Sharing this because it really matters, not just to Prager U, but to everyone in America. Please share this, because it's not just Google, it's Facebook, it's Twitter. If you can't share your voice you can't make a difference and the country isn't safe.
There's more. Yesterday I watched this recent David Rubin video that was demonitzed for absolutely no valid reason:
By the way, it's a brilliant conversation it's worth a watch in its entirety.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, dropping to its lowest level in nearly 45 years as the labor market tightened further, bolstering expectations of faster wage growth this year.
...The labor market is near full employment, with the jobless rate at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent. The tighter labor market is starting to exert upward pressure on wage growth.
President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax overhaul, touted as major tax relief for individuals and corporations, is showing up in bigger paychecks and bonuses awarded to workers by companies whose tax bills are being slashed.
Despite the Yahoo spin, interviewing people who appreciate the cuts but still do not like president Trump, the underlying fundamentals are this: the job market is historically strong, wages are growing, companies are doing well and the tax cuts are making a difference.
The stock market correction is not unexpected, but the boom is just starting and therefore the stock market will be fine. I said it before and nothing has changed since; this is going to be a strong economic year, even as the bond market and hence investors adjust to the potential for inflation, the market will continue to grow.
Given that definition, what better place to start with Conservative Insurgent Thursday than with a true icon of (pardon the political connotations of the term) the young turks of the conservative movement? Milo Yiannopoulus is the perfect starting point. There is a new vanguard that has arisen among conservatives who are younger, but often more in tune with the roots of classical liberalism, conservatism, and their adjunct components than a lot of establishment so-called conservatives. There is a surprising diversity of conservative opinion as will become obvious throughout this series. This stands in stark contrast to progressivism which, by it's very collectivist nature, seeks to mitigate the difference between people that should rather be celebrated.
Given the purpose of this weekly feature, I have no intention of dwelling on any negatives or controversies associated with any of these conservative insurgents. If you want that, you can find plenty of negativity on any of these people in plenty of liberal places. The purpose here is to make you aware of who these people are, fighting for our conservative values and provide reasons why they might deserve your attention or support.
Who is Milo Yiannopolous?
Milo is certainly a bomb thrower. He comes to debates backed with facts, but he has no reservations about using sarcasm, foul language or ad hominem attacks as he sees fit. It certainly garners attention generates enemies (on both the left and right). But when it is followed cogent, solid and mostly irrefutable factual arguments, attention is an asset. Many on the conservative side of the spectrum are afraid to say what they really think. It's hard to win an argument that way and Milo's biggest asset is that he understands that point. And like president Trump, he punches back whenever he needs to do so.
Background:
Milo was born and raised in England in 1984 to a Greek-Irish father and a Jewish mother. He describes himself as Catholic. Milo is also openly gay and has been married to an African-American man, since 2017. He is often described as a member of the alt-right, which he rejects, given the now-accepted definition of that term. [The term alt-right was initially defined differently than it's current definition as neo-Nazi/white supremacist]. He is a resident alien in the United States. Milo was an early journalist covering the Gamergate issue, however he did so from the perspective that it was a feminist incursion into a space that there was no need to foist feminism upon an unsuspecting public group.
Notable achievements:
Milo came to prominence in America during his time as a tech writer at Breitbart. After a specious scandal, which Milo vehemently denies the mainstream take on, Milo left Breitbart and has since published a bestselling book and toured in support of it, but more generally, in support of conservative principles at colleges, for which he has been persecuted, censored, and even threatened with death.
Milo developed a massive following on Facebook, and Twitter and has his own Youtube channel. Milo was removed and permanently banned from Twitter after a scathing review of the Ghostbusters reboot, following which some of his followers tweeted some truly offensive comments, even though Milo himself did not. Ironically, the banning elevated Milo's audience as Twitter has developed a reputation for banning conservative voices and his was a very notable case.
Why we need him:
Milo has offended and is at odds with a lot of the mainstream media, establishment conservatives and even other insurgents as well (Ben Shapiro comes to mind). Nevertheless the Republican party, which is supposed to be the home of conservatism, is supposed to be a big tent. There are a large number of conservatives who have not felt that they have had a voice, or a voice that is strong enough or eloquent enough to push back against the cacophony of socialist voices, social justice warrior voices, and progressivist voices. Milo provides such a voice. He is quick-witted, intelligent and does not back down. He is a natural consequence of the same oppressive culture in America (and the West in general) that gave rise to president Trump, and Brexit.
More importantly, there are a lot of potential conservatives, whom Milo has the potential to reach, or awaken because of his unique and sharp take on issues as well as his fearless desire to reach younger audiences who may have not yet been fully indoctrinated by the political left or at least may still be reachable. Not only is he able to debate he is also a very effective promoter and can garner the attention needed to at least start those conversations or point out the censorship efforts of the left if they force him to not make an appearance.
According to a Hot Air report, the Democrats' own memo on the FBI investigation is not intended for release, rather it's purpose is as a trap for the president:
Democrats warned that releasing the Nunes memo would damage national security. Some who looked at the memo after its release didn’t really see how that would be the case. But it turns out Democrats could have been describing their own memo. According to a report at Fox News, the Democratic rebuttal memo is loaded with information on sources and methods in an effort to put the White House in a bind.
If it's a trap, it's an easy fix: give the memo to the FBI and have them determine what needs to be redacted. It would show that the president is trying to work with the FBI to protect sources. That diffuses the Schiff memo trap and might even come off as conciliatory. Problem? No problem.
A while back I proposed an alternate way to stop the flow of drugs into America. It's not a solution to the scourge of drugs in the country, it's part of the solution. The drug problem is complex and includes prescription opioids, domestically produced drugs, and the underlying problem is actually demand, not production. I promised at that time I would get back to my non-libertarian rationale for opposing illicit drug consumption. First, let me outline the logic of the libertarian view of drugs as I understand it.
Is this the future you want for your country?
Government allows the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. In a truly free and liberated society government should not prevent people from making choices, even if those choices are self-destructive. Cigarettes and alcohol can be self destructive, and in the case of cigarettes it's pretty much inarguable that they are. So why should illicit drugs be any different? The caveat that libertarians allow for, is that as long as those choices do not harm anyone else then and only then should it permissible. For example, murdering someone is not allowable because even though it is a free choice, it harms someone else. Parking in such a way that it blocks someone else in is an individual freedom too, but it interferes with someone else's freedom to leave their parking spot. In other words the government should only protect it's citizens from external threats or from each other, but not from themselves. That is up to and including the option for suicide I suppose.
There are problems with this logic as it applies to drugs, not the least of which is that switching to an unfettered allowance is to let the genie out of the bottle in such a way that it cannot be put back in. Should there be dire societal consequences, they cannot be undone, or at least without a herculean effort. When prohibition was implemented it was not long before it was reversed (13 years, which sounds like a long time but to reverse a Constitutional Amendment with another Amendment that is startlingly quick). The point is the attempt to undo a freedom, once available, is a futile effort. Yes alcohol was always available, but it provides a suitable analog. Cigarettes, as damaging as they are will not be made illegal in our lifetime. Similarly drugs, once legalized will not simply be made illegal again if they prove to be too detrimental to society as a whole.
More likely is the slippery slope argument - once a milder illegal drug is legalized there will be pressure to expand it to more, and harder drugs. While there is plenty of evidence in our slide towards liberalism or even more aptly, political correctness, that there is indeed a slippery slope, I won't resort to that argument. I have others.
The one argument that people make is that because drugs are illegal it contributes to crimes - murder and theft, for example. The argument is that legalizing drugs will remove these problems. The reverse is actually true. Alcohol is legal and we still have alcohol-related deaths that are not just those who were drinking. Cigarettes are legal and while second-hand smoke may or may not have killed anyone, it certainly, until recently, affected non-smokers. I can attest to that personally. Guns are legal and innocent people get shot and killed all the time. And people still use illegal guns. Why would some people not continue to use illegal drugs? They might be cheaper. Some people might not be able to get the legal drugs because they cannot afford their addiction and will still resort to crime to get what they need.
Simply legalizing drugs does not make these things go away. And indeed, they may increase the instances of addiction and that could easily in turn increase these secondary effects of crime as more people become addicted, escalate and soon cannot afford their addictions.
The other effect that legalizing drugs has on society is the medical need to cope with the addicted. There are costs in ameliorating an addicted subset of the population. Not just the direct costs of rehabilitation, but also the opportunity costs. If we have to divert medical expertise from cancer research to address the problem of burgeoning addiction, we could delay or miss the chance to cure cancer (for example). Doctors are not an unlimited resource - that was part of my argument on Obamacare. Medical advances and treatment of the non-addicted are just another way that legalized drugs harm those who are not directly affected by the change in the law.
All of those issues are enough without even discussing the societal and familial impacts of decaying moral standards and families imploding because one drug user has upended the fabric of the family.
All for what? So some people who want to do so can get high? It's wasted potential, and morally its something we should guard against, not embrace. To embrace legalization of drugs, any drug, is nothing more than deluded Utopian thinking.
Rush Limbaugh today said that the reason for the market volatility (yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunged over 1000 points) is a fear that they are trying to topple the Trump presidency. I disagree. While the Democrats may still be invested in ending the Trump presidency, the market is suffering a setback in that it has become, to a small extent, a victim of its own success.
The Trump presidency has seen a meteoric rise in the stock markets over the past year, and it's been accelerated by the passing of the Trump tax cuts. When something changes so rapidly there is always a reverberation effect. The stock market was due for a correction, but not a change of course. True, the DJIA rise and the tax changes are likely going to have an inflationary effect, on wages, on interest rates as a result and then of course bond rates as a result of that. That means money will shift towards the 10 year bonds (and others) with a better rate for those more interested in a secure long term investment. That money has to come out of the stock market, therefore there's going to be a sell-off. This is a temporary market correction, not a collapse. Paul Krugman might try to convince his readers that the sky is falling like he did on election night in 2016. It's not.
As the reverberation works it's way into the market, the buying will return, slowly at first but eventually once again apace. The market cannot continue to rise at the rate it currently has been, corrections are necessary as is an eventual slowing of the torrid pace. What is not necessary for investors is panic.
The Trump presidency has seen a meteoric rise in the stock markets over the past year, and it's been accelerated by the passing of the Trump tax cuts. When something changes so rapidly there is always a reverberation effect. The stock market was due for a correction, but not a change of course. True, the DJIA rise and the tax changes are likely going to have an inflationary effect, on wages, on interest rates as a result and then of course bond rates as a result of that. That means money will shift towards the 10 year bonds (and others) with a better rate for those more interested in a secure long term investment. That money has to come out of the stock market, therefore there's going to be a sell-off. This is a temporary market correction, not a collapse. Paul Krugman might try to convince his readers that the sky is falling like he did on election night in 2016. It's not.