177 Comments

It is stunning how wise Bastiat was. A beaming light of impeccable reasoning that delivered to the world the blueprint for a just society. We deviate from that blueprint at our own peril, which has been proven throughout history.

Ron Paul carried the torch of liberty better than any Fed pol of the modern era. Thomas Massie gives me hope among the current elected officials but I fear too many deviations have been committed and the damage is piling up. The tyrants have taken pounds of flesh. The road back is blocked by a multi-car pile up (and a few trains).

Expand full comment

the writings of bastiat constitute and entire education unto themselves.

the economics, philosophy, morality, and the gorgeous use of language come together in a near perfect confluence of readable wisdom.

if one had to choose one and only one author to comprise an entire education for a child, i'm not sure how you could do better than bastiat.

Expand full comment

I have been inspired to read Bastiat based on this post. Thanks

Expand full comment

You can read The Law in an afternoon. A wholly enlightening experience.

Expand full comment

Just ordered his 4 books from Amazon

Expand full comment

thanks for the tip all of you. going to look and order, too

Expand full comment

Doing the same!

Expand full comment

As have I.

Expand full comment

So, have I.

Expand full comment

Ditto!

Expand full comment

Me too!

Expand full comment

Between Bastiat's "The Law", Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" and Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", one can fully understand what's being perpetrated on us and the motives of those doing so. A more evil class of humans has never existed than the ones who have seized power.

Expand full comment

Who is this commenter?

Expand full comment

Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason” also belongs among those titles, if not above them.

Expand full comment

Maybe toss in a bit of Thomas Sowell... "The Vision of the Anointed" isn't a bad place to start.

Expand full comment

"A more evil class of humans has never existed than the ones who have seized power."

Don't lose your humanity in your anger

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!'

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

Expand full comment

Goody goody for bilbo.

Expand full comment

We homeschooled. Bastiat was an important part of our education.

Expand full comment

For those wanting to read, you can download a PDF of his collected works (1000p) from the Internet Archive Library. There are also other related material that may be worth looking at.

Some are in the lending library, you need to register a free account to read/borrow those for 1 hour or 14 days (depends on the book).

https://archive.org/search?query=bastiat

Expand full comment

I was still deprogramming myself from leftism when I first read some extracts from Bastiat. I thought he sounded like a heartless bastard. Years later, I discovered that he had the solid understanding rarely found in his contemporaries, so logically argued that the only way a leftist could refute it, would be to cancel him because "he was a heartless bastard." :-)

Expand full comment

I’ve got some reading to do!

Expand full comment

I’d start with Hazlitt. Then Atlas Shrugged. Bastia is great but the generational differences make him a little harder to digest.

Expand full comment

Just took your advice and ordered all 4 of his books.

Expand full comment

RON PAUL 2024!!!!!!!

Expand full comment

We'll need a lot of shovels to clear away the "finer clay".

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
March 18, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

They would have to read Gender Queer, first. :-(

Expand full comment

In the chemical based company I ran for over 40 years we never patented any of the technology we developed. We kept it as a trade secret. This was far more effective than disclosing to the world what we had discovered. However, we documented everything so that if another company came along and also discovered the same thing and did obtain a patent we could defeat it through the concept of “prior art”.

Expand full comment

Unfortunately about 10 years ago the USPTO switched from 'first to invent' to 'first to file'!

Expand full comment

Yes, this has completely changed the rules. Now the rush is to file, not to invent.

Expand full comment

Exactly!

Which has made "the process the penalty" for small fry like me.

I don't have enough "spaghetti" to throw on the wall.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
March 25, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

It is not, I think, prior art if not disclosed.

Expand full comment

But on the concept of patentable invention of something must be new and useful. New means not previously known. If something is not disclosed it is not known to the applicant or the patent examiner when reviewing the application. Thus it cannot be prior art. I think the underpinning on the reason for patents is to make discoveries known to the world. And thus advancing knowledge and progress. Holding that genuine trade secrets can be brought forward to defeat a patent also defeats the basis for patent law. Trade secrets are more powerful than patents but they do not advance the reason patents exists. What you call unfortunate is possibly a practical solution to the problem of trade secrets defeating competing discoverers of the art. There are possibly other reasons, but I don’t see it as unfortunate.

Expand full comment

Exactly. Not only does it require being "known". It requires knowing "alternative solutions".

Which becomes cost prohibitive to the smaller guy, because "competitive art" has become a safe harbor for those who are capitalized well enough to throw the kitchen sink at it.

Expand full comment

Yeah. I used to use this same strategy until I discovered the concept of "competing art".

So to answer gato's question:

**could there possibly be a more perverse incentive set guaranteed to generate the most egregious of misbehavior?

Yes, it can get worse, when this perverse incentive is incentivized by Chinese influence and the perpetrators (namely lawmakers and lobbyist) get paid to sell us out, so Chinese pirates brought to "shore" can steal IP like a thief in night.

Expand full comment

The trade secret approach works in some instances where reverse engineering is not possible or regulatory disclosure is not required. Sometimes the process of making a product is kept as a trade secret if the process cannot be determined by examining the product. In contrast, pharmaceutical products are reproducible, typically disclosed in the scientific literature, subjected to randomized trials, and disclosed to FDA so are not very effectively protected as a trade secret. Many pharmaceutical products also emerge from government laboratories and university labs so are disclosed by academic inventors at the outset before the product is licensed and undergoes regulatory review.

Expand full comment

“this is past monopoly. it’s full license to steal with a guarantee that if caught, someone else has to do the time”.

You mean like the bank bailouts? Where you can take all the risk you want and do all the woke stuff you want and donate 70 million to BLM and have 185 to 1 leverage and cash in your chips and jet off to Hawaii while your bank fails. Cause you know it’s all a scam and the corrupt and treasonous regime is gonna bail you out with middle class money?

Like that?

I’m just a feral cat. But I smell a pattern.

Expand full comment

The problem is that the liability never falls on the ones making the decisions. The corporation may take the blame, but those who made those decisions just take their severance package and move on to do it again somewhere else. :/

Expand full comment

Indeed. It’s a great gig when you know the corrupt fascist government is not only going to look the other way, they gonna make you whole.

It’s fairly ironic when you think about it. The very people (tech oligarchs) who were paid tens of millions by the govt to promote the Wuhan fraud, engage in censorship, and promote the destruction of the middle class, then got an injection of hundreds of millions more to bailout their miserable failed operation.

And who is going to pay for that? The very same people that the tech oligarchs just spent the last 3 years destroying.

All brought to you by a woke, weaponized, corrupt, and particularly inept government.

Expand full comment

Sadly there's a lot more levels to it than that, and we paid for them all.

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/media-spectacularly-proves-my-point

We (the taxpayers) paid for gain-of-function research into bat-origin coronaviruses at a shoddy lab in Wuhan, China. Sometimes we even paid more than once.

We paid for exclusive tests the CDC fumbled from the start — refusing help from the private sector in the process.

We paid for CARES Act hospital bonuses.

We paid for hundreds of millions of covid tests, and millions of dollars more to futilely attempt to trace the contacts of people with positive results.

We paid for countless worthless masks, which now litter the countryside.

We paid for the ridiculous enforcement of stupid covid rules — like spying on churches and arresting paddleboarders.

We paid for trillions in other ridiculous covid spending because we shut down the economy — some of which was literally paying people not to work because we shut down the economy.

We paid millions for endless covid propaganda that badgered us constantly about how safe and effective the shots were, and the Twitter Files prove we also paid for the censorship (both public and “private”) that ensured “safe and effective” was the only allowed viewpoint.

Expand full comment

Nice summary. And there’s more. But it so depressing I think I’ll just let it go. Lol

I’m 67. I figure I’ll be paying for it the rest of my life.

Expand full comment

Worse. The corporation pays the government the fine, who then has another slush fund to work with. White collar crime is not a thing when you can just off load malfeasance

Expand full comment

Orange jumpsuits for the decision makers...

Expand full comment

The patent seizure provision was included in the original government contracts with Moderna and others.

https://theintercept.com/2022/08/23/covid-vaccine-patents-moderna-big-pharma-section-1498/

Technically the patent seizure is call a "compulsory license" under Section 1498.

The US government has been seizing patents in this sense for a long time. They confiscated airplane patents during WWI to create the US Air Force, and then seized German chemical patent rights after WWI to establish the American chemical industry. The "seizure" in the Moderna contract means that Moderna or other government contractors can use the patented technology with impunity and that patent infringement damages will be paid by the taxpayer instead of Moderna. So this is just another way to subsidize corporations and shift the burden to ordinary Americans. As you said, it is a license to steal and have somebody else serve the time.

Expand full comment

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation.

Expand full comment

Jail for the decision makers.

Expand full comment

The first question as always, cui bono? Not surprising the “big guy” stepped in. He’s already allowed the CCP to steal IP for decades, why not allow US based companies to do so? As long as there is money in it for him or his family, it’s all good.

Expand full comment

The term “big guy” makes me laugh

Expand full comment

Because Biden is such a small, petty little bully?

Expand full comment

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”

—John Marshall

——

Unrelated but important PSA:

For those who missed it, please take four minutes to watch Dr. Tess Lawrie’s devastatingly poignant reading of my poem—and then share it to help us viralize the message that #MistakesWereNOTMade:

• “Mistakes Were NOT Made: An Anthem for Justice (Video)” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/mistakes-were-not-made-an-anthem-57a)

This was masterfully directed by Mark Lawrie, whose “A Letter to Dr Andrew Hill” is my number-one red-pilling video and a must-watch as well:

• “A Letter to Dr Andrew Hill” (https://rumble.com/vwfia3-a-letter-to-andrew-hill-dr-tess-lawrie-oracle-films.html)

Expand full comment

About those non-mistakes...

https://postimg.cc/PC574v0y

Expand full comment

One of my favorites of his!!

Expand full comment

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING SCORE FOR voza!!!!!!!

Expand full comment

Thank you for posting, after all I've read and seen, I still did not understand this. This must be repeated and repeated. I am going to repost today in another group.

Expand full comment

These are great. Thanks.

Expand full comment

That this is even being thought a plausible defense by the government would formerly have been considered incredible, until you recall the recent move out of the same playbook that produced the Pfizer defense against accusations of fraud, i.e., “we aren’t guilty because we produced the fraud the government asked for…”

Also Bastiat: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

Expand full comment

Aw, the Neuemburg (sp) defense lives on: I knew what l did might have been bad; but the government made me do it so l shouldn’t be punished. Those were better times, we knew how to use rope and weren’t afraid to do so.

Expand full comment

A useful skill, which can if need be, be re-learned in a few hours...

Expand full comment

That Kelo case was an atrocious ruling by the SCOTUS - still have no idea how that falls under any reasonable interpretation of the Constitution. To then extend that to all IP if it's done for the government would be even more egregious. Hoping at least the current SCOTUS would shoot that down, and maybe take down Kelo with it.

Expand full comment

Clearly, arbutus and genevant failed to pay the proper "tribute" when the gangsters came calling. Moderna paid theirs. "gee, that's some mighty nice ip you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it"

Expand full comment

Fauci and Gates must not be stockholders in Arbutus and Genevant.

Expand full comment

"...their patents on a set of lipid nano-particle tech to encapsulate mRNA and protect it when it’s administered to the bloodstream."

Whoa! The covid shot is IM, not IV. It stays in the muscle, right? It doesn't go into the bloodstream, right? Right?

Expand full comment

I think in some cases it might. Know someone who had calcified tendinitis in arm exactly where shot was… required surgery and she is still messed up. I tell her you’re one of the lucky ones.

Expand full comment

Yuppity. It just stays in your deltoid churning out spike protein antibodies until the end of time. Like a pus module growing and growing. Those little spikies never go anywhere else, that was proven by.... Oh wait....

Expand full comment

Sadly it does seem to go into the blood with some people. Rapid administration (bolus) or entry into a blood vessel (failure to aspirate) does cause IV conditions with known increased harm.

Expand full comment

apparently Moderna believes that you cannot commit IP theft when you are contracted by the DOD to make a bioweapon

Expand full comment

Yes. I wonder if there are other laws that apply in this case. Sasha Latypova has been writing about the Pfizer vaccine contracts with DOD under OTA where they are clearly characterized as prototype countermeasures (i.e. weapons) and not pharmaceuticals that would be subject to FDA rules. I'm not sure about Moderna contracts.

Expand full comment

The only difference is that Moderna is partly owned by the Govot.

Expand full comment

And perhaps when DOD gives you the formula / uses you as a trademark for their weapon. Pfizer and Moderna are like Coke and Pepsi trademarks for vax except the formulas come from DOD and its dark web of criminal contractors. McCollough covered this a while ago. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mccullough-report/id1562849542?i=1000585436487

Expand full comment

More likely, the IP theft already committed is sanctioned because bioweapons are more important than other uses for the technology and the govt customer has all the money, power and other weapons that go boom!

Expand full comment

And they are obviously correct. Only a victorious Russian/Chinese alliance could even think about prosecuting. But even that would fail as our DoD and DoE technology far surpasses their combined capabilities.

Expand full comment

America and most every ‘Bill of Rights’ died under the slogan ‘15 Days to Slow the Spread’ - March 16, 2020.

Expand full comment

It seems that that piece of paper was already dead after birth!

OPERATION COVIDIUS was just an anniversary Event..

Expand full comment

I have totally given up on this country and feel that “we the people “ have been misled our entire lives by both our government and our media. We have been told that the communist governments used propaganda and brainwashing to shape the minds of their citizens when it was happening to us the entire time.

Expand full comment

One of the benefits of the last 3 years is that many of us have clued in to exactly what you've said.

We shouldn't give up on our countries however (I'm Canadian). Our countries at least got the ideals right even though our leaders have for the most part not been the 'good guy's we've thought them to be.

Expand full comment

I don’t disagree with you but my pessimism stems in a big way from observing that it’s not just the current set of “leaders “ but also previous sets of leaders who have been deceiving us us misguiding our thoughts.

Expand full comment

And the apathy of our fellow citizens

Expand full comment

Bastiat should be taught in schools in a curriculum for Logic.

Expand full comment

That is why it’s not.

Expand full comment

Exactly! Our indoctrination centres, (formerly know as schools), go to extreme lengths to avoid exposing young people to realistic moral or economic concepts, OR useful life skills, like literacy or numeracy.

Expand full comment

It's not a school's job to teach morality, but ethics? Economics? Debate? Logic? Yes.

Expand full comment

Oops! Poor phrasing. Meant fundamental morality in the sense of "do unto others before they do unto you", or the golden rule. "he who has the gold makes the rules". "Ethics" would have been a better word choice.

Expand full comment

My life is poor phrasing and typos 😂🤣😂

Expand full comment

Schools and logic are an oxymoron.

Expand full comment

School will rot your brain, and make you fit only to serve the 'masters'. How else can I explain that among the most enthusiastic vaccine supporters are the middle educated Masters degrees? The PhDs perhaps and the dropouts HS only for certain see the system for what it is. But those so 'indoctrinated' in it, marinated in it, striving for that 'next piece of paper' convinced that it holds the secret to wealth and success for them personally? Well they are pretty much hopeless cases. .....

Expand full comment

Mindless credentialism... one of Gato's favorite peeves.

Expand full comment

I try to drill this home to everyone I meet. The government will steal your land, your money, your life if it can. I used to work for a for profit environmental firm. We assessed impacts of projects for developments, a requirement for the California Environmental Quality Act and, if we were working on Fed projects, the Environmental Protection Agency. We often worked for Indigenous tribes, so this story falls within the EPA, as well as local Gov. I was sitting in a meeting in Northern CA with the Tribe's representative, and a very excited local government. The tribe was working on opening a Casino, a cash cow for not only the Tribe, but also the community. But not as you'd think. The County was super excited because not only would it get revenue from the casino (tourists etc), but as part of the deal, the Tribe had to make improvements to the roads leading to the new Casino. Okay, not unheard of.

I'll never forget the LAUGHING the County reps had at the idea of eminent domain. To build out the road, the County would have to take over several feet of a country road, and they stated right in front of me and the Tribe rep that they were going to lowball the owners for payment. "Its in our General Plan" they said. "They should have known better than to buy there." I was shocked. As someone who had to do hydrological surveys in the area, I'd met these people. They were all farmers who had lived along that road for decades. The area wasn't developed- it was rural. The Tribe member put a hand on my arm (he could sense my anger) and calmly asked. "When was that General Plan decided on again?" Their response was the previous year. They changed the designations because of this project! The Tribe member then looked the laughing Gov dude in the eye and said, "No. WE'LL pay them their rightful value for the land. The Tribe will do it. It's only fair."

That shut them up.

Expand full comment

Nice to hear a happy story every so often... especially these days when it seems like all we hear is bad news. Thank you, ES. 💖

Expand full comment

not so happy for the farmers along that road.

Expand full comment

Wellll.... if they give up a few feet of land along the edge of their field, and get a good price for it (and they won't agree to sell to the tribe unless the price is fair), then they will do fine.

That's the point of fair negotiation.

The good news is that the tribe was unwilling to be a part of the government's heavy-handed attempt to steal the farmers' land, or at least pay way less than a fair price. They insisted on making the farmers whole, because they wanted to be fair. They did not have to do this, but they did it because it was the right thing to do.

Expand full comment

get to know the full story.

Expand full comment

All that I, or anyone, can know of this story is what ES posted. Unless you have other information that his take on it is wrong, or lacking some important detail. In which case, if it is worth the readers' time as a consequence of its importance, then color in the blanks for us.

Expand full comment

i will, but it's a long story. i assume he's talking about siskiyou county. i will probably write a post about it.

Expand full comment

so how much did you end up paying the farmers, who had been there for generations? for a casino? this was where? siskiyou county ?

Expand full comment

And might I say? There are already some very fine responses posted early this day. I love that substack draws keener minds than my own ,that I might sharpen my steel on theirs.

Expand full comment

Every day I get an education just from some of the comments. As Jordan Peterson says, everyone knows something you don’t. I’ve learned more in the past three years than the fifty-something prior. It’s gratifying and soothing to hear what others know and feel less alone.

Expand full comment

"The strongest steel is forged on the hearth of adversity."

-- old Russian proverb

Expand full comment

Then the comment made to me a year or so ago makes sense..." You've got a spine of steel don't you?" I figured they were talking about my titanium 😂

Expand full comment

So, like, why does this "federal insertion" feel just like the federal reserve stepping in to cover all the depositors and all their deposits at svb? The concept of a government that rewards its cronies and intimidates / punishes its political competition means the constitution has been completely trampled upon. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Expand full comment