The World Eugenics Forum

Best-and-Brightest far and wide offered a collectivist gasp when Argentina, a long-reliably socialist nation, elected someone not of their own as its president. Javier Milei, an economist and self-professed libertarian, came in on promises of massive change and reform in order to right the country's foundering economy and rampant inflation. Predictably, entrenched interests are not amused.

Milei took his message of economic liberty to the annual gathering of Bestest-and-Brightestest at Davos, Switzerland, the quaintly named World Economic Forum. Quaintly, in that these supposed titans of economic knowledge are increasingly proving to be a bunch of detached and delusional dilettantes with dictatorial impulses and not the slightest whit of care as to the harm their ideas would impose on the world's unwashed masses.

Milei's speech, transcribed here and watchable here, calls those dilettantes out on their socialistic desires. He came loaded for bear, with hard historical data that defended and extolled capitalism while shredding collectivism.

The first money quote:

[F]ree enterprise capitalism is not just the only possible system to end world poverty, but also that it’s the only morally desirable system to achieve this.

The second, which anyone who follows liberty will recognize:

The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn’t contribute to general well-being.

Quite on the contrary, it’s an intrinsically unfair idea because it’s violent. It’s unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Or can any one of us say that we voluntarily pay taxes? This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.

In other words,

Finally, one that warms my libertarian heart:

[L]ibertarianism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression, in defence of the right to life, liberty and property.

That would be the Non-Aggression Principle, a cornerstone of the ideology.

Seriously, carve out some time and read the whole thing, linked again here.

Yes, indeed, President Milei is a libertarian. So, of course the intelligentsia conclude that he's secretly a wannabe fascist, a far-rightist, "a Ben Shapiro in cocaine," and "an anarcho-capitalist with sideburns."

Somewhere, Margaret Thatcher is smiling.

Milei's violating of the WEFers’ safe space aside, the news from there is mostly the same old same old. Climate change continues to be such an existential peril that the world's rise from poverty thanks to cheap carbon energy must be shut down. The billions clamoring for a tiny fraction of the ease of life that the WEFers enjoy must be denied. Those who already live in the first world must have their living standards eroded in order to "save the planet." That literally hundreds of doomsday global warming predictions have failed to materialize is no deterrent, no signal that maybe things aren't as dire as they thought.

Many of the Davos elite flew there in private jets. 1040 in total. Milei flew commercial.

The Davos Agenda is rife with autocracy, technocracy, "do as we say" elitism, and an allergy to free markets, free action, and leaving people alone. It is reminiscent of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, a movement that, among other things, spawned Planned Parenthood as a mechanism for controlling the growth of the black population.

It also coincides with the persistent Malthusian messaging from similar quarters. You know, the people who say the planet can only sustain a billion people rather than the eight currently being sustained with ever-greater comfort and quality of life. The people who secretly wish for a mass depopulation event, to "save the planet."

News flash. Absent its significance is as a life support system for the human species, the Earth is irrelevant, and "saving it" by wishing the death of most of humanity is sociopathic nonsense. Yes, stewardship is a good idea, but the WEFers’ ‘cure is worse than the disease.’

Just as the world would be wonderfully served by relocating the United Nations to some barren rock (I'd be happy to offer them Kiska Island), humanity would also be wonderfully served if the Davos attendees were to give up on their highfalutin nonsense, simply admit they're just there for food, drink, recreational drugs, and hookers, and spent all their time partying (on their own dimes, of course).

We really don't need such people conspiring to run our lives.

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Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much time railing against the Best-and-Brightest on this blog. Whether I’m too fixated on one slice of the anti-liberty pie, at the expense of other areas that could use a good scrubbing.

Then, I see stuff like this, which in a marvelously serendipitous manner crossed my path mere hours after I finished up the 700 or so words above the break.

Them vs. U.S. - The Two Americas and How the Nation’s Elite Is Out of Touch with Average Americans

It reports the results of a study by Scott Rasmussen, pollster extraordinaire. It defined “elites” as people with a postgraduate degree, household income over $150K, and living in a high population density zip code. It added a sub-category labeled “Ivy League Graduates” (ILGs - my acronym) who fit all of the above but also attended either one of the Ivies or a high-level equivalent like Northwestern.

Some of the findings:

• 73% of elites are Democrats.

• Whereas only 20% of overall voters said their personal finances have improved in current times, 73% of elites and 88% of ILGs say they did.

• 47% of elites and 55% of ILGs feel Americans have too much freedom.

• 77% of elites and nearly 90% of ILGs favor rationing of energy, gas, and meat to combat climate change.

• 84% of elites have a favorable view of Biden, vs 44% of overall voters.

• 67% of elite and 71% of ILGs feel that only educators should have a say in what children are taught.

• Majorities of elites and ILGS favor banning of gas stoves, gasoline powered cars, non-essential air travel, SUVs, and private air conditioning in order to combat climate change.

It’s pretty common to find people who are doing well voting to maintain the status quo. Since the elites are prospering under Biden, I’m not surprised they want to keep him around, no matter that the peons are suffering.

I came across this gradation of wealth some time back, and it tells a tale:

There are only 3 levels of wealth: 1) you can pay your bills and your rent without stress 2) you can eat at any restaurant without looking or worrying about the price 3) you can travel wherever you want without worrying about the price Beyond this, life doesn’t change with more money.

The inflation that has most Americans concluding the economy is shit, and has them freaking out when they go shopping or out to eat, has much less impact on the well-to-do and virtually no impact on those in the third stage. Coupled with their prosperity - at least some of which we can safely assume is driven by the government’s rampant deficit spending - they simply don’t feel the pain that the masses they’d control, deprive, and ration do.

Oh, and I’m as certain as John Kerry’s indifference to his personal carbon footprint (Mr. Kerrly - flying private jets to Davos to scold us all about global warming is a bad look) that the elites don’t figure that the bans they’d impose on the masses would apply to them.

Decades back, in the run-up to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, a friend who was an ardent proponent of the ban ran out to buy himself an AR-15 before they were prohibited. The message there? He trusted himself with one, but didn’t trust his fellow citizens. So goes the message of the elites and ILGs (a reminder - I’m using the survey’s words here): a rejection of the Golden Rule and equal rights for all in favor of a caste society. THIS is why I continue to write about the Best-and-Brightest, and part of the reason I continue to reject the notion that smart people with the power to regulate are better for society than a small, mostly hands-off government protecting the rights of people who are otherwise free to act as they see fit.

That countless global warming doomsday predictions have failed to materialize has not dissuaded the elites’ conviction that the planet is doomed if they don’t act on its behalf. That what they want to do would impose misery on billions is apparently an abstract idea. Their lives won’t change one whit.

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I close with a footnote: Some friends suggested alternate re-namings of WEF:

• World Elite Fascism

• Weenies Excoriating Farts

• What [the] Eckshual F...

All are truer than the original. Got one? Hit me up in the comments.