Guest Post by John Stossel
Was 2020 the worst year ever? The media keep saying that.
We did have the pandemic, a bitter election, unemployment, riots and a soaring national debt.
But wait, look at the good news, says historian Johan Norberg. His new book, “Open: The Story of Human Progress,” points out how life keeps getting better, even if people just don’t realize it.
2020 was “the best year in human history to face a pandemic,” he says.
Continue reading “2020’s Good News”
Guest Post by John W. Whitehead
“The people are unaware. They’re not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government.”—John Lennon
No doubt about it: 2020—a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for freedom—was the culmination of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad decade for freedom.
Government corruption, tyranny, and abuse coupled with a Big Brother-knows-best mindset and the COVID-19 pandemic propelled us at warp speed towards a full-blown police state in which nationwide lockdowns, egregious surveillance, roadside strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, and pay-to-play politicians were accepted as the norm.
Here’s just a small sampling of the laundry list of abuses—cruel, brutal, immoral, unconstitutional and unacceptable—that have been heaped upon us by the government over the past two decades and in the past year, in particular.
Continue reading “2020: The Year the Tree of Liberty Was Torched”
Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
Who could have predicted how dreadful a year 2020 would be.
By this New Year’s Eve, 19 million to 20 million Americans will have contracted a deadly virus in a pandemic that exploded out of China to carry off 333,000 Americans, one of every 1,000 of us.
As 2021 begins, Americans will be dying at the rate of 10,000 a week and contracting the virus at a rate of more than 1 million new cases a week.
Yet, during that same year, miracles occurred. Vaccines were created, tested and mass-produced by Pfizer and Moderna that could, with 95 percent effectiveness, stop this virus cold.
If Americans can reach “herd immunity” — from having caught and survived the virus or having been vaccinated against it — the COVID-19 pandemic might be contained by the summer of 2021.
Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
The year 2020 will go down as exceedingly dumb, exceptionally dishonest, and utterly ridiculous, the calendar equivalent of that human potato who presides over a miserable TV show on the Airport News Network. Here’s how lame the year was – a Fox News host credited someone who was not me with observing that bulbous tuber is a potato, as well as dubbing him “Tater.” That moniker is my proudest achievement except, perhaps, my pioneering use of the cruise ship emoji to designate the Fredocon losers. Way to finish the year on yet another outrage. This year can’t end soon enough, though (as my next column shall expand upon) 2021 hardly bodes better.
Guest Post by Dave Collum
Every year, friend-of-the-site David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year’s is no exception. As with past years, he has graciously selected PeakProsperity.com as the site where it will be published in full. It’s quite longer than our usual posts, but worth the time to read in full. A downloadable pdf of the full article is available here, for those who prefer to do their power-reading offline. — cheers, Adam
David B. Collum
Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology – Cornell University
Email: [email protected] – Twitter: @DavidBCollum
David Collum is willfully ignorant.
~ Mountain Man (@Pjas77)
Imagine, if you will, a man wakes up from a year-long induced coma—a long hauler of a higher order—to a world gone mad. During his slumber, the President of the United States was impeached for colluding with the Russians using a dossier prepared by his political opponents, themselves colluding with the FBI, intelligence agencies, and the Russians. A pandemic that may have emanated from a Chinese virology laboratory swept the globe killing millions and is still on the loose. A controlled demolition of the global economy forced hundreds of millions into unemployment in a matter of weeks. Metropolitan hotels plummeted to 10% occupancy. The 10% of the global economy corresponding to hospitality and tourism had been smashed on the shoals and was foundering. The Federal Reserve has been buying junk corporate bonds in total desperation. A social movement of monumental proportions swept the US and the world, triggering months of rioting and looting while mayors, frozen in the headlights, were unable to fathom an appropriate response. The rise of neo-Marxism on college campuses and beyond had become palpable. The most contentious election in US history pitted the undeniably polarizing and irascible Donald Trump against the DNC A-Team including a 76-year-old showing early signs of dementia paired with a sassy neo-Marxist grifter with an undetectable moral compass. Many have lost faith in the fairness of the election as challenges hit the courts. Peering through the virus-induced brain fog the man sees CNBC playing on the TV with the scrolling Chiron stating, “S&P up 12% year to date. Nasdaq soars 36%.” The man has entered The Twilight Zone.
Continue reading “Dave Collum: 2020 Year in Review (Part 1)”