Category Archives: Current events

A Kontradiction

A recent Washington Post article purports to bail Paul Krugman (New York Times columnist and Nobel-winning “economist” aka water boy for Hillary Clinton and the DNC) out of a glaringly breathtaking contradiction. Krugman’s 180° flip involves his sudden hawkish attitude toward budget deficits whereas when it looked as though Clinton’s coronation was imminent last fall it was “spend baby spend” time. A one Matt O’Brien with the Post now tries to rescue Krugman from his own Kontradiction (def. Kontradiction: the fairly regular phenomenon whereby Paul Krugman supports the exact opposite of something he previously wrote while himself remaining unaware of his own hypocrisy). For a complete takedown of Krugman on this issue listen to ContraKrugman.

The core of O’Brian’s defense of Krugman’s reasoning is that at a Federal Funds rate of 0.25% government borrowing exerts no upward pressure on interest rates (because the private sector is not borrowing). But at a rate of 0.50% now magically the reverse happens; more, not fewer, businesses are interested in borrowing at a higher rate (?) and so government borrowing will exert upward pressure on rates and crowd out private borrowing. So because rates are today a hairs-breadth higher than last fall a flip on deficit policy is warranted. The special pleading is strong with this one. His argument only works if you carve out this nonsensical exception to the normal laws of supply and demand. Government borrowing at any interest rate will crowd out the private sector and cause rates to rise. This doesn’t magically change the closer one gets to a rate of zero.

However, that is not the most inane contention in O’Brian’s article. He states:

“If businesses won’t borrow even when interest rates are zero, the government can do so without having to worry that it’s using money the private sector wants.”

Let’s just tick off everything wrong with this statement. Businesses are still borrowing; to suggest otherwise is dishonest to put it mildly. Second, the Federal Funds rate (0%) is reserved exclusively for interbank overnight loans at the Federal Reserve. So no, businesses were not stupidly passing up 0% rate loans. Lastly, government borrowing would impact money the private sector is competing for even if somehow the government was the only borrower. Borrowing equals taxation. Although one-half of the borrowing equation is voluntary, the other unseen half (repayment) is not. This is a classic case of Bastiat’s “seen and unseen”. Every dollar someone lends to the government is one dollar less they have to spend elsewhere. It shifts spending from those industries otherwise favored by individuals and toward those favored by government. Although the individual lending favors investment, their investment dollar is still directed to government ventures rather than private ones. Whether you agree or disagree with how the funds are redirected is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is it occurs, therefore the private sector is impacted. The next unseen effect is loan repayment. Government bonds, and the interest they earn, can only be paid back by either (a) increased borrowing or (b) increased taxes. To the extent more of (a) occurs than (b) debt will skyrocket into a death spiral. This is our present situation. But if (b) is used to return funds then obviously all we have done is shift the tax burden from the present into the future. Future taxpayers must then support themselves and us.

I agree with 2017 Krugman. Deficits do matter. Deficits are an immoral act of violence. Deficits are the product of borrowing and borrowing is political cowardice. It takes no courage to give your constituents gifts that their grandchildren will have to repay. Government debt is even more morally repugnant than taxation. At least with taxation the present generation must bear the burden of the policies it puts in place. If the burden becomes too great, then democratic methods (in theory) will push for a change in policy. But borrowing unfairly shifts our burden onto a generation that never had a voice in the decision. Borrowing breaks the democracy feedback loop and permits unlimited dumping of the costs of current policy onto the future. There is so much concern over how our actions today affect the climate for future generations but ironically no concern whatsoever how our spending today will impact the standard of living for future generations who are forced to repay our profligacy. But I suppose Krugman would find no Kontradiction there.

Blind leading the blind

Last week’s article touched on a defect in humanity that spurs a tiny minority to use violence to achieve their ends. This week the focus will be on a similar defect that spurs a different minority to use deception as their tool of choice. I suppose I’d rather be duped than threatened (at least I have a chance of seeing through the deception and walking away) but it is nevertheless any unsavory side of humanity. The power of the Internet has given rise to a new class of conman, the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) peddler. They are like an Infomercial that doesn’t disclose it’s an Infomercial. These peddlers extend a helping hand, claiming they have access to special, secret knowledge that “they” don’t want you to know about – and they offer it to you all for free! As the saying goes in the Internet era – if the product is free, you’re the product. That’s not always a bad thing (witness Facebook) but it should raise your BS radar when someone is trying to steer you toward or away from certain products. A healthy dose of skepticism is always warranted.

One of the biggest of these Internet phenomenons is the “Food Babe”. Although she has no background in chemistry or biology she speaks and publishes as though she is an authority on those subjects. Her success makes sense: a) we all eat food, b) we all want to be safe and c) nearly none of us has the requisite knowledge base to separate the wheat from the chaff of her information flow (see, I made a food pun there).

By way of example, she recently published an article on the “dangers” of cottonseed oil. Not that hydrogenated oils are particularly healthy in and of themselves (irrespective of their source) but her arguments here are just silly and betray her chemical ignorance. Hydrogenated oil is hydrogenated oil, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. Trying to impugn it because the source in this case is ‘not food’ (cotton) is chemically laughable. It’s like saying mined salt from the ground is dirty because we know there is dirt in the ground but salt extracted from the ocean is pure and clean because water is clean. Her argument is incoherent, jumping back and forth between GMOs are bad to pesticides are bad. Well which is it? GMOs allow fewer pesticides to be used. There are ancillary negatives surrounding GMOs (seed patents, government strong arm tactics on behalf of Monsanto, etc.) but those are merely policy issues. GMOs themselves are biologically a non-issue. Those that fear them just don’t understand how chemistry or biology work…and then they peddle that fear to gain followers and links. This article was simply a formulaic anti-GMO screed with cottonseed oil as the vehicle for that screed, she could have written the same article using any GMO crop.

Unless you have a degree in chemistry or biology you’d be hard pressed to spot the BS she is shoveling. I have a degree (Ph.D.) in chemistry. My BS radar immediately went off reading the article. People like her succeed because the general public does not have the time or skillset to uncover the truth, so rather than take a chance they go along with whoever appears to be an “authority.” It’s the same technique politicians use to get elected; an uninformed electorate goes along with whomever sounds best or seems trustworthy. And so in both cases we end up with bad advice and bad policy. Trusting what our fellow man tells us is an admirable trait, it is unfortunate that it is so often abused by those have figured out how to exploit it.

Mother may I?

You walk outside one morning and witness your neighbor struggling to move a tree that has fallen across his driveway. Do you (a) ask him how you can help or (b) compose a letter to request a hearing before the town council in order to request permission to assist your neighbor? You request contains a detailed outline of your proposed methods of assistance whereupon you dutifully wait 2-3 weeks for a response back from said council. If you’re like 99.999% of people on this planet you go with (a). And that right there is what the free market is all about. People identifying a problem encountered by their fellow man, visualizing a solution, and then offering that solution If the solution is desired then people will show their acceptance by voluntarily engaging in trade in order to obtain said solution. If not desired then no such trade takes place.

But that is not the world we live in. There is no free market in the US or anywhere else in the world. There must be a defect in humanity that inflicts some with the instinct to force their ideas of what is normal or right or fair onto those that happen to be in proximity to them. In other words, we have a “permission market” – if you wish to solve a problem and offer the solution to the world you must first seek out the permission of these self-anointed guardian and kiss their ring on bended knee.

A recent example of this ring kissing involves a company “VidAngel” – a streaming service brought to market by two brothers who wanted to stream movies to their home with certain profanity or violent acts omitted. They searched high and low and when they couldn’t find anyone offering such a service, they started one! As an aside, this is how many such innovative companies get a start – unable to find a solution to a problem the entrepreneur solves the problem and then markets it to others with the same problem. CEO Neil Harmon recently explained on the Tom Woods Show podcast that when they started out they knew there would be copyright challenges to what they were attempting (witness the fall of Aereo, another innovative problem solving company) so they made sure to strictly follow the letter of the law. Their service, they contend, falls under the Family Movies Act, which gives consumers the right to filter movies they own – on videotape. So in order to comply with that antiquated provision they actually purchase on the consumer’s behalf a DVD or Blu-ray disc that is dedicated to only that consumer. Then their software allows the consumer to selectively remove certain words or content. Don’t like the “f” word – then delete away! Ok with profanity but don’t want violence? No problem! They were not secretive about their business. They requested licensing arrangements from all the studios. Some granted a license, but for those that did not, they followed the disc per consumer route. Then the big three (Disney, Warner Bros and Fox) decided to put an end to their little endeavor – not alone mind you, but with the help of the United States Federal Government. You see government is here to protect our rights, even the imaginary ones (copyright, trademark, patent and before that, slavery). VidAngel has now been shut down due to an injunction issued from U.S. District Court in California.

Even in the permission market it’s not enough to ask and get permission, you are also subject to the mercurial whims of those in power. Almost enough to make one have second thoughts about starting a business…nah… regulatory uncertainty would never have an impact on business starts and job growth.

Is this fake news?

The Democratic Party is a peddler of envy. It’s not fair your neighbor has more than you. Elect us and we’ll right this injustice by taking from them and giving to you. But don’t feel bad about it; it’s not your fault you couldn’t achieve on your own. Forces beyond your control (racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, bigotry, white privilege, male privilege, etc.) are conspiring to keep you down. You are the victim so there is no need to reflect on the results of your choices.

So it should come as no surprise that the party itself is practicing this mantra in their own affairs. Hillary Clinton’s loss is not her fault. No, it’s (now) the fault of “fake news,” the Russians, or misogynistic women. Apparently “fake news” is the latest epidemic to sweep the nation, although oddly enough it was on no one’s radar until after the election. Funny that. This grand great epidemic that didn’t warrant so much as a peep out of anyone on the left until AFTER Hillary lost. Interesting. Hillary Clinton spoke last week on the subject of “fake news” calling it an “epidemic” with “real world consequences.” She called for “bipartisan legislation” that would allow Congress to respond to such “propaganda.” Whoa-whoa there! So Trump was a monster when he spoke of “looking into” libel laws after getting upset about his coverage in the news media but Clinton calls for tossing out the 1st amendment (Congress “responding to” such speech would be just that) and no one in the media bats an eye?

Let’s define a few terms here first. True fake news is supposed to be satirically fake. It is commonly found on sites like The Onion, where tongue in cheek satire makes the comedic intent clear. Then there are soft-fake sites that try to (poorly) emulate the Onion but do so with click-baity semi-legitimate sounding headlines; but, once the story is read it becomes clear it is not real – but too late – you clicked on the link and their ad revenue just went up! What people are upset about is pseudo-fake news, that is, they are Onion-like stories that purport to be real. Lastly there are a number of sites that have been labeled as “fake news” because someone disagrees with their opinion based content. If people like Clinton got her way we would have a Department of Truth that would be tasked with reviewing all internet content and empowered to ‘take down’ any content that did not conform to officially sanctioned opinion. Want to run a blog? Just apply for your speech license comrade. You laugh – but it’s coming.

In the end a two second analysis would reveal that actual fake stories did not influence the election one bit. Social media has become an echo chamber on both sides. The only people dumb enough to think “cbsnewslo.com.co” is a real news site are those already living in the social media echo chamber. Opinions are not changed by such sites, only reinforced.

The Carrier Deal

Donald Trump is an enigma. On the one hand he is not even President yet and he’s already using his legendary (according to him) negotiating skills to make good on his promise of keeping jobs in America. On the other hand this feat was accomplished through a combination of crony-capitalist carrots and sticks whose effectiveness was largely a consequence of Carrier’s parent company (United Technologies) being a cog in the military-industrial fascist apparatus. Dependency fosters control and United Technologies is highly dependent on the federal government for much of its business, therefore this was somewhat of a low-hanging fruit “win” for Trump.

The reaction to this deal has predictably fallen along party lines although there is a bit of cognitive dissonance on both sides as they try to come to terms with balancing fairness with pragmatism. People appreciate that Trump saved those jobs but are troubled by how he did it. Is it fair to bestow tax “giveaways” on one company but not others? Is it fair to reward only those that threaten to leave? Is it fair to invoke a punitive 35% tariff on goods imported from US overseas firms? The answer depends on the framework in which the question is asked. Within the framework of natural rights and individual liberty none of these are legitimate. The actions of any entity that initiates violence (taxation, tariffs) to achieve its ends are illegitimate. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world literally run by the very warlords we are told would arise absent the state. Every state (i.e. country) is a plantation; some are far worse than others, but a gilded cage is still a cage. So given our condition of servitude to the state is it fair if the master decides to treat one slave more favorably than the others? Should we tell the master “You have no right to lift our brother out of the mud, please, cast him back down here with us!” Thus we have both sides of the political spectrum opposing this but for opposite reasons. The left opposes it because they enjoy being in the mud and believe this is the only way we can all be equal, therefore it is “wrong” for anyone to get out of the mud. The right opposes it for purity reasons. They believe ALL should escape the mud but that it is an either-or proposition; either all escape or none escape. Libertarians will argue for the moral solution but (grudgingly) accept the pragmatic one as a stepping-stone. Better for some to escape than none. Since wholesale emancipation seems to be off the table, then let’s create so many loopholes and deals that all can escape.

So do I wish I could get the kind of tax incentives Carrier got? Sure. It is absolutely unfair that they get them and other businesses like mine do not. However I’ll still applaud their small victory if it means it moves the needle even a bit toward the direction of universal tax relief.

Calexit

The vote counting continues. Thus far Clinton has accrued approximately 2.5 million more popular votes than Trump. Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues – “how can this be? Democracy!?” The democracy game depends in large part on how one slices the pie. Democracy is fundamentally arbitrary insofar as the rules for inclusion are based on imaginary invisible lines in the dirt. Just take a look at a map of gerrymandered congressional districts; those distended and warped puzzle pieces forensically betray the party of their author. We could easily redraw state boundaries that would give Clinton a win; likewise we could draw new state boundaries that would give Trump an even larger electoral college win. But let’s play this game: if we look solely at popular vote within two distinct geographical areas we find a stark contrast. The first region is California and the second region is every other state except California. In California, Clinton handily won by 4 million votes. But in the other not-California region Trump won by 1.5 million. If direct democracy popular voting is going to be the new gold standard, then would it not be a crime to force the entirety of not-California to suffer under a Clinton presidency merely because one state, California, wished it to be so? Indeed, remove just one more state from that mix, New York, and the differential climbs to a 3 million more for Trump in the new country known as not-California-or-New-York.

Oh but you argue that’s disingenuous, we are “one country.” But are we? Borders are arbitrary, there is no physical law of nature that dictates biological entities living at these coordinates on a sphere must be irreversibly bound into a political union. Unions exist only so long as the parties wish it. Indeed, union dissolution is the last vestige of the people’s right to counter federal overreach. Yes, we’re talking about the “s” word: secession, an end to that “indivisible” union. Before November 7, 2016 such talk was ridiculed by the left (in straw man like fashion) to be the bailiwick of racists. However, now that the left no longer holds the reins of power they have suddenly discovered the merits of federalism, states rights, and even (gasp) secession. There is currently a movement for “Calexit”, that is the idea that California should leave the union and becomes it’s own country. A Calexit success would finally sever that peculiar linkage of secession to slavery in the American psyche. Normalization of secession would release a long neglected cudgel against expanding federal power.

The mere fact that secession is on the table as an option is further proof of the failure of the constitution (or rather the failure of men to be bound by it). The principals of federalism embodied in that document gave most power to the states with only a narrow set of enumerated powers granted to the federal government. Were that still the case no one would even care who the president was.

Whitewash

So Fidel Castro is dead – well it’s about time. His “revolution” plunged the island nation of Cuba into a 50-year nightmare. Cuban citizens were stripped of all rights (speech, assembly, movement, property, etc.) and reborn as slaves on Fidel’s Cuban plantation. His lapdog, brother Raúl, was his remorseless enforcer (so do not expect much to change until Raúl is dead as well.) To those with the audacity to oppose either, cold-blooded murder was the response. To those that attempted escape, death on the high seas was the prevailing fate. To those that remained, a life of poverty and servitude to the state was the best one could hope for. Castro’s crimes against humanity are on par with those of Pol Pot, Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and every other petty dictator who believes the path to unanimity and consent is to kill all those that disagree.

But while those dictators are (mostly) vilified by the popular media, for some grotesque reason Castro is nearly universally held in high regard by today’s ruling class and ivory tower academics. Then again perhaps it should be unsurprising; they are all cut from the same statist cloth. They differ only in degree, not kind. Would that they could get away with Castro’s methods they’d do so in a heartbeat. Those darn pesky constitutions keep getting in their way. But the people aren’t stupid. We the common folk know what kind of monster Castro was.

If you are still struggling to understand why Trump won, look no further than the difference between his response to Castro’s death and Obama’s. Obama wrote the following: “At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. We know that this moment fills Cubans – in Cuba and in the United States – with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”

Talk about whitewashed apologia for a dictator! Obama turns ambiguity into an art form. Assuming you knew nothing about Castro would the reader take away from this that he was a murderous dictator that executed thousands of his own people (yes I suppose murdering someone would alter the course of their life)? Or that he put homosexuals in slave labor camps to “cure” them? Or that he forbade his citizens to leave the country, turning into a Caribbean Alcatraz? This insipid portrayal insults the memory of those that gave their lives opposing him as much as portraying Hitler as an “important figure in unifying Europe and whose aspirations eventually propelled the founding of the state of Israel” would insult the memory of those that died in his concentration camps.

Now, here’s what Donald Trump said: “Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”

Any questions?

#NoPresidentNeeded

Donald Trump may turn out to be the best thing ever for this country. In less than a week after the election he has managed to rouse the question-authority left from their deep slumber. Apparently Obama’s actual abuses of presidential power (secret kill lists) and continued prosecution of the morally bankrupt war on drugs and futilely destructive war on terror were A-Okay, but straw-men based fears of what Trump could do (even though having never uttered a word on such subjects e.g. gay marriage) is more than sufficient to goad them into action once again. Sorry if I have no sympathy for their outrage if droning children in foreign lands strikes no passion in their heart but a 0.0001% risk of not getting to use the bathroom of their choice does. As they say, first world problems.

Trump’s big-league greatness will come from his capacity to get growing numbers of people to see the presidency and by extension much of government for what it is: a joke. People bizarrely hold the office of the presidency (and by extension all of government) on a pedestal. Wise, somber, erudite, self-sacrificing statesmen lead the country forward upon their trusty stead. Like nationalized parents they comfort the country with their solemn words in times of tribulation. Oh, all bow down before our wise leaders. All nonsense. Adults need neither leaders nor caretakers. This religious-like fervor infects so many minds when thinking of the Presidency. Trump has shattered this illusion. “Trump, why he’s a joke, he’s not a real leader! We want the officially sanctioned model, not some cheap knock off!” Sorry folks, but you got McDowell’s, not McDonalds. Ultimately this will be beneficial when it instigates a national introspection that leads all to realize McDonald’s is no different than McDowell’s.

Once this insight is achieved there will be a real possibility for expansion of freedom and liberty in this country that follows in the wake of greater rejection of state power. Thankfully it seems to be starting. All those #notmypresident types are finally getting it! No one should ever be #mypresident. The fact that some people are finally coming to realize that if Trump is not their president, and so by extension no one is their president, they have no need for a President.

To be clear, Trump is no more or less qualified to be in office than any one else. They are ALL just regular folks like you and me. No one possesses magical qualities that make them qualified to run the lives of 300 million people. All they do is decide who gets to be left alone and who gets to suffer state interference. Apparently “good” presidents interfere in the most lives (FDR), while “bad” ones do little (Coolidge). It remains to be seen where Trump will fall on that spectrum, but any increase in the number that regard the Presidency as irrelevant will be a step in the right direction.

Phantom Menace

I voted for Johnson. Trump was not my guy, but… moving past the initial shock of his win, I am both cautiously optimistic and filled with schadenfreude. The schadenfreude is directed at Hillary supporters. Donald Trump is the perfect vessel for wiping that conceited smugness from their soul. As the saying goes, if you live by the sword, don’t act all shocked when someone uses the sword to vanquish you. That sword is democracy and she is indeed a fickle mistress. If you abuse her power she will flee you and indeed that is exactly what happened to the left. For 8 long years they crammed tax increases, Obamacare, pro-Union rules, and a tidal wave of new regulations down our throats. They thought it would improve our lives. I’m sure they meant well. But they were wrong (economic ignorance will do that n.b. Bernie supporters).

People ultimately vote their pocket book, which is why it was not a wave of “white racism” that elected Trump (indeed he carried less of the white vote than Romney and the same as Bush) but rather economic self-interest. Yes, Trump is a boorish loudmouth, but people don’t care as long as they think he’s the most likely to improve their lot. Do you poll your plumber about his relationships with women or do you just want him to fix your toilet? I’m not hiring Donald Trump to teach manners or to babysit my kids. People voted for Trump not because of the things he said, but in spite of them. That takes real courage.

But you wouldn’t know it to witness the outpouring of apocalyptic hyperbole from the left on social media and the airwaves. The hypocrisy is astounding. Not two weeks ago after the third debate the liberal media was all a twitter about Trump’s unprecedented remarks about reserving his acceptance of the results until after the election and what this would mean for our democracy. Gasp! The liberal media predicted possible violence and turmoil from trigger-happy right wing nut-jobs. Well guess what? The left lost and then behaved exactly as they had predicted the right would! Indeed, it is their behavior that is unprecedented. Never before have elections results in the US been openly and violently contested. Then right on cue (see we were right!) the prophecies came true. Stories started coming in of pro-Trump violence against minorities. But this boy has cried wolf one too many times. The left has a track record of such false flags. Thanks to Wikileaks we learned the Clinton campaign paid people to incite violence at Trump rallies. Likewise we soon found that most if not all of these stories were either fabricated from whole cloth or were grossly misrepresented. https://goo.gl/Q269bv

But so far these protests aren’t about anything Trump has done, merely their fear of what he might do. He is today but a phantom menace. I suppose that fear is understandable given the mantle of unchallenged executive authority he is inheriting from Obama. Perhaps if the left had not been so indifferent to the pleas of libertarians and constitutional conservatives about executive abuses of power they would have less to fear now. But, I guess when it’s your guy doing stuff you approve of it’s no big deal. I don’t know what you’re afraid of though, it’s not like Trump is going to round up all the Muslims or Mexicans and put them in internment camps. Only a Democrat (FDR) would do something like that.

Trust, but Verify

By the time you read this the election will have been decided. No matter who won, the Earth will continue to rotate on its axis and life will go on without nary a concern over the grand egoists in Washington (or Atlanta) who would presume to be our guardians. And that is as it should be. Children require guardians; adults do not.

But, if you are desirous of returning to the womb and feeling comforted in the knowledge that selfless and wise public servants will protect you from all harms, then by all means you have the right, nay, the obligation to demand they prove beyond a reasonable doubt their wisdom and selflessness. In the past all we had as evidence of their competency was their word, or the word of a B-list celebrity on their behalf. If the race was important enough, there might actually be some investigative journalism (back when journalists actually took pride in their work and fully vetted their facts and sources). Whoever was most capable at marketing themselves – apropos in a market driven economy – would ultimately be the winner.

But this election cycle has seen a sea change in terms of trust. As old Russian proverb say, “trust, but verify.” Surely Trump’s puppet master Putin has taught him that one. The Internet has conferred power to the powerless. It has democratized information distribution as the citizen journalist plies his wares in the form of blogs, YouTube videos, and social media memes; a million different opinions and viewpoints all vying to be heard. Some good, some bad, but the for the first time in history everyone has an equal opportunity to be heard (even if fewer today listen as each wrestles for control of the podium). It is the anonymizing power of the Internet that made such platforms as Wikileaks and Anonymous possible. Were they printed media sources they would have been instantly squashed by those in power seeking to silence the Truth they disburse.

History shows that wherever technology ignites the flames that will clear the old ways for the new, there is resistance; the obsolete rarely goes gently into that good night. From the likely apocryphal tale of Dutch workers whose jobs were threatened by industrialization throwing their “sabot” into machinery to undermine its efficiency, to today’s taxi unions pushing to outlaw or undermine crowd-sourced systems such as Uber or Lyft we see the similar desperate grabs at retaining power in journalism. CNN’s Chris Cuomo (wrongly) asserted that only they, the anointed acolytes in The Media could read and interpret the contents of WikiLeaks email dumps. I believe Martin Luther took similar issue with the Pope over proper authority to interpret the Written Word. The Protestant Reformation ensued.

If we are to be ruled like children, then we the People have the right to learn all we can about those who would presume to rule us, by any and all means necessary. Those who would attack the truth because they find its means of delivery distasteful are undeserving of our trust or obedience.