Doug Morris

2014, when he seized Crimea.

I don't know what was in Putin's mind. He does not seem very rational. He may have focused too much on how easy it was the first time.

The vaccine and the genetic sequences came later when they'd had more time to study the virus.

I also said Trump's controversial nature brought out more people on both sides.

You ignored this.

The source you link claims it's not so but offers no grounds for that claim. There were mistakes made early on because it was a new virus and very little was known about it.

You haven't answered anything. You've just perpetrated your own smear.

There's at least one other plausible explanation: that Putin underestimated Ukraine.

My understanding is that health care workers are trying to distinguish between deaths from covid-19 and deaths with covid-19, but that this is a complicated task. The Washington Post article you link says there is no conspiracy. If this is true, why are the unvaccinated more likely to die than the vaccinated? The pandemic has killed a lot of people. It is no more a scam than the idea that Naziism was a threat in World War II.

Most of these people still buy the altruist morality. Most of them do not understand what government is. This makes them ineffective as defenders of rights or of freedom. Only when enough people learn what Ayn Rand has to teach.

How well does this hold up when analyzed more carefully? There are at least two reasons why turnout was unusually large on both sides. The pandemic and the lock downs both put some people out of work, making it easier for them to find time to vote. There were a lot of people with strong feelings or views both for and against Trump, which naturally increased turnout. Trump may have been very popular with some people, but he was very badly flawed, which brought out a lot of opposition to him as well. There were unusually many problems with the 2020 election because election officials were trying to use innovative methods to allow people to vote in spite of the pandemic and the lock downs. There is no evidence that this altered he outcome of the election. There were people looking for reasons to disbelieve the election who saw things they didn't understand and jumped to false conclusions about fraud.

As I recall, Ayn Rand indicated that a very important reason for opposing Reagan was that "that so-and-so" opposed abortion.

What about this? Florida Book Bans Are No Hoax: Here Are The Facts NEWSMarch 10, 2023

If you mean that he would know it is fentanyl and what it can do to him, this may not quite be murder, but it comes pretty close. (I mean morally; I'm not sure about the legalities.) A very similar case would be actively helping someone to carry out their own choice of committing suicide, when you believe that choice to be irrational. I think the other posters have done a good job of explaining what's wrong with such actions.

What we need to do is recognize the corrupting effect of mixed-economy statism. Eventually, when we can, we need to eliminate this effect by establishing laissez-faire capitalism.

Both the CATO study and the study you cite use the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). To me, the most obvious difference is the year the data is from.

The CATO data is more recent.

The only program where immigrants have a significantly higher usage rate is the cheapest program, WIC, and even there it's less than 30% more, not .

The tables in the CATO article present a very different picture.

How strong is the case for and against this idea? If it is true, how much difference has it made? We wouldn't have honest money in any case.

It may be a lot easier to say this than to actually accomplish any reform, especially if their government is authoritarian or there is imminent physical danger. In any case, this does not disqualify them from fleeing or from coming here. What are your grounds for saying this? A quick search reveals a CATO Institute article saying "Overall, immigrants consume about 28 percent fewer welfare and entitlement benefits than native‐born Americans." There will be a very large number of people using those programs regardless of what we do about immigration. Our only hope for ending those programs is to teach enough people the basic principles involved.

What grounds do you have for saying this, aside from Trump's lies and from conclusions jumped to by people who were looking for reasons to believe such lies?

No. They would only be immoral to the extent that they shirk the responsibility of defending rights within their borders or that they violate rights anywhere.

Neither government nor any other institution may violate anyone's rights. Everyone has the moral right to move and trade freely across jurisdictional lines.

It might be appropriate to require that they pay a fee and/or pay taxes for a while before they can receive such benefits. Does this mean the good old boys club is responsible for maintaining legal strictures for entry/immigration?