By Don Boudreaux
Those of you who doubt that Covid Derangement Syndrome doesn’t fuel police-state brutality – those of you who remain silent amidst the tyranny unleashed in the name of “protecting” people from Covid-19 – please watch this video of a young woman being arrested recently in London at an anti-lockdown protest.
I ask again of my many classical-liberal and libertarian friends who are still remaining silent in the face of this inhuman and inhumane assault on human freedom: Why? Why are you not speaking out adamantly against this madness?
I am, I must say, so terribly disappointed in so many of you. In the face of this unprecedented form of general battering of human freedom in the western world, so many of you refuse to raise your voices in protest.
Oh, you protest – loudly and in no uncertain terms – restrictions on immigration. I applaud you! Truly I do. You protest minimum wages, tariffs, subsidies, high taxes, deficit financing of government spending, occupational licensing, “green-energy” initiatives, and the so-called “war on drugs.” Again, I applaud you sincerely.
I applaud also your courageous expressions of opposition to the welfare-warfare state – to industrial policy – to the idiocy of wokism – to the folly of government owned and operated ‘schools’ – to the dangers of the likes of “net-neutrality,” antitrust, and universal basic incomes. I raise my glass high to your hostility to the banana-republic practice of civil asset forfeiture, to affirmative action, and to nearly every proposal issued by economic illiterates – and tyrant-wannabes – such as Elizabeth Warren, Marco Rubio, Bernie Sanders, and Josh Hawley. Yay you! You go! Exposes these policies and these officious frauds for what they are.
But I cannot forgive you for refusing to speak out against a tyranny far more immediate and real – and one that promises to uncork gruesome precedents.
Why do you – how can you – remain silent in the face of Covid tyranny?
The below occurred in Bishops Park, London:
I think the problem comes from the failure of freedom lovers to understand the virus and fear of peer pressure. To the extent the virus behaves as the lock downers insist, these Draconian measures might tend to make a bit of sense. But the virus does not behave like that. Most everyone under 50 is not going to die or get particularly sick from the virus and they all need to interact, cross infect each other and gain lifetime immunity as soon as possible. The problem for old people is weak immune systems which themselves are apparently the cause of most deaths and organ damage due to an overreaction to the virus. This is prevented with ingestion of sufficient nutrients, sunshine and exercise which precludes this autoimmune reaction. Any mention of working preventives and treatments for the virus for old people is viciously and swiftly attacked and punished by Big Tech and is never mentioned in the mainstream media or by the government. This might be explained by federal regulations which would have precluded an emergency designation for the vaccines if the CDC were to concede that there were existing preventives and treatments. The result is Draconian measures taken against the non-vulnerable while the vulnerable are left to die a grisly and horrible death while working treatments are hidden from them.
ReplyDeleteThe issue then becomes why no one seems to respond to this information even when I provide links to studies and physician interviews which totally destroy the establishment narrative.
No one responds to the information because they are incapable of responding to it. They have absorbed and become invested in a fear narrative and can no longer accept information that runs contrary to it.
Delete@Bib Roddis
DeleteYou miss the point of the article then go on to give rational or ammunition for exactly what the article is describes.
Boudreaux May or may not accept your explanation, scientific analyzation, etc. I may or may not as well. But NOWHERE does ANYONE have the authority or the right to compel anyone to follow mandates, lockdowns, etc even if the virus you describe were 10, 100, or 1000 times more dangerous than you allege.
That is the point. No, if the “virus behaved like they insist...” the lockdowns and mitigation’s would still be immoral, tyrannical, and inconsistent with a free society. PERIOD.
We get lost parsing all the “germ theory” this and “virology” that; again none of this relates to Boudreaux and his point.
Mostly true Bob, buy you're still stuck on the germ theory. Keep digging and you'll eventually come fully around to the terrain theory.
ReplyDeleteDoes it have to be all in on one or the other? I'm not super well versed in the terrain theory, but can't we have instances where we come across a new pathogen that is harmful and other instances where a pathogen inside of us is given the opportunity to express itself? It is criminal though how mainstream medicine, media, etc. squashes anything that doesn't fit their little totalitarian and very profitable picture.
DeleteMy favorite experiment that germ theorists conducted was in 1918-1919. They tried taking "Spanish Flu" patients (in quotes not because they weren't ill but because the name of the illness is a misnomer) and exposing them and their bodily fluids/excretions to healthy prisoners who were offered get-out-of-jail-free cards if they agreed to this. Almost none of them got sick (and the one who did simply got a minor cold).
DeleteGerm theory logic is akin to a sort of fireman theory logic. Firemen are typically present when buildings are on fire, therefore they caused the fire. Terrain theory argues that these microbes, like firemen, come to the site of disease in response to damage rather than being the cause of damage.
Regarding this illness, it appears that the best treatment is a strong immune system before encountering the virus or whatever it is. The medical profession appears completely ignorant of that type of analysis and is totally resistant to it even as their patients die like flies. Ivermectin seems to work on many people but it seems to help reduce and prevent the body's over-reaction. Strong anti-biotics sometimes seem to help reduce pneumonia from people suffering from a cytokine storm over-reaction. Do we care what category those treatments should be assigned to?
DeleteAnother problem is that the anti-lockdowners too often claim that no one is actually dying from the virus and it's all a hoax. The lockdowners think that everyone is at risk of dying unless masks are worn and lockdowns are enforced. My position is that the virus is far more transmittable than the lockdowners claim making masks, social distancing and lockdowns worthless. Thus, the virus is MORE VIRULENT than they claim. However, it is only going impact older people who are immune deficient. Thus, the lockdowners are destroying society and the younger generation for no reason while hiding the antidote from old people who die unnecessarily. As far as I'm concerned, the lockdowers are murderers.
ReplyDeleteHowever, very few people respond to what seems to me to be the obvious truth.
Many people believe something is entirely fake once they come across the first lie. Since the media lies to us so very much even just for production value with nothing more than entertainment or ratings in mind it is no wonder so many people don't believe various things actually happened.
DeleteIt's much like the ancient aliens leap: "I don't know, therefore aliens". The media lied therefore it isn't happening or didn't happen. The truth is usually somewhere between what the media says and didn't happen however.
The virus isn't anything amazingly virulent either, the measures the lockdowners and maskers want simply don't stop viruses. Virus is going to virus and the measures required to impact that are more severe, costly, and inconvenient than even lockdowners are willing to put up with.
Ever have an exchange with a true believer in "speed kills"? They will insist on a speed that where anything below it is impractical and anything above it is reckless. This number will vary from one to the next. But if you suggest that nobody drive faster than where an automobile-pedestrian collision is 100% survivable practically none will accept that. Same reason maskers insist on masks with no standards whatsoever instead of P100 or better respirators. P100 respirators would be impractical but they actually can stop viruses.
Tradeoffs. A concept completely foreign to most. Even though they intuitively make tradeoffs every day.
DeleteDavid B.
I have been following the official State of Michigan Covid Deaths-by-Age chart since May. It seems to have disappeared from the state website in the last few weeks. I saved the chart for the 2020 totals. The under 25 age cohort in Michigan is over 3 million people of which either 16 or 17 have died from Covid-19. Explain again why schools and colleges and football games are shut down and why young people must wear masks and avoid all contact with other human beings.
ReplyDeletehttps://tinyurl.com/2pbamybe
“Explain again why schools and colleges and football games are shut down and why young people must wear masks and avoid all contact with other human beings. “
DeleteBecause it has nothing to do with public health and never has. Again you are arguing the incorrect point. By allowing the premise established by the State of Michigan and arguing their policies based on their premise by demonstrating that a particular aspect of said policy is flawed you surrender the argument that the action at its core is not compatible with human liberty.
I am sorry but I as a free individual do not have an obligation to society to follow any rule or regulation that does not involve my instigation of violence against another.
While I love Boudreaux and I think I understand his frustration a little bit, let me look at this from a slightly different angle.
ReplyDeleteWhenever a protestor or activist gets "roughed up", I always wonder what that victim's concept of government was before the baton struck? It's always impossible to know exactly of course. But we can make some assumptions.
First, we can assumw the protestor thinks that the government will change a policy because she and her companions redressed some of the government's uniformed goons.
Second, she thinks her policy is a better policy than the current one.
The first idea is so clearly false, and yet they always fall for it. Protestors / activists constantly believe that there is a reality in which government can reverse a policy simply because people protested. The reality is that there are very rare occasions when a policy is so egregious this happens, but even then it takes years and years of protesting, and often mamy deaths, before it happens. There is no reality where a person protests and the governmwnt says, "oh well look at that. A woman is redressing our policeman! Lets call a session and reverse this policy immediately!!"
Second, very rarely is the protestor's idea any better than the current one. Show me a protestor advocating consistently that government has NO ROLE WHATSOEVER in the health of the public....
So considering the two truths above, anyone who protests should be prepared for many brass knuckle sandwiches before a policy is changed, and they better really be advocating for human freedom before I get all worked up.
It's all just a lesson in good government.
David B.
David,
DeleteI agree but I take one issue with the statement at the end.
There is no such thing as “good government”.
And while I probably oppose whatever this young lady would have be enacted, one must always call out the aggressive use of force and the instigation of violence as immoral and barbaric whenever and wherever it occurs regardless of the victim, their ideology, their religion, etc.
Peace,
Keith
Sorry I didn't make clear that line was sarcasm, reflecting what I believe to be true: deep down inside nearly every protestor or activist must believe that "good government" is what can be achieved thru protesting. Otherwise the protestor is sacrificing for nothing.
DeleteAnd good government is what they get. Right upside the skull.
David B.
“The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks.” ~ H. L. Mencken (1926). “Notes on Democracy,” p. 50, Alfred A. Knopf
ReplyDelete“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” ― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
Great quotes!
ReplyDeleteA compliant populace has been engineered since the 70's to be less intelligent and more distracted thus creating the Idiocracy I have often mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThe outcome is an ever increasing bodacious escalation of Tyranny that the populace will not question since they are conditioned not to question or discern. Its a simple math.
Mencken thought these idiots existed before then. Perhaps they have perfected what Mencken lived with. Cheerful thought.
Delete