Most likely, lockdowns represent the biggest policy mistake of modern times.” Recently, the most comprehensive study to date ― a 220-page book ― of the effect of lockdowns was published by the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. “It demonstrates lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social, and political costs to society.” We now know that as a result of lockdowns, global economic growth was stunted, public debt in most countries grew massively, inequality rose, great damage was done to children’s education, health-related quality of life was reduced, democracy was undermined, and there was a huge loss of individual freedom. So much loss and pain for so little gain. At first glance, lockdowns seem to make sense. If a family member or friend tells you that they think they are coming down with the flu, the proper reaction is to avoid being around that person, if possible, until they recover. An agent of the government does not have to tell us to avoid the sick person and threaten to fine us for noncompliance. Most everyone understands basic germ theory and voluntarily acts accordingly. The researchers who authored “Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions” looked at 19,646 individual studies dealing with the impact of lockdowns at particular times and places and carefully analyzed the 22 studies that were the most authoritative and comparable. As the pandemic progressed, it quickly became obvious that the people who were in the most danger were the elderly and obese, while children faced little danger.

Transporting aluminum also has a comparatively higher environmental impact. Aluminum is heavier than plastic. Aluminum cans weigh about 50% more than plastic equivalents. This means more fuel is burned every time a can is shipped, driven, or flown from a producer to a distributor. That adds up to increased fossil fuel emissions. Does aluminum being recyclable really help? Only if it’s disposed of properly. And only about one-third of aluminum packaging in this country ends up being recycled. The rest is simply replaced with new aluminum, leading to another cycle of mining. In fact, much aluminum is littered. There are more discarded aluminum cans littering the environment than plastic bottles. The whole debate over bans and which material is better than the other misses the bigger point: If we recycled plastic and aluminum at higher rates, then the litter and pollution problem would go away. The kind of plastic used in soda, juice and water bottles (plastic No. 1, or PET), as well as aluminum, are highly recyclable materials accepted in nearly every community in the country. We just have to focus on getting these products in the recycling bin. There are already numerous and exciting new developments on the recycling front. Just last month, researchers in Sydney discovered a new process that could biodegrade even the toughest forms of plastic. This better approach would consist of (1) improving the rapidly developing recycling science, (2) funding a public-private messaging campaign to drive a recycling culture and (3) improving our recycling infrastructure.

A United Nations-sponsored coalition met recently in Paris to address the problem of plastic pollution. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for Plastics and the more than 2,000 people who were in attendance enjoyed a few days in France focused on a binding treaty for reducing plastic production. The United States and other major manufacturing countries are not part of the group. We have no lack of environmentalists, who want to ban or replace all plastic packaging and products with alternative materials. Many of the domestic proposals focus on banning almost every plastic, from bags and straws to condoms. Alternatives are not suggested. And then there are the proposals for replacing plastic with aluminum. Does that sound good to you? On the replacement idea, the sleek metallic nature of aluminum hides a dirty secret: Aluminum produces more greenhouse gas emissions than plastic, and given the down cycle applications of recycled plastic, the aluminum can doesn’t produce any significant gains in recyclability. Aluminum is made from mining bauxite ore. It is a polluting and emission-intensive process. Every ton of aluminum mined produces a whopping 16 tons of carbon dioxide, which makes mining for a ton of aluminum worse for the environment than burning 5 tons of oil. Bauxite mines themselves are destructive to the local environment. Bauxite dust poses health risks for people and animals that breathe it in. Bauxite runoff infects nearby waterways, which destroys soil fertility and is harmful to aquatic life.

The entire family, including a 2-year-old child, were given life sentences in political prison camps.” I first read this disturbing line in the State Department’s “2022 Report on International Religious Freedom,” a sobering reminder of the horrors North Korean citizens routinely face. The revelation a toddler was reportedly detained in 2009 alongside his or her family members by North Korean officials seemed unbelievable, yet anyone aware of the crisis in North Korea understands the circumstances are diabolical and deadly, particularly for Christians. This child’s family was guilty of possessing a Bible. When we look at places like North Korea and we’re given a grim reminder of what happens when people fail to create - or keep - vibrant and hospitable cultures. We see what happens when freedom becomes a mere figment of a populace’s imagination. But repressive regimes don’t start where North Korean dictatorships have landed. They progressively move in that direction, slowly devouring every ounce of liberty until their people are suffocating in an oxygen-less sociopolitical nightmare. Persecution watchdog Open Doors offers a sobering look at North Korea, ranking the nation the worst place in the world for Christians to live. With 400,000 Christians making up just 2% of the population in North Korea, the religious minority is treated like an enemy within. “It is almost impossible for believers to gather to worship. Those who dare to meet must do so at enormous risk.” Keep the haunting image of that toddler being hauled off to a prison camp for life in your heart and let the horror catapult us all to protect this great nation - at all costs.

Leftists love fear. In a choice between persuading by logic and pressuring by fear, leftists will go for fear every time. Why? It’s the go-to motivator for the nonthinking crowd. It’s the means of moving mountains without having to do all that hard thinking stuff. Or more to point, it’s the means of moving mountains without giving opportunity for the masses to do all that hard thinking stuff. Quick, do as you’re told ― no time to think! So it goes with social media, and how the petulant progressives and secular socialists and all those nonthinking crowd have managed to censor conservative speech ― by demanding the removal of all countering opinions that might put a dent in their delicate delusions and force a reevaluation that circles back to, once again, that hard thinking stuff. It’s all about the fear. Generate enough fear and there’s no end to what might be accomplished. Changed. Reformed. Destroyed. Leftists use fear to accomplish their political and cultural goals because they themselves are driven to act by fear. They know firsthand the power of fear. They fear countering viewpoints ― so they move to shut down countering viewpoints. Fear makes them run, so they assume fear will make others similarly run. They’ll only continue to use fear to curtail individual freedom ― specifically, conservative and free market principles ― even more. Their end game, of course, is control. Total, top-down, totalitarian control. That’s how socialism, communism, collectivism comes: a cringe of fear at a time.

We call on all countries to pursue innovative, coordinated, green, and open development for all,” Mr. Xi told the U.N. General Assembly with a straight face, even though 40% of China’s energy investments through the Belt and Road Initiative are in coal, and 72% of all new coal plants around the world rely on Chinese funding. China produces more carbon dioxide emissions than any other nation - over a quarter of total global emissions - and more than double what the U.S. generates. China’s counterfactual climate posturing is only possible because Western nations, especially America, do not acknowledge the importance of fighting climate change or offer any notable policy proposal. Beijing should not be in a position to land blows against the U.S. by criticizing its ‘negative stance’ and ‘poor track record’ on climate change. Yet here we are. When the Chinese government engaged in hollow virtue-signalling over the environment, America’s response should not have been to slip further into denialism. Instead, America should have seized the opportunity to place the U.S. at the forefront of environmental innovation. That way, America would have beaten China. When it comes to the environment, there are no second chances. De-Sinofication - disentangling Western polities and economies from China - is shaping up to be the most important foreign policy project of the century. When it comes to climate change, the way to do that is not to stoop to Beijing’s level and undo years of progress. Instead, the West must call out China’s failures and set an example for the rest of the world by implementing a positive, pro-growth environmental vision.

Two issues will define the coming era of international relations and determine the direction of our politics for years. The first is the environment. Around the world, populations and their elected politicians are beginning to wake up to the reality and urgency of climate change. Young people across the political spectrum are pressuring politicians to act. For the first time ever, a constructive policy debate is forming as socialist plans like the Green New Deal go up against pro-market solutions like nuclear power, clean investment, and green innovation. The second all-important issue is China. The Chinese Communist Party has never been a benevolent organization. But in the last year or so, its crimes have become so heinous that they have warranted an international response. Its refusal to cooperate with Western governments, combined with the undue influence it wields in international governing bodies like the World Health Organization, has cost tens of thousands of lives to date in the COVID-19 pandemic. When it is not gaslighting Western governments by flat-out denying all wrongdoing - even when it has been caught red-handed on camera - the Chinese government is fortifying its position by churning out positive-sounding rhetoric on climate change. Recently, President Xi Jinping took the world by surprise when he announced his intention to make China a carbon-neutral country by 2060. The Chinese Communist Party is trying to greenwash its crimes. Despite running by far the most environmentally destructive country in the world, it is shamelessly weaponizing very real concerns over climate change and using them to conceal its equally real malevolence.

There have been many recommendations for the future of NATO. Since 2006, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has recommended that NATO be open to membership by Australia, Japan and Israel because those nations share NATO’s values. There are two big problems with the plan Aznar recommend. First is the provocative effect that such expansion of NATO would have on Russia and China. Second is the fact that the NATO member nations, having spent little on their own defense for decades, are too weak to meet their obligations to the current alliance, much less to a larger one. The accession of Australia and Japan would promise that were China to attack its Pacific neighbors, all of NATO would respond militarily. Israel’s accession to NATO would either enrage its Arab neighbors or, fearing Iran, make them want to join. The further expansion of NATO raises the question of what value the alliance could be to prospective members. The answer, sadly, is that most NATO members are not capable of defending themselves, let alone other nations. Why would Japan, Australia or Israel - or any other nation - want to join an alliance that couldn’t come to their defense? Judging by China’s recent maneuvering, why would any nation want to join? Instead of making an already weak NATO a global alliance, we should be pursuing regional alliances with nations that are prepared to defend themselves. Regional alliances would be in a far better position to defend their own territory - with U.S. assistance - than NATO can. Regional alliances beginning with our Pacific allies are the best way to meet the anticipated threats.

Within this coalition are both left-wingers and right-wingers ? a horseshoe bent to run along parallel lines. The leftists believe America is so fundamentally flawed, socially unjust and systemically racist that it has no business passing judgment on Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Cuban, Venezuelan and other despots. The rightists believe America can and should become a fortress, ignoring conflicts in far-off lands about which we know nothing. George Soros, a leftist billionaire, joined forces with Charles Koch, a rightist billionaire, to found the Quincy Institute, which champions neo-isolationism and therefore promotes appeasement of the regimes ruling China, Russia and Iran. The top dogs in many American and European corporations, Hollywood film studios and sports franchises also defend ? and perhaps kowtow to ? Mr. Xi and his CCP. So, what policy does the EIU propose the Free World adopt in response to the rise of authoritarianism? It recommends that the “U.S. and its Western allies should focus their energies on rejuvenating their political systems so that they can provide a desirable alternative model to that of China.” “Far better that the U.S. and the world’s democracies demonstrate the advantages of their system of government by re-democratizing their politics, rather than by trying to isolate or contain China.” Reagan famously said: “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” What he’d say about the current generation’s defense of freedom we can only imagine.

The Economist Intelligence Unit, the respected research and analysis division of The Economist, reports that the state of global democracy fell to a record low in 2021, with only 6.4% of the world’s population living in a “full democracy” and more than 33% living under authoritarian rule. That includes the 1.4 billion Chinese people. Those figures don’t shock me. What does: the EIU’s contention that the “real challenge for the West may not be to prevent China from one day becoming the dominant global power, but to manage that process in such a way as to avoid war and preserve democracy and the best of the Western enlightenment legacy.” The EIU is untroubled by the prospect of the Chinese Communist Party replacing the United States as “the dominant global power.” The EIU advises that if we “manage that process” well, a few democratic societies and Western values may survive. The EIU is not sure whether the triumph of authoritarianism over democracy should be regarded as bad or good. “If China’s ascendancy were to result in the spread of authoritarian rule and a rollback of democracy globally, would this bring about an improvement or otherwise in the lives of millions of ordinary people?” the report wonders. “Equally, we may ask to what extent the world’s democracies are succeeding in meeting these aspirations for a better life for all.” The EIU is no outlier. Au contraire, it reflects the views of a broad swath of British, European and even American elite opinion. Members of this “coalition of the unwilling” do not intend to exert themselves to defend what Mr. Reagan termed “the infrastructure of democracy” ― the institutions, values that guarantee the rule of law.