Exciting News! I Have Been Named A Brownstone Institute Fellow for 2023
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
I am thrilled to announce that I have been named a 2023 Fellow at the Brownstone Institute! For anyone who is not familiar with Brownstone, I am very pleased to introduce you to it, for there is truly nothing like it in the world. It was born in May 2021, as a direct result of the societal breakdown that was caused by the government’s horrific (and horrifically unconstitutional and inhumane) response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As noted on their website:
The motive force of Brownstone Institute was the global crisis created by policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. That trauma revealed a fundamental misunderstanding alive in all countries around the world today, a willingness on the part of the public and officials to relinquish freedom and fundamental human rights in the name of managing a public health crisis, which was not managed well in most countries. The consequences were devastating and will live in infamy.
The policy response was a failed experiment in full social and economic control in most nations. And yet the lockdowns are also widely considered a template of what is possible.
So when they (the out-of-control, overreaching government actors), in a stroke of unprecedented totalitarian control, the likes of which our country had never seen before, shuttered our businesses, closed our schools, prohibited our universities from opening, arrested religious leaders for holding services in their houses of worship, forced members of our oldest generation to die scared and alone in isolation from their loved ones… there was nothing but silence from the individuals, the institutes, and the institutions that have held themselves out for years, if not generations, as the guardians of civil rights. I won’t name names. No need to. You know who they are. Did you ever ask yourself over these past almost 3 years now, “Where are they?! Don’t they see what’s going on all around us?” With our civil rights, even our basic human rights, disappearing at a stunning rate starting in March of 2020, and continuing still today, all in the name of “Covid-19”… all in the name of “public health and safety”… where on earth were all the supposed champions of civil liberties?!
That very troubling yet glaring question is what spurred Brownstone founder and President, Jeffrey Tucker, to step up and do something. He felt compelled to fill the void that these other institutes had left, gaping and repugnant to intellectuals across the world, as that void was. And fill the void he did - with the birth of the Brownstone Institute.
I phoned Jeffrey before I started writing this article so that we could discuss the “why” behind Brownstone. Of course he and I have had many a discussion about it, but now I wanted to hear his core reason for pushing forward when he did. The spark that lit the match, so to speak. It’s a matter of inertia. Everyone seems to know this basic human characteristic, that it is our nature to remain with the status quo unless and until an occurrence or incident spurs us to move from status quo to status activus. In fact, it’s one of the most common questions I get when I’m being interviewed about my “quarantine camp” lawsuit victory over the tyrannical Governor Hochul and her DOH. It’s quite interesting that so many people are intrigued by my story, and they want to know what made me give up my successful law practice of 25 years to take up a fight, by myself, pro bono, with no funding, against the Governor of New York, in the name of We the People… (My recent interview on Epoch TV gets to the heart of that question, and you can view that interview here if you like).
So, as many people pose this question to me, I found myself posing the same question to Jeffrey. What broke his inertia? What sparked him to leave his comfort zone and venture out into unchartered waters? His answer was so coherent, and yet so simple. He explained:
I knew for sure this was a momentous moment in world history. I knew we would throw out all law, science, basic tenets of economics, all in the name of “public health and safety”. I realized that this was going to be the end of our society as we knew it.
Jeffrey went on to explain that there were a number of factors that impelled him forward. He told me:
First, I noticed the abysmal failure of those institutes that were supposed to protect freedom, thought, liberty… and it was stunning. Where were they all? They had all gone silent!
Second, I realized that the individuals and institutes that failed to speak out were in no position to do so because they were compromised. So, I saw the need to provide an infrastructure of truth telling not compromised by acquiescence. Nobody else was doing that.
Third, so many people had been displaced from their professions. They were trapped in institutions and couldn’t speak out. Professors were being silenced by their universities. Doctors were being strong armed by their medical institutions. Journalists lost their venues that wouldn’t allow them to speak freely. I saw a need for a mechanism to help provide a sanctuary, to guide people out of the darkness. We had this after the fall of Rome. They saved the world. Not just good people were saved, but good ideas.
Finally, so many people told me it was dumb to start an institute about Covid-19 because Covid-19 was just a germ and it would end soon enough. But I thought, No - it’s not just a germ! It’s a complete failure at all levels - cultural, social, spiritual, economic… the effects of which will run a generation, or maybe two. It was some version of martial law, and in martial law, most people stand down and wait for it to run its course. If enough people cower to it, then they (the perpetrators) get away with it.
And so, Jeffrey, in his brave and brilliant way, wasn’t going to stand down. In the face of martial law, he was going to stand up and shine the light. He would provide a sanctuary for people to think critically, to freely question the narrative, to engage in basic human discourse as we have since the beginning of time. The essence of this is captured in one of his many very thought provoking articles, The Moral Imperative of Sanctuary. Even before he birthed Brownstone, Jeffrey was not standing down. Ever hear of the Great Barrington Declaration? Jeffrey was one of the master minds behind it, together with Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford (with whom we spent the weekend last weekend in Miami at the Brownstone Great Restoration convention… more on that below).
For those of you who know my story about my David v Goliath battle against New York’s Governor to strike down her illegal quarantine regulation, then you can see that Jeffrey and I are cut from the same cloth. I admire him, and Brownstone, so immensely, because we are both trail blazers in our respective worlds, though we never set out to be, and we never were before 2021, until we suddenly were. He doesn’t need to sit me down and explain to me the sacrifices he made and the intense introspective searching he had to do in order for him to stand up, seek out allies, and forge ahead with the novel idea of a mechanism to foster a new awakening. I know innately what he went through, because I lived it myself. Still am. Our stories are so similar. So parallel. I know the courage and downright grit it takes to stand up to the “machine”, to the tyrants who are steamrolling over We the People with everything they’ve got. I know the soul searching he had to do, and the inner demons he had to confront and overcome to do something that, prior to 2021, he never would have dreamed he would or could do. Yet, he found the fortitude to do the thing that he never imagined he could - the thing that was clearly meant for him and him alone to do. And humanity is, and in the future will be, the better for it.
Heroes are ordinary people that do extraordinary things. The adage, “Not all heroes wear capes” is so true.
(Side note: Though in Jeffrey’s case, he actually does wear a cape, which he let me borrow at the gala for a photo op. See pictures below!)
And so, I am immensely proud to be named a Brownstone Fellow for 2023. After only 18 months in existence, the fact that Brownstone is sponsoring seven Fellows is quite an impressive accomplishment in and of itself. That I am one of those seven Fellows benefits us all, as I will use the opportunity to continue funding my work to shed light, and to stand up against the machine as it continues to push We the People and test us to our outer most limits. I will be there, pushing back, for the people. Now with Brownstone by my side. Such an honor.
I highly recommend that you take a bit of time and peruse their website, and I pretty much guarantee you will find a plethora of thought-provoking articles on topics from Public Health, to Education, to Philosophy, to Economics, and many more, including Law. As a contributing author at Brownstone, several of my articles have been published in the Law section of their website. There on the site, you can also support the institute with a donation (they are a 501(c)(3)), and you can sign up for their newsletter, which I also recommend.
As I mentioned previously, last weekend I spoke at the Brownstone conference and gala in Miami, FL, which was entitled The Great Restoration. The event was a truly enlightening conference that provided much needed insight into the cultural, legal, economic and public health aftermaths of this new post-Covid-19 world that surrounds us. The roster of speakers was quite impressive from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya , to Dr. Joe Ladapo (Surgeon General of Florida), to Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, to Dr. Paul Alexander, to Dr. Ryan Cole, and many others. The crowd it drew was also very memorable with members of the audience including such renowned names as Dr. Harvey Risch, Dr. Richard Urso, Dr. Kat Lindley, and Maxime Bernier (head of the People’s Party of Canada).
One of my favorite journalists, Jan Jekielek, covered the event, and The Epoch Times live-streamed it. You can watch a recording of the event on Epoch TV here. I hope you will join us next December for the annual event!
Below are some of my favorite photos from the weekend, as well as my weekly inspirational quote. This one is probably my favorite. I have it plaqued on my desk. Given to me by the wisest man that I know…