German government report names the pandemic as a precedent for environmental policy, says lockdowns show that behavioural restrictions are possible & can win majority support with the right messaging
German government report names the pandemic as a precedent for environmental policy, says lockdowns show that behavioural restrictions are possible & can win majority support with the right messaging
Indeed - the 'new normal' is a forgotten reality in Oz/NZ. As one said previously, this event was simply a lipmus test - other events following very soon.
Re: Changing behaviors ... one way our rulers accomplish this goal is through censorship, which includes BANNING books that would harpoon their vital "Current-Thing" narratives.
I know everyone here gets this already, but this "little observation" has big consequences to the world.
The above column was about Covid censorship and book-banning ... but the same applies to Climate Change books that would try to tell readers they shouldn't panic over "climate change." For example, the book store I mention didn't ban Al Gore's book. But it did ban every book where the authors said Gore's book was FUBAR.
"Melissa Fleming, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications revealed during a 2022 “Sustainable Development Impact” meeting that the U.N. and Google had teamed up to change what results appear when Google users search for “climate change.” The changes are intended to prevent users from being exposed to “bad science” and “misinformation,” she says."
Yep. Par for the course. More of the same. And downright terrifying when you think about it.
The easiest "work-around" is to support your favorite Substack contrarian writers with paid subscriptions. I think the magic percentage is "5 percent paid" ... if you can build up to 20,000 total subscribers. At least that's what my own little "business analysis" tells me.
Some Substack writers have enough disposable income to do this without needing $40K or $50K a year in revenue ... but most probably need at least that much to keep cranking out important stories and time-consuming, complex research.
The good news is that "5 percent" is not a pipe-dream, unrealistic goal. Re-stated, most Substackers (who have developed a good following) can make it even if 95 percent of their subscribers are "free." When I did my first-ever "telethon," I went from 2.9 percent paid subscribers to 3.52 percent. So the trends are good and I'm "moving the needle." Getting to 5-percent at some point seems quite possible. I really just need 2-in-100 of my subscribers to convert to paid.
That 5 percent who are subsidizing our work is very, very important in a world where only Substack is probably going to produce important journalism and commentary.
I just did some "back of the envelope" math calculations. Substack has 35 million subscribers at the moment. I'm going to guess that 25 million of these (71 percent) are in America. If 5 percent of these subscribers are "paid" that's 1.25 million paid subscribers. 1.25 million paid subscribers in America = about 0.5 percent of America's adult population.
That's 1/2 of 1 percent or 1 in 200 adults. So the bottom-line is that if 1 in 200 American adults can pay for some paid subscriptions, Substack should continue to have a good cadre of correspondents/newsletter authors.
(As Substack grows, maybe only 4 percent paid will be enough to support the best Substack writers.)
My point is that it doesn't take many people - only about 1-in-200 adults - to make a key difference and help us all get around the censors and "gatekeepers of the news."
I did notice that it was getting harder and harder to find the Wikipedia articles and NOAA data that I was using against their climate narrative. Now Google is directing users to sites that repeat the worst, most alarmist climate dogma. When the rulers control information, it's easier to propagandize the masses.
Easy, my search engines don't use BS platforms like Google! As an outcome, we need to vacate the BS platforms in mass, and let our feet do the talking. Alternative services are the way forward e.g. non compliance with corrupt services: Google, Microsoft, and all the regular platforms FB, IG etc
I know of at least 2 geologists who were permanently kicked out of LinkedIn for publishing graphs showing the long term trend ( 120-160+ Million years) of falling rates of atmpspheric CO2. The cause for this is unknown, the ‘academic arguement is how long this has been going on…
linkedin is terrible. I had it for a while years ago and you cannot get rid of that crap. They are very pushy, and it turns out also very discriminating.
Yup. Remember back in the 1980’s when talking to your houseplants was trendy, along with the “plants know you’re talking to them” thing? somebody did a study on it and found that the trigger for increased growth was the extra CO2 in breath exhalations. The level of
CO2 is already so low that localized increases made the difference. Greenhouse growers have been pumping extra CO2 into the greenhouses for DECADES.
Only in Clownworld, would we declare CO2 a pollutant and focus so much wealth and grift on trying to eliminate our CO2 emissions. The Industrial Revolution provided only a tiny uptick in the downward trend of our CO2 levels. Geologic timeframes are slow, but if this trend is not reversed plant life as we know it today will not survive very well.
Whatever the experts say will "save the planet" will end up helping kill the planet ... That's from my "Law of Opposite Effects," which is pretty infallible, per my observations.
They've done the same with Salt convincing people to use less natural salt which is not bad for you. I forget what it is that use to be in salt that they remove now that was beneficial but I remember reading about that many years ago. They use "It's for your health" to get us to do things that are bad for our health. The entertainment industry helps change the perception of the past thru shows and series that help reinforce these narratives.
I agree with your conclusions on CO2 and plant life, but . . . wouldn't diffusion would reduce the local concentration of CO2 from conversing with your plant far more quickly than your plants could absorb it?
It sucks but if you want to take advantage of the employment related opportunities of LinkedIn you have to not post anything on it that challenges any established narrative
True. The WHO and others have already tried to rewrite history via a variety of angles inc rewriting the definition of a vaccine, and the conditions under which a Pandemic can be called...
Laura Dodsworth's (https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/) 2021 book, A State of Fear (https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Fear-government-weaponised-Covid-19/dp/1780667205/ ) includes interviews with members of the UK's SPI-B Pandemic Behavioural Science advisory board who helped develop the behavioral modification pandemic protocol plans. Practitioners who walked away from the experience they expected to be a positive contribution only to leave it extremely frightened about what they had unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Practitioners were surprised at how easy it was to take people, free people with long, rich histories of zealously protecting their individual freedoms and make them surrender them, demand their own servitude. Those practitioners who were disturbed by it were fearful of the future that would lead to, and uncertain if it could be stopped.
But the majority of the SPI-B members, including the leader of it, Susan Michie, were dedicated Marxists, convinced of their righteousness in managing and directing the totality of all human existence, with "scientific" tools and certainty. Even though theirs is a pseudoscientific practice. Susan Mitchie is now the Chief Behavioural Scientist at the WHO. She is a Marxist who was too radical for the UK's Communist Party. An über totalitarian:
And Behavioural Science is understood to be the perfect means of manipulating the public mind to achieve government public policies that aren't in the best interests of each individual who is convinced through the psychological deceptions to support:
[Note: the article acknowledges that they can’t speak freely on how the behavioral sciences are being used by government to coerce and manipulate populations on the record, they save those conversations for behind closed doors]
And there is a behavioural science plan that's been developed years ago, before the pandemic, that authorities believe will make us happy owning nothing and eating bugs:
UN's Behavioural Insights in Achieving Agenda 2030 (WEF Great Reset)
And even in the US, there are Behavioral Science leaders, especially Cass Sunstein, who's work, "Nudge" has been responsible for the mass adoption of the field at the federal, state and local levels, the explosion of Behavioral Health programs in recent years. Who is now teaching law at Harvard Law School about how to nullify the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights within it using Behavioral Science-informed linguistic gymnastics to redefine freedom as slavery. Orwellian. How to destroy the US Constitution, by redefining it's plain language to mean the opposite of what it says:
And if the US Constitution falls, the Bill of Rights fall, to assert freedom is slavery, so will the world's freedom fall. Yes. Behavioural Science, The Science (TM) of the pandemic, The Science of Totalitarianism is the science we are being told we must follow. Straight into totalitarianism. The method of manufacturing the consent of free people to demand their enslavement. It is evil.
They use pretty gift wrapping around it, highlight how the practice helps addicts break their addictions, helps the obese change their diets and lifestyles, helps people plan their retirement savings strategies. But that's the pleasant public face of it. As the Council on Foreign Relations panel introduction acknowledged, there's a whole other side of it that isn't very flattering for the public to see. It must become our mission to shine as much sunlight on that unflattering side as we can. Because sunlight is the best disinfectant for the most dangerous political disease epidemic that humanity has ever faced.
Thing is, even China warned us in the west what would happen as a result of making infectious disease political. Actually, all pre-pandemic plans warned us of this fact informed by known human psychology. Trump's travel ban was the opening salvo that treated infectious disease with a political act. Travel bans were known to be completely ineffective at preventing the spread of respiratory diseases. At best they could delay the spread for a couple weeks if put into place before it becomes widespread. By January, 2020 it was already widespread. And why they stopped nothing.
Travel restrictions are political because they cast blame on other nations for not controlling diseases they have no control over. And when nations blame other nations, those nation's leaders blame their own people for behaviors that aren't responsible for spreading disease. Shite rolls downhill. Blame-shifting. Scapegoating. This invites totalitarianism, othering, with us or against us hostility and aggression, collective rewards and punishments for behaviors unrelated to illness.
Immediately following the travel bans China pleaded with the world, the Trump administration to recognize what they had done and lift them. For knowledge of infectious disease to reclaim how the pandemic would be treated. This was when Trump was being called a xenophobe and civil rights advocates, especially his political opponents on the left were reminding us of how totalitarian his ban was, how his politics would lead to totalitarianism, Trump being called a dictator and all.
China wrote many editorials and opinion pieces about the psychology of infectious disease, crisis management. They had experience in the subject:
China, reading that the US had decided to treat infectious disease as a political weapon, shifted its global messaging to reflect their experience with that weapon. Opining that the pandemic would provide the world a real-time opportunity to see the strengths and weaknesses of both systems of governance, a competition between them. On the one hand China acknowledged that while the US's individual liberty and democracy allowed for more innovation, creativity that benefits mankind, that China's collective authoritarianism was better suited for times of crisis, that people prefer, demand the strong hand of government to protect them. And they were right. Sadly, tragically, they were right. They knew. They knew the subject well, as my Substack piece details.
Once infectious disease became political it wasn't going to be, it couldn't be treated with natural, medical science. It would inevitably be treated with political science, social science, specifically behavioral science. And here we are. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We had better get busy shining it into the dark corners behaviorism hides.
China proclaimed that their model of governance was better at handling a crisis. Better. That's a subjective word. If by better they meant that in a time of crisis a population will want a firm hand of leadership and their authoritarian model provides what the people want, then that could be a plausible definition of 'better.'
But if by better the measurement of actual deaths resulting from a crisis, well, that's a different story. A review of the history of deaths resulting from government policies, policies believed by government officials to improve public health and safety:
Of course, we see the statistics of deaths attributed to CV as reported by world governments. Knowing that there have been many different criteria applies to determine how many deaths were from CV; most captured deaths *with* CV. With that statistical noise impossible to make a meaningful comparison all we have to measure with a meaningful degree of confidence is excess deaths. And by that measure, the nations that imposed the fewest restrictions, had the lowest vaccinations rates, followed the least authoritarian form of pandemic crisis governance have the lowest excess death rates. Charts look remarkably similar to the charts found in the 1994 Univ. of Hawaii report on death by government link above.
The sharp turn into authoritarian/totalitarian governance by the US and western liberal freedom-oriented nations came at a very high price. A predictable and predicted explosion in excess deaths. Which means our authorities knew. Or should have known. The science, even the political science that the UH report reflects, demonstrates how much more deadly authoritarian/totalitarian regimes are compared to government that respects freedom, individual rights. China was wrong about their model being better. And our nations abandoned the model that we do best trying to copy China with slightly less oppressive measures.
China also published editorials and opinions that warned us about that. Changing governing systems in the middle of a crisis will make that crisis even worse. China, CCP China, said in so many words that in the middle of a crisis, "dance with the one who brung ya." Change governing systems in less stressful, dangerous times if you're interested in protecting lives:
""The key to improving state capacity lies in how to boost the leading role of their own governance system, not breaking away or subverting the existing one." "[Western countries] are subject to different systems and traditions that impede them from directly copying China. Even if they do, the effect will be just the opposite."
China told us that we had antivirals that would be safe and effective to manage CV. Like Ivermectin and HCQ?:
"Medical researchers are already discovering that certain existing anti-viral medications seem to be effective against this Corona virus."
"...whether or not a person specifically does have the Corona virus or some other viral bug presenting as pneumonia, the treatment is the same supportive treatment anyway."
China asserted that their people are actually more free than the US and west because they do as they are told willingly. Mind you, this is only after seventy years of substantial indoctrination, following their brutal crackdown on individual liberty-minded Chinese, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions during Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. China, as the link I have in my Substack piece on political infectious disease shows, practices "double discipline" governance. External discipline - police force and Internal discipline - behavioral science. How an entire population can be transformed to prefer an authoritarian model, one that makes them happy owning nothing and eating bugs:
Finding fault with China a symptom of West’s ideological crisis
"Chinese people are willing to endure a period of inconvenience and limits on their travel. They know these are necessary measures that will work, and they don't feel like being subjected to a so-called autocracy."
I remember someone pointing out on Twitter that part of the point of Covid restrictions was to establish precedents that could be used in future ("well we did precisely that for Covid").
The runaway process that turned post WW2 America into an interventionist state seems to be at play in the medical community. The same lack of concern for the outcome of the interventions as well. In other words: America's taxpayers were beholden to a clique that figured out a way to monetize ever greater imagined threats to America's security. That clique was called the military and spent trillions going around the globe killing millions of non Americans. Luckily, most other countries do not have a significant military, so this kind of contagion - a group tasked with defense against military threats spending 8 decades creating military threats that would justify its existence (and the necessary wars), was confined to America. The Medical community has just found out, empirically and worldwide, that they can run the same scam with disease. Hold on to your butts.
I think this is just another massive miscalculation. Getting the public to stay home over the bat flu is like a teenager going undercover into the girls locker room. He might might've gotten through the door and seen a whole new world he never could have imagined, but everyone knows about it and they're on the look out now. Its a one time gambit, not a new button to be pushed.
But everyone doesn't know about it. Most of the normies I know still think that the vaxx was a good idea; if the MSM starts screaming about climate lockdowns, they are good citizens and will do what they're told.
I think a vanishingly small percentage of the population would willingly go along with another lockdown (in the case of a new danger flu) and exactly zero would lockdown in case of global climate change. I've never seen this many normies talking about how the govt is terminally corrupt and incompetent.
Oh, I don't know. I know a lot of Obedient Democrats who will essentially do whatever Joe Xiden tells them to do. If that means staying home to save Mother Gaia, well, they will do that. As long as they keep getting paid.
Perhaps that last bit of information is pertinent. Keep getting paid. As long as they can crank up the money machines, most "non-essentials"-- especially Democrats and the go along to get along types-- will do as they're told. And feel good about it because "Saving Mother Gaia."
That's a big hitch in their get-along. They can't print money now to pay the debt because of inflation. So unless they magically solve the problem of inflation their MMT fantasies will have to be kept on the sidelines. I think between mass resistance to lockdowns in principle and the inability to pay people to stay home without civilization-ending inflation leaves no good options for locking things down again. That isn't to say they won't try (they wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice whole nations for their big (and incoherent) dreams) but it would be a fatal error imo.
Indifference is impossible to discriminate from docility. The American public, at least the non-dysgenic left, is very docile and difficult to provoke to action. So there's pretty much no chance normies with jobs are going to protest or riot over past lockdowns. Theyre far more passive aggressive, and my money is on quiet, mass non-compliance in the case of a future attempted lockdown.
Second, a new lockdown would entail a lot of losses for people in a way that wasn't clear the first time around. People took the public healthtards at their word that it would just be 2 weeks to crush the curve, or just a little bit longer, etc and they could go back to normal. That was all a lie that everyone is aware of now. So the creeping lockdown expansion isn't an option either.
Cowardice is certainly a common trait in the population, but I think combination of many more people pushing back against a new lockdown regime and the threshold effect where as the number of people engaging in certain behavior increases, the number of people willing to join-in also increases will overcome the problem you're pointing out. So I think the first time around people genuinely didn't know how to react and were easily led off in the direction of the herd. If there is a next time, the number of people objecting at the outset will be far higher, and the number of people willing to join in on the dissent will be far higher.
I think this is most likely how you get people to risk what they have to lose, and its also how you get a higher threshold for tolerance toward people objecting openly.
I pray you are right. I certainly do believe many more people have woken up to the lies, and won't be fooled again. But as shibumi observes below, many sheep still follow the Orwellian shepherd.
Here's the extent of it: there is a global debt crisis. The 'great reset' is a solution that the cabal has come up with, i.e., protect their own wealth, power, control etc. while throwing the rest of us under the bus. They are not changing their own behaviour, only attempting to change ours. I don't think it'll work out well for them, history shows that but the pain level for most of the rest of us will only increase over the coming years.
I haven't read most of the post yet Eugyppius but your head line says it all: 'We (the cabal) can do what ever we want as long as we spread enough of the right kind of propaganda to make enough people fall in line'.
I agree. This is about impending fiscal implosion, overstretched fiat currencies, and a growing inflation crisis fueled by profligate spending and abusive monetary policies. The end game is an electronic currency quickly linked to a social credit system that punishes those who secretly heat their pools, or eat two hamburgers....
The "debt crisis" is easy to resolve. Just revert to sovereign "debt-free" money creation and ban private debt money creation. Then the private debts could be paid off with sovereign money gradually or many of them could be written off, if all they are is numbers in bank ledgers, corporate welfare for Bankers. That would be far, far and away the biggest and most ethical Reparations that could ever be demanded by anybody. Anything else is a triviality, in comparison.
The thing to keep in mind is money is not a god, it is just a metric that represents the relative value of goods and services. Money should serve the REAL economy of goods & services and not the other way round. False Gods.
I mean, I cant blame them. It is mid 2023 and we still have sadistic masking requirements all over the so called "free" World. More importantly, the entirety of the egregious pandemic restrictions have been blown up and demonstrated to have had little actual value. Not saying it would have made them right, but it would have been a legitimate cost/benefit argument at least. And yet, nobody is in jail, nobody is fired, nobody is sued, hell no random vigilante has put anyone out of our misery even.
In San Francisco city and county, their chief public health official (can’t remember her name right now) imposed an ongoing vaccine and mask mandate for healthcare and jail employees.
The propaganda of 2-3 years ago can be described as "terrorism".
In other words: scarring the wits out of people to force them to do what you want.
This cannot be confused with "messaging" or some form of conviction through debate, but fear-mongering coupled with censorship and oppression.
If you need to resort to these kind of measures to obtain compliance, then there must be something wrong with the message. But I doubt the "experts" can ever admit this.
The big issue for me was that after it was revealed, no one seems to care. Certainly not the mainstream. In fact they tried to turn the narrative into a pearl clutching story about a breach of a confidentiality agreement instead.
Just replace "strain" and "variant" with "bomb" and you can replace "Hancock" with "Bin Laden" or so many others names.
And ... for all those who will jump up and down in fury saying "you can't compare". They are right. What happened 2-3 years ago (and still consequences today) is MUCH worse, in terms of death and destruction, than any "terrorist" organisation ever inflicted.
Once you see the big picture, you start to build up a tolerance. I don't feel like throwing up as much these days.
Try to come up with a survival plan. I like to watch as much financial news (the real stuff, not the CNN-like stuff) as possible in order to better prepare. There is still time, but it's passing quickly.
True, the initial shock of the first 2 years of eye-opening filth that is perpetrated by our government is kind of wearing off. But, honestly, just as I think I'm getting desensitized, another article comes along and makes me want to vomit again. I am so grateful to the courageous and smart researchers/writers who are doing God's work on our behalf.
I think that we are in the end times right now. It doesn't mean that the world will end; it means we are on that path unless we change our ways. We can change our ways. Keeping that in mind means not much will surprise you. 'Live, love, laugh' is now 'hope, pray, work'.
If the link doesn't work, go to kitco.com and search on 'John Butler' using their search tool. The video is titled 'cbdcs are coming, this is how to prepare...'.
Think back over the last, say, 20 years. Did you protest against the Iraq war? How about protesting at Occupy Wall Street? Were you a member of the Tea Party? A member of #TheResistance? Did you disagree with the government’s covid response? It’s nearly certain that everybody with a political pulse has crossed the government at one time or another. How comfortable are you with the idea that the person you’re protesting against can shut off your bank account?
Because now, it seems, those perfectly legal actions at least have the potential to come with harsh monetary consequences, as well as the ensuing chaos caused by financial ruin. And this is happening all without a single shred of oversight or due process. It’s just some asshole in an expensive suit giving a list of ‘subversives’ to another asshole in an expensive suit. The no-fly list but with the very real potential to ruin your life.
"they will spend the coming years exploring the limits."
Yes they will. But correspondingly, we will spend the coming years fighting them. Many, many people have woken up or are waking up, and next time we will be more organised, more sceptical and more virulent in our rejection of their tactics. I know I will.
May 22, 2023·edited May 22, 2023Liked by eugyppius
"and it was forbidden to heat private swimming pools" As an American, I'm like how dare you tell me what I can do with my private property! And then this one - "...political measures to carefully restrict the behaviour of citizens are possible if the threat is correspondingly great and the importance of the protected good" They forgot to put the word "perceived" in front of the the word "threat".
there's a lot to be said about the relentlessly middle-class nature of Germany, in large part as a legacy of the war, and how certain restrictions and tax burdens on the perceived rich (swimming pool heating restrictions, among other things) have a kind of resentful social subtext to them.
From the report: "...the two crises show that political measures to carefully restrict the behaviour of citizens are possible if the threat is correspondingly great and the importance of the protected good – in these examples, health and energy – is recognised."
Right. As H.L. Mencken wrote a century ago already, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
My first thought is something along the lines of, “they’re smoking their own weed.”
Yes, the Govt can force people to do a lot of things. And yes, the Govt can pretend that “the people” are ok with restrictions if they restrict free speech and penalize dissent. But in reality, many people did not agree and behaved accordingly. They can force all opposition to their insanity underground for awhile. But it won’t stay there.
This was the plan all along. Covid was the warm up to see how far we could be pushed.
I told my wife in June of 2020 - "climate lockdowns are next".
you nasty little conspiracy theorist. i’ll get a divorce!
oh the joy to see all these suckers end up in lockdowns and camps.
can’t happen fast enough.
You will be going to the camps as well. The same black shirt fascists are still alive today and will be knocking on your door.
i will join their forces and storm the doors of the neysayers. amd i’m gonna tell them: “remember those conspiracy theorists? tough luck, asshole.”
Are you kidding? The LAST thing I want to see is gulags become normalized.
wake up and look at australia. they _have been_ normalized already.
Indeed - the 'new normal' is a forgotten reality in Oz/NZ. As one said previously, this event was simply a lipmus test - other events following very soon.
Re: Changing behaviors ... one way our rulers accomplish this goal is through censorship, which includes BANNING books that would harpoon their vital "Current-Thing" narratives.
I know everyone here gets this already, but this "little observation" has big consequences to the world.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/book-lovers-dont-mind-banning-books
The above column was about Covid censorship and book-banning ... but the same applies to Climate Change books that would try to tell readers they shouldn't panic over "climate change." For example, the book store I mention didn't ban Al Gore's book. But it did ban every book where the authors said Gore's book was FUBAR.
It's already happening:
Google Is RIGGING Search Results For “Climate Change”, Jimmy Dore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrAw1HGeH4o
"Melissa Fleming, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications revealed during a 2022 “Sustainable Development Impact” meeting that the U.N. and Google had teamed up to change what results appear when Google users search for “climate change.” The changes are intended to prevent users from being exposed to “bad science” and “misinformation,” she says."
Yep. Par for the course. More of the same. And downright terrifying when you think about it.
The easiest "work-around" is to support your favorite Substack contrarian writers with paid subscriptions. I think the magic percentage is "5 percent paid" ... if you can build up to 20,000 total subscribers. At least that's what my own little "business analysis" tells me.
Some Substack writers have enough disposable income to do this without needing $40K or $50K a year in revenue ... but most probably need at least that much to keep cranking out important stories and time-consuming, complex research.
The good news is that "5 percent" is not a pipe-dream, unrealistic goal. Re-stated, most Substackers (who have developed a good following) can make it even if 95 percent of their subscribers are "free." When I did my first-ever "telethon," I went from 2.9 percent paid subscribers to 3.52 percent. So the trends are good and I'm "moving the needle." Getting to 5-percent at some point seems quite possible. I really just need 2-in-100 of my subscribers to convert to paid.
That 5 percent who are subsidizing our work is very, very important in a world where only Substack is probably going to produce important journalism and commentary.
I just did some "back of the envelope" math calculations. Substack has 35 million subscribers at the moment. I'm going to guess that 25 million of these (71 percent) are in America. If 5 percent of these subscribers are "paid" that's 1.25 million paid subscribers. 1.25 million paid subscribers in America = about 0.5 percent of America's adult population.
That's 1/2 of 1 percent or 1 in 200 adults. So the bottom-line is that if 1 in 200 American adults can pay for some paid subscriptions, Substack should continue to have a good cadre of correspondents/newsletter authors.
(As Substack grows, maybe only 4 percent paid will be enough to support the best Substack writers.)
My point is that it doesn't take many people - only about 1-in-200 adults - to make a key difference and help us all get around the censors and "gatekeepers of the news."
I did notice that it was getting harder and harder to find the Wikipedia articles and NOAA data that I was using against their climate narrative. Now Google is directing users to sites that repeat the worst, most alarmist climate dogma. When the rulers control information, it's easier to propagandize the masses.
Easy, my search engines don't use BS platforms like Google! As an outcome, we need to vacate the BS platforms in mass, and let our feet do the talking. Alternative services are the way forward e.g. non compliance with corrupt services: Google, Microsoft, and all the regular platforms FB, IG etc
Don't all of them use either Google or Bing for their initial results?
Google = CIA ... remember that when you use it. Try a different search engine. Brave or Swiss cows or ...
there are no good search engines
google = jews
duckduckgo = jews
bing = jews
yandex = jews
Chilling
I know of at least 2 geologists who were permanently kicked out of LinkedIn for publishing graphs showing the long term trend ( 120-160+ Million years) of falling rates of atmpspheric CO2. The cause for this is unknown, the ‘academic arguement is how long this has been going on…
linkedin is terrible. I had it for a while years ago and you cannot get rid of that crap. They are very pushy, and it turns out also very discriminating.
Good point. It's been going on a lot longer than Covid retaliations and bullying have been going on.
Yup. Remember back in the 1980’s when talking to your houseplants was trendy, along with the “plants know you’re talking to them” thing? somebody did a study on it and found that the trigger for increased growth was the extra CO2 in breath exhalations. The level of
CO2 is already so low that localized increases made the difference. Greenhouse growers have been pumping extra CO2 into the greenhouses for DECADES.
Only in Clownworld, would we declare CO2 a pollutant and focus so much wealth and grift on trying to eliminate our CO2 emissions. The Industrial Revolution provided only a tiny uptick in the downward trend of our CO2 levels. Geologic timeframes are slow, but if this trend is not reversed plant life as we know it today will not survive very well.
Whatever the experts say will "save the planet" will end up helping kill the planet ... That's from my "Law of Opposite Effects," which is pretty infallible, per my observations.
They've done the same with Salt convincing people to use less natural salt which is not bad for you. I forget what it is that use to be in salt that they remove now that was beneficial but I remember reading about that many years ago. They use "It's for your health" to get us to do things that are bad for our health. The entertainment industry helps change the perception of the past thru shows and series that help reinforce these narratives.
I agree with your conclusions on CO2 and plant life, but . . . wouldn't diffusion would reduce the local concentration of CO2 from conversing with your plant far more quickly than your plants could absorb it?
LinkedIn = Microsoft
It sucks but if you want to take advantage of the employment related opportunities of LinkedIn you have to not post anything on it that challenges any established narrative
Indeed. That’s how the Lie Generator Whack-a-Mole machine works.
True. The WHO and others have already tried to rewrite history via a variety of angles inc rewriting the definition of a vaccine, and the conditions under which a Pandemic can be called...
whats the most banned thing in europe? figure that out and you figure the rest of history out.
Behavioural Science is The Science of Totalitarianism:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210519003131/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit-totalitarian-use-fear-control-behaviour-covid/
Laura Dodsworth's (https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/) 2021 book, A State of Fear (https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Fear-government-weaponised-Covid-19/dp/1780667205/ ) includes interviews with members of the UK's SPI-B Pandemic Behavioural Science advisory board who helped develop the behavioral modification pandemic protocol plans. Practitioners who walked away from the experience they expected to be a positive contribution only to leave it extremely frightened about what they had unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Practitioners were surprised at how easy it was to take people, free people with long, rich histories of zealously protecting their individual freedoms and make them surrender them, demand their own servitude. Those practitioners who were disturbed by it were fearful of the future that would lead to, and uncertain if it could be stopped.
But the majority of the SPI-B members, including the leader of it, Susan Michie, were dedicated Marxists, convinced of their righteousness in managing and directing the totality of all human existence, with "scientific" tools and certainty. Even though theirs is a pseudoscientific practice. Susan Mitchie is now the Chief Behavioural Scientist at the WHO. She is a Marxist who was too radical for the UK's Communist Party. An über totalitarian:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/25/british-professor-who-member-communist-party-appointed-chair
https://www.gbnews.uk/gb-views/colin-brazier-what-were-the-bbc-thinking-asking-an-old-loony-left-winger-to-pontificate-at-a-moment-of-national-crisis/167608
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/25/british-professor-who-member-communist-party-appointed-chair/
And Behavioural Science is understood to be the perfect means of manipulating the public mind to achieve government public policies that aren't in the best interests of each individual who is convinced through the psychological deceptions to support:
https://www.cfr.org/event/behavioral-insights-policymaking
[Note: the article acknowledges that they can’t speak freely on how the behavioral sciences are being used by government to coerce and manipulate populations on the record, they save those conversations for behind closed doors]
And there is a behavioural science plan that's been developed years ago, before the pandemic, that authorities believe will make us happy owning nothing and eating bugs:
UN's Behavioural Insights in Achieving Agenda 2030 (WEF Great Reset)
https://www.undp.org/publications/behavioural-insights-united-nations-achieving-agenda-2030
And even in the US, there are Behavioral Science leaders, especially Cass Sunstein, who's work, "Nudge" has been responsible for the mass adoption of the field at the federal, state and local levels, the explosion of Behavioral Health programs in recent years. Who is now teaching law at Harvard Law School about how to nullify the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights within it using Behavioral Science-informed linguistic gymnastics to redefine freedom as slavery. Orwellian. How to destroy the US Constitution, by redefining it's plain language to mean the opposite of what it says:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cass-r-sunstein/how-to-interpret-the-constitution/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4405238
And if the US Constitution falls, the Bill of Rights fall, to assert freedom is slavery, so will the world's freedom fall. Yes. Behavioural Science, The Science (TM) of the pandemic, The Science of Totalitarianism is the science we are being told we must follow. Straight into totalitarianism. The method of manufacturing the consent of free people to demand their enslavement. It is evil.
They use pretty gift wrapping around it, highlight how the practice helps addicts break their addictions, helps the obese change their diets and lifestyles, helps people plan their retirement savings strategies. But that's the pleasant public face of it. As the Council on Foreign Relations panel introduction acknowledged, there's a whole other side of it that isn't very flattering for the public to see. It must become our mission to shine as much sunlight on that unflattering side as we can. Because sunlight is the best disinfectant for the most dangerous political disease epidemic that humanity has ever faced.
Thing is, even China warned us in the west what would happen as a result of making infectious disease political. Actually, all pre-pandemic plans warned us of this fact informed by known human psychology. Trump's travel ban was the opening salvo that treated infectious disease with a political act. Travel bans were known to be completely ineffective at preventing the spread of respiratory diseases. At best they could delay the spread for a couple weeks if put into place before it becomes widespread. By January, 2020 it was already widespread. And why they stopped nothing.
Travel restrictions are political because they cast blame on other nations for not controlling diseases they have no control over. And when nations blame other nations, those nation's leaders blame their own people for behaviors that aren't responsible for spreading disease. Shite rolls downhill. Blame-shifting. Scapegoating. This invites totalitarianism, othering, with us or against us hostility and aggression, collective rewards and punishments for behaviors unrelated to illness.
Immediately following the travel bans China pleaded with the world, the Trump administration to recognize what they had done and lift them. For knowledge of infectious disease to reclaim how the pandemic would be treated. This was when Trump was being called a xenophobe and civil rights advocates, especially his political opponents on the left were reminding us of how totalitarian his ban was, how his politics would lead to totalitarianism, Trump being called a dictator and all.
China wrote many editorials and opinion pieces about the psychology of infectious disease, crisis management. They had experience in the subject:
https://freedomfox.substack.com/p/the-devious-use-of-infectious-disease
China, reading that the US had decided to treat infectious disease as a political weapon, shifted its global messaging to reflect their experience with that weapon. Opining that the pandemic would provide the world a real-time opportunity to see the strengths and weaknesses of both systems of governance, a competition between them. On the one hand China acknowledged that while the US's individual liberty and democracy allowed for more innovation, creativity that benefits mankind, that China's collective authoritarianism was better suited for times of crisis, that people prefer, demand the strong hand of government to protect them. And they were right. Sadly, tragically, they were right. They knew. They knew the subject well, as my Substack piece details.
Once infectious disease became political it wasn't going to be, it couldn't be treated with natural, medical science. It would inevitably be treated with political science, social science, specifically behavioral science. And here we are. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We had better get busy shining it into the dark corners behaviorism hides.
China proclaimed that their model of governance was better at handling a crisis. Better. That's a subjective word. If by better they meant that in a time of crisis a population will want a firm hand of leadership and their authoritarian model provides what the people want, then that could be a plausible definition of 'better.'
But if by better the measurement of actual deaths resulting from a crisis, well, that's a different story. A review of the history of deaths resulting from government policies, policies believed by government officials to improve public health and safety:
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB1.6.GIF
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.FIG1.7.GIF
Of course, we see the statistics of deaths attributed to CV as reported by world governments. Knowing that there have been many different criteria applies to determine how many deaths were from CV; most captured deaths *with* CV. With that statistical noise impossible to make a meaningful comparison all we have to measure with a meaningful degree of confidence is excess deaths. And by that measure, the nations that imposed the fewest restrictions, had the lowest vaccinations rates, followed the least authoritarian form of pandemic crisis governance have the lowest excess death rates. Charts look remarkably similar to the charts found in the 1994 Univ. of Hawaii report on death by government link above.
The sharp turn into authoritarian/totalitarian governance by the US and western liberal freedom-oriented nations came at a very high price. A predictable and predicted explosion in excess deaths. Which means our authorities knew. Or should have known. The science, even the political science that the UH report reflects, demonstrates how much more deadly authoritarian/totalitarian regimes are compared to government that respects freedom, individual rights. China was wrong about their model being better. And our nations abandoned the model that we do best trying to copy China with slightly less oppressive measures.
China also published editorials and opinions that warned us about that. Changing governing systems in the middle of a crisis will make that crisis even worse. China, CCP China, said in so many words that in the middle of a crisis, "dance with the one who brung ya." Change governing systems in less stressful, dangerous times if you're interested in protecting lives:
COVID-19 reveals countries’ differing capacity
Global Times, April 22, 2020
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202004/1186435.shtml
""The key to improving state capacity lies in how to boost the leading role of their own governance system, not breaking away or subverting the existing one." "[Western countries] are subject to different systems and traditions that impede them from directly copying China. Even if they do, the effect will be just the opposite."
China told us that we had antivirals that would be safe and effective to manage CV. Like Ivermectin and HCQ?:
Something's Not Right Here Folks
Gobal Times, February 8, 2020
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202002/1178873.shtml
"Medical researchers are already discovering that certain existing anti-viral medications seem to be effective against this Corona virus."
"...whether or not a person specifically does have the Corona virus or some other viral bug presenting as pneumonia, the treatment is the same supportive treatment anyway."
China asserted that their people are actually more free than the US and west because they do as they are told willingly. Mind you, this is only after seventy years of substantial indoctrination, following their brutal crackdown on individual liberty-minded Chinese, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions during Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. China, as the link I have in my Substack piece on political infectious disease shows, practices "double discipline" governance. External discipline - police force and Internal discipline - behavioral science. How an entire population can be transformed to prefer an authoritarian model, one that makes them happy owning nothing and eating bugs:
Finding fault with China a symptom of West’s ideological crisis
Global Times, March 11, 2020
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202003/1182264.shtml
"Chinese people are willing to endure a period of inconvenience and limits on their travel. They know these are necessary measures that will work, and they don't feel like being subjected to a so-called autocracy."
Is that a better model of governance? You decide.
Laura is great . I bought copies of her book for my adult twins. Neither of whom fell for the covid rubbish.
I remember someone pointing out on Twitter that part of the point of Covid restrictions was to establish precedents that could be used in future ("well we did precisely that for Covid").
(Just found the tweet - it was https://twitter.com/herandrews/status/1477309981976403972.)
The friendly, helpful government bureaucrat mask has slipped off, exposing the authoritarians beneath.
Yeah, but that was only between bites
😂😂😂
Brilliant! I love it.....
Things are now happening very fast, the tail is now wagging the dog...
Yep, as they realize that if they don't accelerate this here and now, the frog will realize it's being boiled at long last.
The REALLY scary part is how COVID showed just how many sheep there truly are among us, happy and willing to be lead to the slaughter.....
The runaway process that turned post WW2 America into an interventionist state seems to be at play in the medical community. The same lack of concern for the outcome of the interventions as well. In other words: America's taxpayers were beholden to a clique that figured out a way to monetize ever greater imagined threats to America's security. That clique was called the military and spent trillions going around the globe killing millions of non Americans. Luckily, most other countries do not have a significant military, so this kind of contagion - a group tasked with defense against military threats spending 8 decades creating military threats that would justify its existence (and the necessary wars), was confined to America. The Medical community has just found out, empirically and worldwide, that they can run the same scam with disease. Hold on to your butts.
Pretty sure the US is about to get payback for our ignorance to the depths of evil in our “leadership” ...
Beware the military industrial complex. Now the military-medical-pharma-media-tech complex.
Well said
I think this is just another massive miscalculation. Getting the public to stay home over the bat flu is like a teenager going undercover into the girls locker room. He might might've gotten through the door and seen a whole new world he never could have imagined, but everyone knows about it and they're on the look out now. Its a one time gambit, not a new button to be pushed.
But everyone doesn't know about it. Most of the normies I know still think that the vaxx was a good idea; if the MSM starts screaming about climate lockdowns, they are good citizens and will do what they're told.
I think a vanishingly small percentage of the population would willingly go along with another lockdown (in the case of a new danger flu) and exactly zero would lockdown in case of global climate change. I've never seen this many normies talking about how the govt is terminally corrupt and incompetent.
Oh, I don't know. I know a lot of Obedient Democrats who will essentially do whatever Joe Xiden tells them to do. If that means staying home to save Mother Gaia, well, they will do that. As long as they keep getting paid.
Perhaps that last bit of information is pertinent. Keep getting paid. As long as they can crank up the money machines, most "non-essentials"-- especially Democrats and the go along to get along types-- will do as they're told. And feel good about it because "Saving Mother Gaia."
That's a big hitch in their get-along. They can't print money now to pay the debt because of inflation. So unless they magically solve the problem of inflation their MMT fantasies will have to be kept on the sidelines. I think between mass resistance to lockdowns in principle and the inability to pay people to stay home without civilization-ending inflation leaves no good options for locking things down again. That isn't to say they won't try (they wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice whole nations for their big (and incoherent) dreams) but it would be a fatal error imo.
You clearly don't live in the Washington, DC suburbs.
Hah that's correct.
What if it's determined a verwy, verwy scarwy virus causes global climate change?
Can you point to something in particular that would inform us that the population learned anything from the covid Clampdowns?
All I see is indifference.
Indifference is easy to turn into apathy if people fear losing something ("benefit/privilege" or reprisal).
Indifference is impossible to discriminate from docility. The American public, at least the non-dysgenic left, is very docile and difficult to provoke to action. So there's pretty much no chance normies with jobs are going to protest or riot over past lockdowns. Theyre far more passive aggressive, and my money is on quiet, mass non-compliance in the case of a future attempted lockdown.
Second, a new lockdown would entail a lot of losses for people in a way that wasn't clear the first time around. People took the public healthtards at their word that it would just be 2 weeks to crush the curve, or just a little bit longer, etc and they could go back to normal. That was all a lie that everyone is aware of now. So the creeping lockdown expansion isn't an option either.
But will they be willing to pay the "price" to be a dissident.
Good points you have.
But I saw very few who were willing to pay any price.
Cowardice is certainly a common trait in the population, but I think combination of many more people pushing back against a new lockdown regime and the threshold effect where as the number of people engaging in certain behavior increases, the number of people willing to join-in also increases will overcome the problem you're pointing out. So I think the first time around people genuinely didn't know how to react and were easily led off in the direction of the herd. If there is a next time, the number of people objecting at the outset will be far higher, and the number of people willing to join in on the dissent will be far higher.
I think this is most likely how you get people to risk what they have to lose, and its also how you get a higher threshold for tolerance toward people objecting openly.
There are two groups of people: proles, and patriots. Let us grow the ranks of the latter.
Well if literally 14,000% of tye excess deaths were from the lockdowns and not the jabs. So therefore, no more lockdowns ever. It’s the science
Even the 'normies' are beginning to have serious doubts. How many times can you pull the fire alarm and watch everyone evacuate?
I pray you are right. I certainly do believe many more people have woken up to the lies, and won't be fooled again. But as shibumi observes below, many sheep still follow the Orwellian shepherd.
Eugyppius, good on you for diving deeper into this.
I'm just shaking my head.
"When an opportunity presents itself..."
Here's the extent of it: there is a global debt crisis. The 'great reset' is a solution that the cabal has come up with, i.e., protect their own wealth, power, control etc. while throwing the rest of us under the bus. They are not changing their own behaviour, only attempting to change ours. I don't think it'll work out well for them, history shows that but the pain level for most of the rest of us will only increase over the coming years.
I haven't read most of the post yet Eugyppius but your head line says it all: 'We (the cabal) can do what ever we want as long as we spread enough of the right kind of propaganda to make enough people fall in line'.
I agree. This is about impending fiscal implosion, overstretched fiat currencies, and a growing inflation crisis fueled by profligate spending and abusive monetary policies. The end game is an electronic currency quickly linked to a social credit system that punishes those who secretly heat their pools, or eat two hamburgers....
The "debt crisis" is easy to resolve. Just revert to sovereign "debt-free" money creation and ban private debt money creation. Then the private debts could be paid off with sovereign money gradually or many of them could be written off, if all they are is numbers in bank ledgers, corporate welfare for Bankers. That would be far, far and away the biggest and most ethical Reparations that could ever be demanded by anybody. Anything else is a triviality, in comparison.
The thing to keep in mind is money is not a god, it is just a metric that represents the relative value of goods and services. Money should serve the REAL economy of goods & services and not the other way round. False Gods.
The problem with your answer is that it makes sense. These 'great thinkers' who make up the cabal don't make or have any sense.
I mean, I cant blame them. It is mid 2023 and we still have sadistic masking requirements all over the so called "free" World. More importantly, the entirety of the egregious pandemic restrictions have been blown up and demonstrated to have had little actual value. Not saying it would have made them right, but it would have been a legitimate cost/benefit argument at least. And yet, nobody is in jail, nobody is fired, nobody is sued, hell no random vigilante has put anyone out of our misery even.
They won. And they are pressing their advantage.
Where are you located? Even in Massachusetts, masks are no longer required in doctor's offices and hospitals since May 12, 2023.
Anyone taking the DC bar, all NY children hospitals, just as recent examples. Where I am is mask free.
In San Francisco city and county, their chief public health official (can’t remember her name right now) imposed an ongoing vaccine and mask mandate for healthcare and jail employees.
The propaganda of 2-3 years ago can be described as "terrorism".
In other words: scarring the wits out of people to force them to do what you want.
This cannot be confused with "messaging" or some form of conviction through debate, but fear-mongering coupled with censorship and oppression.
If you need to resort to these kind of measures to obtain compliance, then there must be something wrong with the message. But I doubt the "experts" can ever admit this.
"Rather than doing too much forward signalling, we can roll pitch with the new strain."
Mr Hancock says: "We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain."
The adviser responds: "Yep, that's what will get proper behaviour change."
The minister then asks: "When do we deploy the new variant."
Mr Hancock announced the new variant the following day.
That this could get leaked and they not only evade punishment but still hold power reflects the total failure of western institutions.
The big issue for me was that after it was revealed, no one seems to care. Certainly not the mainstream. In fact they tried to turn the narrative into a pearl clutching story about a breach of a confidentiality agreement instead.
Just replace "strain" and "variant" with "bomb" and you can replace "Hancock" with "Bin Laden" or so many others names.
And ... for all those who will jump up and down in fury saying "you can't compare". They are right. What happened 2-3 years ago (and still consequences today) is MUCH worse, in terms of death and destruction, than any "terrorist" organisation ever inflicted.
I am daily sickened with each Substack article i read. I don't know whether to thank you or cry. Both, I guess.
Once you see the big picture, you start to build up a tolerance. I don't feel like throwing up as much these days.
Try to come up with a survival plan. I like to watch as much financial news (the real stuff, not the CNN-like stuff) as possible in order to better prepare. There is still time, but it's passing quickly.
True, the initial shock of the first 2 years of eye-opening filth that is perpetrated by our government is kind of wearing off. But, honestly, just as I think I'm getting desensitized, another article comes along and makes me want to vomit again. I am so grateful to the courageous and smart researchers/writers who are doing God's work on our behalf.
I think that we are in the end times right now. It doesn't mean that the world will end; it means we are on that path unless we change our ways. We can change our ways. Keeping that in mind means not much will surprise you. 'Live, love, laugh' is now 'hope, pray, work'.
I just finished watched this video the other day and the guest outlines some defensive measures for CBDC's...another little goodie in our future.
https://www.kitco.com/news/video/show/Market-Analysis/4509/2023-05-17/CBDCs-are-coming-this-is-how-to-prepare---John-Butler#_48_INSTANCE_puYLh9Vd66QY_=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kitco.com%2Fnews%2Fvideo%2Flatest%3Fshow%3DMarket-Analysis
If the link doesn't work, go to kitco.com and search on 'John Butler' using their search tool. The video is titled 'cbdcs are coming, this is how to prepare...'.
Confirming our worst fears.
And when you don't conform to the climate/whatever lockdowns, your bank accounts will be locked. Canada taught everyone how to do that.
Thus the push for digital currancy
Correct!
"Crisis By Digital Consensus" (CBDC)
Everything is a Crisis when you're Clampdown Clown.
Ding ding ding!
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/for-a-glimpse-of-the-future-look
Think back over the last, say, 20 years. Did you protest against the Iraq war? How about protesting at Occupy Wall Street? Were you a member of the Tea Party? A member of #TheResistance? Did you disagree with the government’s covid response? It’s nearly certain that everybody with a political pulse has crossed the government at one time or another. How comfortable are you with the idea that the person you’re protesting against can shut off your bank account?
Because now, it seems, those perfectly legal actions at least have the potential to come with harsh monetary consequences, as well as the ensuing chaos caused by financial ruin. And this is happening all without a single shred of oversight or due process. It’s just some asshole in an expensive suit giving a list of ‘subversives’ to another asshole in an expensive suit. The no-fly list but with the very real potential to ruin your life.
"they will spend the coming years exploring the limits."
Yes they will. But correspondingly, we will spend the coming years fighting them. Many, many people have woken up or are waking up, and next time we will be more organised, more sceptical and more virulent in our rejection of their tactics. I know I will.
AMEN!
"and it was forbidden to heat private swimming pools" As an American, I'm like how dare you tell me what I can do with my private property! And then this one - "...political measures to carefully restrict the behaviour of citizens are possible if the threat is correspondingly great and the importance of the protected good" They forgot to put the word "perceived" in front of the the word "threat".
there's a lot to be said about the relentlessly middle-class nature of Germany, in large part as a legacy of the war, and how certain restrictions and tax burdens on the perceived rich (swimming pool heating restrictions, among other things) have a kind of resentful social subtext to them.
The Edukators makes more sense in that context.
Marketing 101: Create the demand, (or the threat), and then offer a product, (or a "solution" to the threat). Works every time.
These mother fuckers have no idea.
Get the militia's together now.
Molon labe! :)
From the report: "...the two crises show that political measures to carefully restrict the behaviour of citizens are possible if the threat is correspondingly great and the importance of the protected good – in these examples, health and energy – is recognised."
Right. As H.L. Mencken wrote a century ago already, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Also paraphrasing Mencken, it is high time to hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
Y'all need more rope.
All of us need more rope.
This is also true.
My first thought is something along the lines of, “they’re smoking their own weed.”
Yes, the Govt can force people to do a lot of things. And yes, the Govt can pretend that “the people” are ok with restrictions if they restrict free speech and penalize dissent. But in reality, many people did not agree and behaved accordingly. They can force all opposition to their insanity underground for awhile. But it won’t stay there.