By Ron Paul
A Swiss billboard is making the rounds on
social media depicting a young woman on the
telephone. The caption reads, "Does the neighbor
heat the apartment to over 19 degrees (66F)?
Please inform us." While the Swiss government
has dismissed the poster as a fake, the
penalties Swiss citizens face for daring to warm
their homes are very real. According to the
Swiss newspaper Blick, those who violate the 66
degree heating limit could face as many as three
years in prison!
Prison time for heating your home? In the “free”
world? How is it possible in 2022, when
Switzerland and the rest of the political west
have achieved the greatest economic success in
history, that the European continent faces a
winter like something out of the dark ages?
Sanctions.
While long promoted – often by those opposed to
war – as a less destructive alternative to war,
sanctions are in reality acts of war. And as we
know with interventionism and war, the result is
often unintended consequences and even blowback.
European sanctions against Russia over its
invasion of Ukraine earlier this year will
likely go down in history as a prime example of
how sanctions can result in unintended
consequences. While seeking to punish Russia by
cutting off gas and oil imports, European Union
politicians forgot that Europe is completely
dependent on Russian energy supplies and that
the only people to suffer if those imports are
shut down are the Europeans themselves.
The Russians simply pivoted to the south and
east and found plenty of new buyers in China,
India, and elsewhere. In fact, Russia’s
state-run Gazprom energy company has reported
that its profits have increased by 100 percent
in the first half of this year.
Russia is getting rich while Europeans are
facing a freezing winter and economic collapse.
All because of the false belief that sanctions
are a cost-free way to force other countries to
do what you want them to do.
What happens when the people see dumb government
policies making energy bills skyrocket as the
economy grounds to a halt? They become desperate
and take to the streets in protest.
This weekend thousands of Austrians took to the
streets in a “Freedom Rally” to demand an end to
sanctions and the opening of Nord Stream II, the
gas pipeline on the verge of opening earlier
this year. Last week an estimated 100,000 Czechs
took to the streets of Prague to protest NATO
and EU policy. In France, the “Yellow Vests” are
back in the streets protesting the destruction
of their economy in the name of “defeating”
Russia in Ukraine. In Germany, Serbia, and
elsewhere, protests are gearing up.
Even the Washington Post was forced to admit
that sanctions on Russia are not having the
intended effect. In an article yesterday, the
paper worries that sanctions are inflicting
“collateral damage in Russia and beyond,
potentially even hurting the very countries that
impose them. Some even worried that the
sanctions intended to deter and weaken Putin
could end up emboldening and strengthening him.”
This is all predictable. Sanctions kill.
Sometimes they kill innocents in the country
targeted for destruction and sometimes they kill
innocents in the country imposing them. The
solution, as always, is non-intervention. No
sanctions, no "color revolutions," no meddling.
It's really that simple.
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