Mike Wittmann

Kidnapping, Shooting, and Stealing

Posted on September 24, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

This man is a hero:

By holding his ground and forcing these police officers to use violence to remove him from an otherwise peaceful meeting he’s exposing the foundational truth of the State:

THE STATE WILL USE VIOLENCE TO MAKE YOU DO WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO.

In The Anatomy of the State Murray Rothbard defines the state as

that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.

While this may run contrary to how we’ve been trained to think about the State demonstrations like the one in the YouTube clip above demonstrate and prove the accuracy of this definition.

College Liberal - Everything i like is a human right and must be paid for by others everything i don't like should be banned

If you do not do what the State wants you to, including turning over your own property to them in the form of taxes, the State will use aggressive force and violence against you. … Read More

The Government Pats Itself on the Back

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

I realize this is a bit of “old news” but I’m just now getting around to reading the email below that was sent out by LPS last Friday (9/4/2020). Note especially the highlighted paragraph.

HOORAY FOR LINCOLN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, right?!?!? Well, let’s work through this together.

Virtually every data point available indicates that school-aged children are highly unlikely to contract COVID-19. In the rare instances where they do contract it they are highly unlikely to experience symptoms or to pass it on to anyone else.
Despite the evidence that COVID-19 is an extremely low risk for children, Lincoln Public Schools implemented a number of expensive and disruptive policies including mandatory mask wearing for children, contact tracing, rearranging classrooms, putting plexiglass dividers on lunch room tables, restricting movement during recess, and so on.
Kids came back to school, for the most part, and sure enough… COVID-19 has not been actively spreading through the schools, as all available evidence indicated even before the school year started.

More Data, Less Information

Posted on September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

I hate to sound fatalistic but there’s actually quite a bit about the world that we just don’t know. It’s far too opaque, interconnected, random, and complex. That’s not to say we can’t know anything, but more that we need to proceed with caution any time we’re trying to figure out anything with more than a minimal degree of complexity to it.

Take, for obvious example, the current COVID-19 world. A certain portion of the population considers the virus to be an existential threat that could kill virtually anyone who comes into contact with it. Another portion of the population at large sees CV as a minor inconvenience, no more remarkable than a particularly bad flu season.

And here’s the rub: they can both cite data, statistics, experts, and so on to support their side! How is that possible?

One place to start looking is the way we’ve pursued research and data gathering around the novel coronavirus. … Read More

Listen to the Experts

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

In his delightfully authentic and autobiographical Setting the Table, restauranteur and entrepreneur Danny Meyer both laments and celebrates the role critics have played in determining the success of his various restaurants.

In one such story he recounts a time in 1994 when New York magazine profiled his newest restaurant upon its opening, complete with a cover page emblazoned with 4 stars under the prompt “Gramercy Tavern: The Next Great Restaurant?”

While publicity like this would normally be considered better than anything money could buy, the publication failed to inform their lead food critic, Gael Greene, that they would be running this piece. Mr. Meyer was put in the awful position of having to explain that her work would be overshadowed by that of the magazine for which she wrote. She was outraged and took it out on the newly opened tavern.

Predictably, Gael did launch an assault on the restaurant in her review; she was responding as much to her own magazine’s hype as she was to her sense of the restaurant itself.

Capitalism as a System of Generosity

Posted on August 25, 2020August 25, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

Capitalism begins with giving.
George Gilder, Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World

You’ve been told that capitalism is a system based on greed, ruthless selfishness, exploitation, and of disregard for your fellow man.

You’ve been lied to.

In his book Knowledge and Power George Gilder proposes that capitalism, more than any rival economic system, requires entrepreneurs and innovators to be generous, empathetic, and passionately focused on the wants and needs of others. Capitalism begins with giving.

This makes sense once you get down to the essence of what capitalism is. When we strip away terms and definitions like buyers and sellers, employees and employers, etc. we see that capitalism is simply shorthand for a system of voluntary exchanges between two parties in which each party exchanges something that is less valuable to them in order to receive something that is more valuable to them. … Read More

IS IT A MASK OR NOT?

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

Them: Dude, YOU GOTTA WEAR A MASK!

Me:

Selfish

Posted on August 17, 2020August 17, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

It’s your body and your face, so I respect your right to choose whether or not you want to wear a mask.
– SELFISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I THINK YOU SHOULD WEAR A MASK SO YOU HAVE TO WEAR ONE AND I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK IT’S NOT UP TO YOU IT’S UP TO ME AND EVERYONE WHO AGREES WITH ME!!!!!
– Not selfish

How Facebook is Killing Us

Posted on August 14, 2020August 17, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

In her widely viewed TED Talk entitled The Power of Vulnerability (video and transcript available here) author Brené Brown makes the case that we are neurobiologically hardwired for connection with others. In order to thrive and succeed as humans we need to connect with others in the same way that we need air and water. If this connection is absent bad things happen.

This isn’t a new idea. Aristotle observed that “man is by nature a social animal” and many others have commented on this reality as well. But only recently have we begun understanding just how deeply this hardwiring goes.

In his book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport summarizes neuroscientific research conducted at Washington University in St. Louis that gives us an interesting glimpse into just how central social interaction is to our neurological function. To summarize, our brains have what’s been labeled “the default network” that is turned off any time we focus on specific tasks but immediately kicks back on when we’re “thinking about nothing.” … Read More

Scientists and Stepbrothers

Posted on August 12, 2020August 17, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

Government is run by greedy politicians who are owned by lobbyists because all they care about is money!

Corporations are run by greedy CEOS who don’t care about people and all they care about is money!

Scientific research is funded by government subsidies and grants involving many financial conflicts of interests and therefore should be carefully and critically examined before being considered trustworthy and objective!

10 Reasons Why I Refuse to Wear a Mask

Posted on August 12, 2020August 17, 2020 by Mike Wittmann

Why won’t I wear a mask? First, it’s not because I’m selfish, anti-science, I want your grandma to die, Donald Trump told me not to, I believe CV is a Russian hoax, etc. Second, I actually don’t care if people wear masks or not. If you want to wear one, go for it. Throw on a face shield or even a HAZMAT suit on your way to Target and I’ll do nothing but smile and wave when we cross paths in the kombucha aisle.

But I’ve decided I’m not going to wear one. Here’s why:

My face belongs to me.
- My body and, consequently, my face are my own personal property. They do not belong to anyone else, including the Mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska or the Interim Health Director of the Lincoln/Lancaster County Health Department. This point is not inconsequential because most State abuses and overreach violate a person’s rights to ownership of themselves and their property.