Posted on 07/04/2020 5:40:17 PM PDT by RandFan
Between an economic recession and civil unrest in every corner of the country, perhaps it should come as no surprise to see heated exchanges between public officials on national television.
In a spirited parley on Wednesday with Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delivered a much-needed condemnation of the political elite and the hubris Americans have grown so tired of hearing from Washington.
“It is a fatal conceit to believe any one person or group of people has the knowledge necessary to direct an economy or dictate public health behavior,” said Paul. “It's important to realize that if society meekly submits to an expert, and that expert is wrong, a great deal of harm may occur.”
In the short time that has passed since, pundits and commentators have reacted in a multitude of ways. While many of the usual detractors pounced on what seemed like an opportunity to lambaste Paul, others proudly took to social media to defend him.
As refreshing as the senator’s input is, however, this sentiment is but an echo of what numerous scholars and thought leaders have been saying for decades: No one — not even the most brilliant “experts” in the world — holds the foresight or wisdom to make such far-reaching decisions over the daily lives of ordinary people.
In his Nobel Prize Lecture in December 1974, world-renowned economist Friedrich A. Hayek condemned the economic theories that had, for generations, dominated global commerce (namely, the Keynesian school). In an excoriation of what he called the “pretense of exact knowledge,” Hayek issued a timeless warning against the “scientistic” approach to economic policy, that is, the habit of applying the immovable axioms of the hard sciences to the spontaneous fluctuations of the market, which he argued “will hardly ever be fully known or measurable.”
And now, as the unholy alliance between scientism and economic policy marches toward reunification, the warnings from generations past are perhaps even more relevant today than they were then,
Even as COVID-19 deaths finally approach a long-desired decline, 20 states (including ruby red strongholds like Texas and Kansas) have implemented orders requiring residents to wear masks in public. Meanwhile, California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just issued yet another order requiring businesses in 19 counties to shut their doors. And after months of enforcing some of the country’s harshest stay-at-home orders, Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has once again ordered bars in lower Michigan to shut down (including those in the Detroit area).
Additionally, the city of Chicago just passed a public health order requiring travelers from a list of 15 states to quarantine upon arrival. Failure to do so is punishable by “fines of $100 to $500 per day.”
Of course it’s no secret just how out of touch the political class is from the headaches their policies inflict on the good, hardworking men and women of this country. But how much longer are we really prepared to tolerate their efforts to subdue our civil liberties and economic well-being? Will it really be (as they’ve promised us again and again) just a few more weeks when the virus is, according to their “expert” definition, “under control"?
The question Paul is ultimately trying to ask is this: Should solving society’s most pressing issues really be left to an unelected bureaucrat or entrusted to everyday people? One thing is for certain. We either believe in liberty in times of crisis, or we don’t believe in liberty at all.
That’s why I stand with Rand.
Cliff Maloney is the president of Young Americans for Liberty.
And every single bureaucrat responds: "Absolutely right! But that's why I'm the one who should be in charge. Because I am never wrong."
This is the Hill???
Fauchi has absolutely no power to dictate anything. That power lies with Donald J. Trump who employs Fauci as an advisor.
Rand is too much of a coward to go after the man with the power so he picks on an advisor.
The Randstander strikes again.
‘the spontaneous fluctuations of the market, which he argued “will hardly ever be fully known or measurable.”’
The same cannot sanely be said of epidemics.
The little commie, PIAPS-loving SOB, along with Scarf, belong in a cell at GITMO as domestic enemy terrorists for what they did to the economy. Especially, Fauxi. He gave those millions of taxpayer dollars to that CCP bioweapons lab over there. Locking him up is too good for him. Rope dancing would be much better.
bkmk
bkmk
Thank you RF. If Senator Paul were to ever seek higher office and my support from South Dakota were possible, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer such support.
Hell I liked his pappy on most things.
No I am not a Republican nor a Democrat. I vote without allegiance to any political party.
“for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit as you desired”
- King Theoden to Saruman ‘the Wise’ in The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Because I think their overall theory in the book is correct, things are only going to get worse for the next five years or so until it reaches a climax point, and what follows is anybody’s guess. >
“pretense of exact knowledge” These lessons keep needing to be relearned. I am reminded of McNamara and Westmorland applying “scientific” principles to war. They of course failed Vietnam, failed America. Same fallacy.
Hari Seldon, established two axioms:So you see, if you tell anyone about it you negate the validity of the whole study
- that the population whose behavior was modeled should be sufficiently large
- that the population should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses because if it is aware, the group changes its behaviour.
Love Rand and love his Dad
‘Fauci has absolutely no power to dictate anything. That power lies with Donald J. Trump who employs Fauci as an advisor.”
Your analysis is completely backwards.
Dr.Fauci is exerting enormous power by virtue of his unquestioned ‘expert’, ‘science’, status in the DNC media and with the shutdown tyrant governors.
Meanwhile President Trump is exercising Constitutionalism by letting the States solve the problem as best fits their situations; not to mention that he would be burned at the stake in the press even more than usual if he were to lay a finger on the holy, ‘scientist’ Saint Fauci, who funded ‘gain of function’ in Wuhan.
Really?
That said, I received my Ph.D. from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Where did you get yours - given you idiotic comment above?
What I posted is from Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy novels. I would have thought a smart guy like you should be familiar with the humorous allusion. You didn't even bother to google Hari Seldon's name?
Although seriously, Isaac Asimov's First Foundation novel in 1951 did present the idea that what he called "Psychohistory" can predict the future of large populations using statistical laws of mass action, which sounded similar to what you had posted.
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