Tag Archives: erie county

A Dispatch from Behind the Iron Curtain (New York State)

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I thought everyone outside New York State, especially those in free states like Florida or Iowa, would be interested in a little news from behind the Iron Curtain.

As I’ve said on several interviews over the past two weeks, New York State is a microcosm of the United States as a whole. This electoral map probably says it better than the proverbial thousand words. 

That blue patch on the far left (western end of the state) is Erie County, which includes the city of my birth, Buffalo. I live in Niagara County, directly north of Erie. Two counties to the east of mine, Monroe County, includes Rochester, N.Y.

My point here is that New York is not all one homogenous blob of politically likeminded people. Like much of America, the densely populated urban centers vote Democrat and the rest – rural and small-town America – vote Republican.

Obviously, voting Republican doesn’t by any means mean Ancapistan. But let’s face it, as far as the last two years are concerned, your only chance for a relatively free existence was living in a “red state.”

Or was it?

I can tell you firsthand that living in Niagara County, N.Y. in December 2021 is for all intents and purposes no different than living in Niagara County, N.Y. in December 2019. The only difference in 2021 is the extreme minority of the population voluntarily wearing masks.

However, if the Erie County Executive had his way, Erie County would be right back to April 2020. He mandated masks indoors for all indoor “public” spaces (I’ll let calling private property “public” go for now). But even inside blue Erie County there is political diversity.

On Monday, I’ll have my interview with Gary Dickson, Republican Town Supervisor of West Seneca, N.Y., who is one of two town supervisors in Erie County who have spoken out against the mask mandates. While their opposition was hysterically exaggerated by the news media, at least Dickson’s stance shows just how toothless these mandates are when they don’t have the consent of the populace.

In the meantime, I could use your help on one thing. In order to get my new podcast visibility, I need to get some “social proof” of its popularity among listeners. I would very much appreciate you taking the time to post a review on the podcast app (Apple, Stitcher, Google, etc.) you use to listen or right on my website at https://tommullentalksfreedom.com/podcast/.

I know the Apple podcast app doesn’t make this easy – you have to go to the show page, scroll down to the Ratings and Review section, and click the star farthest to the right (wink, wink). Then, you can leave a review.

On my website, you have to go to one of the individual show pages. Nothing can be easy, right? But if you can help me out on this, although there won’t be any money, when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. 

Don’t forget my new e-book, An Anti-State Christmas, is also available in paperback here. It’ll cost you less than a fiver and makes a great stocking stuffer!

Get a few copies for friends or family who need deprogramming – or even just a few laughs.

Like the music on Tom Mullen Talks Freedom? You can hear more at tommullensings.com!

Another day, another Covid “news” article where the reporter questions nothing

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poloncarz

Another day, another article in the Buffalo News where the so-called journalist questions nothing, is curious about nothing, and acts literally as a propagandist for the politician.

If “gatherings” are to blame for higher deaths, then why are over half the deaths in nursing homes, which are completely locked down, including not even allowing the residents to congregate with each other? Why are New York State’s hospitalizations and deaths so much worse than Florida’s, which has no restrictions, no capacity limits on restaurants or bars, and no enforced masked mandates?

By the way, what is the total for deaths from all causes in December 2020, December 2019, and December 2018? Are total deaths really higher? By how much? Are deaths from heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions all lower by close to exactly the number of Covid deaths, as a study found for the U.S.  between March and September?

And how many deaths does the wise county executive estimate have been caused by Covid lockdowns? Will no one ever ask this question? Because that number is not zero. It was uncontroversial a year ago to say every one percent increase in unemployment nationwide causes 30,000 deaths. So how many Erie County deaths have been caused by the unemployment resulting from lockdowns?

These are questions I thought of in seconds as I read the article, but apparently never occurred to the so-called journalist. It’s almost as if she thinks her job is just to write down what the government tells her and repeat it to the population without question.

If that’s the case, why have journalists?

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Buffalo doesn’t need another “master plan”

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buffaloBUFFALO June 22, 2015 A June 19 Buffalo News Opinion piece entitled, “Welcome new master plan aims at making downtown core more people-friendly” said this:

“Yes, continued development could happen by accident, but it’s dangerous to leave growth up to chance and likely to produce less desirable results.”

Wrong. Leaving growth up to the market is Buffalo’s only hope for escaping the economic blight that has plagued it for over a half century.

Let’s not forget what killed Buffalo in the first place: central planning by the government, which destroyed untold billions in waterfront property with wrongheaded expressways and disastrous public housing projects, built the Subway to Nowhere and generally taxed and regulated the economy to death.

The alternative to central planning isn’t “leaving growth up to chance.” It’s leaving growth up to the uncoerced choices of producers and consumers. Instead of government officials seizing money from taxpayers and deciding how it will be spent, consumers spend their own money as they see fit.

When consumers have choices, entrepreneurs face the prospect of losses if they produce products people won’t buy voluntarily. When the government plans and subsidizes, taxpayers don’t have a choice. They pay whether they want to or not. This steals capital from projects that can make a profit and employ people and leaves us with projects that need subsidies to survive.

Having lived away from this city for ten years, I’ve been overwhelmed since returning at the extent of government interference in every economic decision. There is literally no new building or business initiative local government officials aren’t intimately involved in planning.

This is to some extent the natural result of taxing the daylights out of everyone and then offering tax breaks, perversely called “subsidies” in modern socialist parlance, to those who start businesses the government approves of. But Buffalo takes it to a whole new level.

After living and doing business in relatively freer places, I feel like I’ve moved back to 1960s Moscow. It’s abundantly clear why people are leaving this city to find opportunities elsewhere.

Most are familiar with Einstein’s definition of insanity: repeating the same procedure and expecting a different result. We’ve let government central planners kill Buffalo for too many decades. It’s time to try something new.

Let’s let the market decide what is built or not built in Buffalo. That’s what made America the richest country in the world. It’s what is rebuilding the places our young people are fleeing to.

We have nothing to lose but our fifty-year recession.

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.