00d375ca9fd13/t/557b502ce4b0c0319fa46e04/1434144812211/ht-web-elements_nutr-choc.png

      That’s low fat to me. Haagen Daz chocolate is about 59% fat:

      https://www.haagendazs.us/products/2452/ice-cream/chocolate/

      Now, it has many fewer calories than does Haagen Daz and many fewer carbs too.

  6. Katerina

    Healthy pasture-fed meat is first of all bad for Big Food industry. Their way of earning money is severely threatened by the growing understanding that buying meat, butter, cheese, milk from the local farmer is the key to a long and healthy life.

    When I grew up and had to decide my career path my mother told me to study chemistry. Back then in 1980s she believed that everything will be chemistry in the future. Today when I go shopping I cannot other then agree with her. If you read the list of what is added to usual foods in all these cans and packages you will find out that even our food is chemistry today. Eating fresh food specially meat seems to be a threatening idea for all these “chemical food makers”.

  7. bill

    The comment about the long term ‘sustainability’ of meat eating is the the argument that all these clowns use, backed up, I assume by their ‘training” and of course the UN’s agenda 21. The only thing that is not sustainable is industrial scale grain, soya sugar cane,sugar beet and potato production. The latter required vast quantities of water to produce a good quality product. I live in a arable farming area in the UK and the soil in some areas is dying. It is merely a medium to grow highly hybridised plants, artificially fertilised and treated repeatedly with pesticide and or herbicide. We are fortunate that pigs are bred and fattened in this area outside thus adding back nutrients and conditioning the a small portion of the land for up to 2 years before it is turned back to arable farming. The vegetarian view of the world is skewed as I’m not sure any of them have the faintest idea how all those delightful grain and soya based products are produced. The US experienced the dust bowls in the ’30s and if they, and the western world continue down this route this will be the result- again. Mixed, prairie style farming is what will be needed to sustain future generations not gm style crops being produced on vast, dare I say, subsidised acreages. Add to this the consequences of the ‘low fat style diet’ on population health- which is surely self evident by now, at least to those of us who are willing to find out; the anointed are going to have to deal with some very, very dire consequences in the coming years. But I guess they will squirm out of it and shift alliance.

    A final note. I notice the rise of the “Ad Hominem’ argument i.e. it is the person that a lot of these ‘experts’ rail against. In my debating days this was seen as very poor practice, it is the argument that is meant to be debated not the person. This kind of behaviour may be, at least in politics be to some extent acceptable since a lot of these people fall into that Intellectual yet stupid characterisation. It is unfortunate that too many of our so- called scientists and ‘experts’ are unable to apply scientific rigour and manners to their arguments.

    1. Tom Naughton

      I suspect for a lot these goofs, it begins with an emotional belief that eating meat is immoral. Everything else flows from there: if eating meat is immoral, it must also be bad for the planet, bad for human health, etc. So it’s not surprising they don’t apply scientific rigor to a belief system based on emotions.

      1. Jennifer Snow

        I’d say the roots probably go deeper. See, eating meat is immoral because it’s indulgent. It’s highly pleasurable. Because it’s good for you.

        Indulgence is bad. You’re supposed to be altruistic and unselfish and resist all those urges.

        Why? Because the urges originate in the body, which is a relict of this “gross” material world that fools your senses into thinking it’s important. You’re supposed to be spiritual, not materialistic.

        Why is it bad to be materialistic? Because the material world isn’t “really real”.

        So, here we are again back at “there is no reality, only subjective ideas”.

  8. tw

    Charles Hugh Smith is terrific. Been reading his stuff for years.

    It is amazing to me that without Twitter and other social media outlets these criminal bureaucratic organizations would be getting away with these outrageous “show” trials without any risk or public exposure at all.

    There needs to be some checks and balances to these processes. Regulation designed to protect should not be exploited to silence and destroy.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      That’s what’s great about living in the digital age. We can shine a spotlight on these morons and their kangaroo courts.

  9. Rick Bauer

    The Wisdom of Crowds is winning in spite of the Intellectual Idiots. This morning in Walmart, I saw, in the frozen food section, clean, paleo frozen dinners. One brand is called Beetniks.

    Halo Top Ice Cream is a LCHF high protein ice cream — excellent (I’ve had it) is not only available at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s etc. but also local supermarkets like Acme, Shoprite, etc. In fact, it has gotten to mainstream stores faster than Haagen-Daz, which was exclusively in health food stores when it first came out.

    Lastly, here in New Jersey, the State Assembly passed a law to make it legal to sell raw milk in the state.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Three cheers for the legislature for having some sense.

      My wife found potato chips at Kroger that are made with three ingredients: potatoes, sea salt, avocado oil. That’s a sure sign the real-food movement is catching on.

          1. Rick Bauer

            LOL!

            I also noticed that Wegman’s prepares cauliflower rice, broccoli rice and vegetable noodles (Zucchini, carrot, etc.)

            The price is outrageous but I suppose, in the case of shredding cauliflower, it may be worth it.

          2. Adam

            The chips are from Boulder Canyon Foods. They have various flavors cooked in coconut, olive, and avocado oils They also have some cooked in regular vegetable oil (sunflower and/or safflower), so pay attention to the label. The ones cooked in coconut, olive, and avocado oil have it printed on the front of the package as well. At least that’s the case at the Kroger Marketplace’s in Portsmouth, VA and Chesapeake, VA.

    2. BobM

      I saw Halo Top ice cream being advertised, but I wouldn’t call it “high fat”. It has 18 calories fat per 60 calories total (30% fat).

      https://static1.squarespace.com/static/555e46ffe4b00d375ca9fd13/t/557b502ce4b0c0319fa46e04/1434144812211/ht-web-elements_nutr-choc.png

      That’s low fat to me. Haagen Daz chocolate is about 59% fat:

      https://www.haagendazs.us/products/2452/ice-cream/chocolate/

      Now, it has many fewer calories than does Haagen Daz and many fewer carbs too.

      1. Rick Bauer

        Does it matter? Sometimes I think the people who are LCHF/Keto/Paleo overthink things and can be almost as anal as vegans.

        You want fat? Eat the Haagen-Daz and enjoy the sugar. I’ll take the Halo Top, the high protein and the erythritol. I suppose if I wanted more fat, I could ADD some like — cream?

        1. j

          Rick, I agree…

          Human reasoning (at least in western culture): If it’s not complicated or expensive, I dont want it or it must not be legitimate.

          This is why we have a multi-billion dollar diet industry.. :I

  10. bill

    The comment about the long term ‘sustainability’ of meat eating is the the argument that all these clowns use, backed up, I assume by their ‘training” and of course the UN’s agenda 21. The only thing that is not sustainable is industrial scale grain, soya sugar cane,sugar beet and potato production. The latter required vast quantities of water to produce a good quality product. I live in a arable farming area in the UK and the soil in some areas is dying. It is merely a medium to grow highly hybridised plants, artificially fertilised and treated repeatedly with pesticide and or herbicide. We are fortunate that pigs are bred and fattened in this area outside thus adding back nutrients and conditioning the a small portion of the land for up to 2 years before it is turned back to arable farming. The vegetarian view of the world is skewed as I’m not sure any of them have the faintest idea how all those delightful grain and soya based products are produced. The US experienced the dust bowls in the ’30s and if they, and the western world continue down this route this will be the result- again. Mixed, prairie style farming is what will be needed to sustain future generations not gm style crops being produced on vast, dare I say, subsidised acreages. Add to this the consequences of the ‘low fat style diet’ on population health- which is surely self evident by now, at least to those of us who are willing to find out; the anointed are going to have to deal with some very, very dire consequences in the coming years. But I guess they will squirm out of it and shift alliance.

    A final note. I notice the rise of the “Ad Hominem’ argument i.e. it is the person that a lot of these ‘experts’ rail against. In my debating days this was seen as very poor practice, it is the argument that is meant to be debated not the person. This kind of behaviour may be, at least in politics be to some extent acceptable since a lot of these people fall into that Intellectual yet stupid characterisation. It is unfortunate that too many of our so- called scientists and ‘experts’ are unable to apply scientific rigour and manners to their arguments.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      I suspect for a lot these goofs, it begins with an emotional belief that eating meat is immoral. Everything else flows from there: if eating meat is immoral, it must also be bad for the planet, bad for human health, etc. So it’s not surprising they don’t apply scientific rigor to a belief system based on emotions.

      1. Jennifer Snow

        I’d say the roots probably go deeper. See, eating meat is immoral because it’s indulgent. It’s highly pleasurable. Because it’s good for you.

        Indulgence is bad. You’re supposed to be altruistic and unselfish and resist all those urges.

        Why? Because the urges originate in the body, which is a relict of this “gross” material world that fools your senses into thinking it’s important. You’re supposed to be spiritual, not materialistic.

        Why is it bad to be materialistic? Because the material world isn’t “really real”.

        So, here we are again back at “there is no reality, only subjective ideas”.

    2. Thomas E.

      Tom,

      This has been mention here a few times, once or twice by me.

      https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Afathead-movie.com%20allan%20savory

      But for context, and for new readers, Allan Savory has done some really cool work in this area. We are miss-managing a lot of land on this planet. Getting rid of using grain for fuel and turning the land back to grazing would go a long way to making humans less sick, and the world less touched by man.

      http://savory.global/

  11. Karen madueno

    BOULDER brand makes 3 potato chip products with 3 ingredients: some oil (avocado, coconut, or olive oil…its stated on the front of the bag), potatoes and sea salt.

  12. Karen madueno

    BOULDER brand makes 3 potato chip products with 3 ingredients: some oil (avocado, coconut, or olive oil…its stated on the front of the bag), potatoes and sea salt.

  13. Desmond

    So, I know logic does not enter into it, but…

    If: eating meat = bad for the planet

    Then: let’s go into the wild and exterminate all carnivores and omnivores!

  14. Susan

    I think my favorite among the charges brought against Dr Fettke in Australia was that he “inappropriately” reversed a patient’s Type 2 diabetes.
    I call BS.

  15. Desmond

    So, I know logic does not enter into it, but…

    If: eating meat = bad for the planet

    Then: let’s go into the wild and exterminate all carnivores and omnivores!

  16. Susan

    I think my favorite among the charges brought against Dr Fettke in Australia was that he “inappropriately” reversed a patient’s Type 2 diabetes.
    I call BS.

  17. Paladin13

    There is currently the same legal harassment directed at Mark Steyn and others by Professor Michael Mann whose (in)famous hockey stick for global warming, now “climate change,” because Steyn had the temerity to criticize the hockey stick as based on bad science and statistics. The DC Court of Appeals ruled that the suit by Mann against Steyn and the other defendants can go forward, despite briefs filed on their behalf by entities such as the ACLU, which see this SLAP suit as an attack and threat to free speech.

  18. Paladin13

    There is currently the same legal harassment directed at Mark Steyn and others by Professor Michael Mann whose (in)famous hockey stick for global warming, now “climate change,” because Steyn had the temerity to criticize the hockey stick as based on bad science and statistics. The DC Court of Appeals ruled that the suit by Mann against Steyn and the other defendants can go forward, despite briefs filed on their behalf by entities such as the ACLU, which see this SLAP suit as an attack and threat to free speech.

  19. Joe

    This seems to be the constant argument from The Annointed everytime somebody suggests that we allow people more freedom to govern themselves: “If we aren’t around to run things everything will fall apart! People will starve in the streets! You need us! Not to mention your an uncompassionate bastard if you disagree!” I was just thinking about this recently with the predictable, and almost laughable debacle going on as Republicans try to “reform” Obamacare. Cue stories of how horrible it will be for everybody if the government doesn’t treat us like little children every moment of our lives. People will be dying left and right, so they say. As I was thinking, I realized that I could think of numerous examples of countries that quickly moved in a Big Government direction which later resulted in people ACTUALLY starving in the streets. Conversely, I am still trying to think of one example of a country quickly moving to a more free market model that resulted in anything other than increased prosperity for everybody. Could be wrong here but I don’t think so.

  20. Joe

    This seems to be the constant argument from The Annointed everytime somebody suggests that we allow people more freedom to govern themselves: “If we aren’t around to run things everything will fall apart! People will starve in the streets! You need us! Not to mention your an uncompassionate bastard if you disagree!” I was just thinking about this recently with the predictable, and almost laughable debacle going on as Republicans try to “reform” Obamacare. Cue stories of how horrible it will be for everybody if the government doesn’t treat us like little children every moment of our lives. People will be dying left and right, so they say. As I was thinking, I realized that I could think of numerous examples of countries that quickly moved in a Big Government direction which later resulted in people ACTUALLY starving in the streets. Conversely, I am still trying to think of one example of a country quickly moving to a more free market model that resulted in anything other than increased prosperity for everybody. Could be wrong here but I don’t think so.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Let’s just say history hasn’t been kind to Grand Plans by governments.

  21. Evin

    “Does it ever seem like everything you thought you knew about food has been disproved? Information we learned in school on avoiding starches and eating plenty of red meat has been reversed. We’ve found that other old favorites, like whole milk and cheese, should be limited.”

    And now that advice is being reversed again, back to what that generation originally learned in school.

  22. Evin

    “Does it ever seem like everything you thought you knew about food has been disproved? Information we learned in school on avoiding starches and eating plenty of red meat has been reversed. We’ve found that other old favorites, like whole milk and cheese, should be limited.”

    And now that advice is being reversed again, back to what that generation originally learned in school.

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