Columnistas invitados/Guest columnists

We can still prevent history from repeating.

Two thousand years ago, an eminent Roman historian coined the popular aphorism, “Better late than never.” His name was Titus Livius, anglicized as simply Livy. True to the aphorism, he wrote much that deserves overdue attention today.

Livy’s life (roughly 59 BC to about 17 AD) spanned the most consequential period in the thousand-year history of ancient Rome. He witnessed the last decades of the crumbling old Republic and the rise in its place of the imperial autocracy we know as the Roman Empire. He was in his early twenties when the last great defender of the republican heritage, Cicero, was assassinated by a henchman of the tyrant Marc Antony. Livy observed the entirety of the reign of the first Emperor, Augustus. He is best known for his history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, described both in his day and in ours with such terms as “monumental” and “magisterial.”

What little we know of the man himself suggests he was somehow financially well-off, independent, and reclusive. He was schooled in rhetoric, philosophy, and history. He never served in any public position, though apparently, he personally knew Augustus. Writing his massive history of Rome absorbed his adult life.

Though Romans at the time of his writing held his work in high regard, we know that some parts of Livy’s historical accounts were surely based on minimal records, old and dubious oral stories, and even legend. After all, he wrote 2,000 years ago about people and events of as much as eight centuries before his time. “I hope my passion for Rome’s past has not impaired my judgment,” he opined in his introduction to Ab Urbe Condita, “for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds.”

The following text reflects the most significant segments of Mark Steyn speech on April 26, 2021 at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar held in Franklin, Tennessee.

... Look at just three things we have lost.

One is equality before the law, something absolutely essential to a free society. In its place, we now have politicized law. If a policeman fatally shoots someone, whether his name is released to the public depends on whether the shooting is consistent with the preferred narrative of the ruling class. A policeman recently took down a young woman who was threatening the life of another young woman with a knife, and that policeman was immediately identified—indeed, his photo was posted and he was threatened by NBA superstar LeBron James on Twitter. On the other hand, we know nothing of the policeman who shot dead an unarmed woman in the U.S. Capitol on January 6. His name will apparently never be released to the public.

Second, border control. Functioning societies, at least since the Peace of Westphalia three centuries ago, have borders. America has no southern border and no plans to get one. The official position of our government seems to be that any of the seven billion persons on this planet has a right to come and stay in the U.S. for three years, until his or her assigned court date comes up. As the number of people with pending cases continues to grow, that three years will extend out to five or seven or 15 years. If we get all seven billion people to come here, the court system will break down entirely and maybe we can go back to having a functioning border.

And third, dare I bring up the fact that it is a real question whether we can go back to agreeing to have open and honest elections? And if we don’t have open and honest elections, control of our borders, and equality before the law, then we don’t have the conditions for politics or free government.

Los últimos tiempos en Cuba nos hacen recordar aquellas palabras de Jesús a los fariseos: “Atan cargas pesadas y difíciles de llevar, y las ponen sobre las espaldas de los hombres” (Mateo 23,4). No se trata de esta pandemia, ni de la otra. No se trata de esta medida, ni del reordenamiento. No se trata de una ideología de género o de cualquier otra. Se trata, como dice el pueblo, de todo “esto”. De la “cosa”. Ya la gente dice en las calles sin mucho miedo: ¡Qué malo se ha puesto “esto”! ¡Qué fea está la “cosa”! Y la gente tiene razón.

Hagamos un breve resumen de eventos y decisiones que han agravado exponencialmente la situación ya crítica de Cuba:

1. La demostrada ineficiencia del modelo socio-económico y político.
2. Los efectos de la pandemia, el confinamiento y la renuencia a comprar vacunas probadas.
3. Aplicar las medidas neoliberales llamadas “reordenamiento” en el peor momento.
4. La casi ausencia de turismo y la disminución de remesas.
5. La falta de alimentos y medicinas como nunca antes.
6. Las leyes y decretos que se están preparando o aprobando son para menos libertad. Lo jurídico, en lugar de dar seguridad y derechos, se está utilizando para amenazar y meter miedo al ciudadano.

Se ha formado lo que algunos economistas han llamado una “tormenta perfecta”, que es la coincidencia en el tiempo de varios factores determinantes de una crisis. Además de los anteriormente mencionados, se han sumado estos y otros:

El meticuloso camino de Fauci para evitar cualquier información que pudiera vincular concretamente al Instituto de Virología de Wuhan (WIV) da crédito a su esfuerzo calibrado por ocultar el papel de Pekín en este crimen contra la humanidad

Durante treinta y siete años, Anthony Fauci ha dirigido el Instituto Nacional de Alergias y Enfermedades Infecciosas (NIAID, por sus siglas en inglés). Actuando como el comandante en jefe de los inmunólogos de la nación, la cara más visible de la respuesta de Estados Unidos a la pandemia del COVID-19, ha sido objeto de críticas.

La demanda de la Ley de Libertad de Información presentada por Buzzfeed y The Washington Post (WaPo) para obtener acceso a los correos electrónicos de Fauci ha arrojado mucha luz sobre información presentada y/o sospechada hace tiempo, pero amordazada por los medios corporativos y las Big Tech.

El encubrimiento del virus de China

Pese a las dudosas sospechas levantadas en cuanto a los motivos que llevaron a un medio de comunicación de izquierda (Buzzfeed) a buscar y hacer públicos más de 3,200 correos electrónicos y a una influyente publicación de enfoque hacia ese misma tendencia (WaPo) a hacer lo mismo con 900, dado el papel que estas plataformas jugaron en la aceptación y fortificación de la propia narrativa que las comunicaciones electrónicas de Fauci entre enero y junio de 2020 del primero y entre marzo y abril del segundo, ahora contradicen es sorprendente.