Daniel Hadas, whose sensitive and measured commentary on the pandemic Iโve long valued, recently offered these remarks on lockdowns and mass vaccination on Twitter: It needs to be understood that the true motivation of the lockdown / forced vaccination Covid response really ๐ค๐๐ Saving Lives.
It's a good analogy if you look at the whole engineering-virus-to-protect-against-the-virus part of it also--they make people sick to facilitate the next step, the treatment, which also makes many people sick.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth." -C.S. Lewis
"Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends... ...when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object." ~ Isabel Paterson, "The God of the Machine"
Yes and theyโll do it again in 2024 during US Elections- unless...
..unless theyโre exhausted which there are signs of...
What happens next isnโt 1989 as thereโs no FRG or Kohl to catch us, but 1789.
Too long a peace, too greedy our peoples, our government gave us all high and low everything we wanted and we ate ourselves sick. Our โdemocraciesโ perished of gluttony.
Never forget they just gave us what we demanded. We demanded socialist dolce vita but with Capitalist lifestyle- what is their sin but giving us what we voted for?
Post 1945 Democracy was - was in the end sheep sitting down with some Foxes - and populism was-was- the Sheep trying to eat the Foxes and failing. Nothing says Trump like Fox trying to front as The Peopleโs ๐บ Wolf.
Brilliant postโฆ where did all this morality come from or was it always there just hidden under the surface? I was unaware of it at least thank goodness! Was political correctness the beginning of it where one could say less and less over the years to now where one can say nothing at all? Why do these people feel so self righteous?
I donโt understand what happened or why, but that quote really expresses our times well. He wrote The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobeโฆ Narnia, must read that again.
Thanks for the book referral I appreciate it. Yeah Utopia through socialism and it has failed every single time throughout history it has been tried but then we donโt learn from history do we because we have short memories. ๐
Some people donโt even seem to realise it has failed even when they were in charge of implementing itโฆ and seem hungry to try it all the harder the next timeโฆ
In Vietnam, to save villages (and the people who lived in them), American troops first had to destroy them. But those troops were certainly saving lives.
To save the lives of the people of Iraq, the U.S. government had to first implement policies that killed a million Iraqi citizens. But we all understand these things HAD to be done to save lives (and spread a little more democracy).
To save everyone from an ILI bug, we had to let Pfizer kill a couple of million people.
I remember that too. I had the fortune to have a former (colonel?) as a co-worker in those years, a brilliant man. I recall his gray-faced reaction to the tanks being driven around the Branch Davidian compound some time after the initial shoot-out, when the Branch Davidians were all locked inside, and the government wasn't allowing communication with them. He knew immediately the reason for that manuever. It was to wipe out the evidence of who had fired first.
In the righteous determination to save people's eternal souls, authorities in various times and places were fully prepared to torture them to death, hoping they'd confess their errors before all bodily faculties were extinguished.
"To save the lives of the people of Iraq, the U.S. government had to first implement policies that killed a million Iraqi citizens"
Can't believe you can type this LIE. If you had used, say, 100,000 I probably would not have admonished you, but, one million is pure evil propaganda. If you don't know the difference between epidemiological studies and actual data I recommend you find out. I would also note that even the epidemiological studies conflate the original Iraq war and the Iraqi State supported removal of ISIS from Iraq.
I've read the "million Iraqi deaths" statistics from several/numerous sources. One could get the exact figure by looking at mortality data in Iraq ... if it existed. It wasn't just "Iraqi troops killed in combat" with U.S. forces. Those "policies" and activities created civil wars, terrorism galore, starvation and disease, refugee crises, etc. A million is probably a conservative figure.
"I've read the "million Iraqi deaths" statistics from several/numerous sources. "
Give me the sources so I can check whether they are any better than the epidemiology studies that I have seen.
"It wasn't just "Iraqi troops killed in combat" with U.S. forces. Those "policies" and activities created civil wars, terrorism galore, starvation and disease, refugee crises, etc."
Ahh yes, terrorism. Funny how many jihadis blew up innocent civilians and y'all blame the US. No one was counting the Kurds, Christians and others being killed before we invaded. Some numbers on the Iran/Iraq war. I think you have fallen for the old everything was perfect before the US became involved BS.
A million people died in Iraq over that time period is probably not a lot more than NORMAL for that area. Has little to do with US military operations. With the Shia in charge Sunni/Shia violence is common.
One of Mao's advisors/cadres (Lin Biao) supposedly weaponized Munchausen by Proxy for the masses and used it, in part, to create the 1960's cultural revolution. I think there's a lot of people lacking a sense of belonging to something so they become professional activists. Where no cause exists, they create them.
This is absolutely true. "The millions who signed on to lockdowns and demanded their governments force-vaccinate their peers were not just wrong in a direct, empirical sense โ that is, for believing that lockdowns and vaccines would improve health in any way. They were also much more profoundly wrong in a moral sense. Even if lockdowns and vaccines had the potential to stop the virus, nobody deserves house arrest or forced medical treatment for the crime of being a potential vector of infection."
It is also elusive, nay damned-near obscure, for all but the most astute epistemology. The real problem is not facts, but actions that are morally, irretrievably, wrong REGARDLESS of facts. At the risk of repeating myself yet again, this dumpster fire was not about statistics, facts, data, or any of that. Following the science is not a legitimate reason to silence dissent. Trusting the science is not a legitimate reason to force behavior upon otherwise "free" people. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, and, in some important ways, oversimplifying the issues, the Nazis thought they were following the science too! I fear this lesson is lost, amid all the amnesty and "just doing our best" whining and gnashing of teeth.
The data, statistics, the numbers were very effective in distracting people of the profound impact that the scamdemic policies were having on individuals, on society, and the fundamentally immoral explanations provided to isolate, or mask, or force vaccinate, or restrict people from plain existence. Insanity became the new moral.
I clearly remember seeing others obsessing over the covid infection ticker numbers as they stared at their phone screens multiple times a day looking for the updates of positive cases. It was almost like entertainment. It was like a video or sports game that looked authentic and legitimate and therefore not to be questioned. It was as familiar as watching a match on tv or playing a video game.
"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brotherโs busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world."
Yes, we are constantly being harassed with new things to worry and scare us with. Ukraine war scam, climate change, new pandemics like the recent monkeypox or RSV, "threat" of nuclear war, even inflation, as serious as it is, I take as another distraction away from the main plot of the road to serfdom they have planned for us.
alwayscurios I found it overly morbid how the U.K. government had daily meetings to update us on deaths and infection rates.
Even on the news theyโd be a tally behind the presenter of the growing numbers, I found it perverse trivialising peoples loss in such a manner.
Even with the rampant number counting and threat of death or serious illness did not deter their live updates.
I managed to get a few looks whenever I brought up how brave and selfless our politicians and health guidance guruโs were, risking life and limb from this highly dangerous contagious disease to bring us the infection and death count live.
In reality I pointed out theyโd be held up in a bunker somewhere if it had been dangerous, had it been as bad as projected, theyโd have shat their pants at the thought of mixing and catching it daily.
It provided for excellent theatre. The eugenicist technocrats are all about pushing a steady storyline, because they are pushing a story, a made up one so they can control the world. This is why all governments had to keep the narrative and the response the same and why censorship, bullying and shaming was so essential in talking people into their plotted fantasy. They understood very well that people's compassion and cooperative sense was ripe for manipulation. Truly evil.
alwayscurious well I called bullshit to it also most straight away, I didnโt really watch the news or follow the propaganda, what was obvious pretty quickly was the lack of people dying or being seriously ill until they turned the screws and shut the Nhs down.
I didnโt know a single person die until they implemented their plans, they knew exactly what they were doing and what the results would be.
I worked through this madness and no one was ill at work until the juice rollout, I was the only one not to take the dart, some were really ill when they had the coof and their health hasnโt been right after taking the darts, one has had shingles twice.
It was theatre, but also part of the propaganda. Here in Australia, with hardly any cases, we has the same thing: daily live updates, in solemn hushed tones, about "10 more people died, 2 in their 90s, 3 in their 80s, one man in his 60s in a geriatric ward, etc..."
No mention of the other 430 or so deaths (average daily death rate for Australia, from 2019 was 440).
Even we non-believers had to watch (or otherwise catch up on the daily update - I found the written summary was less traumatising). Because we needed to get some warning of what our government might do next, another lockdown, an extension of the current one, the current rules about leaving your home or wearing a mask.
It was designed to keep us all in a state of constant anxiety - and it was very effective. Fearful people were more likely to comply, less likely to protest.
As much as anything, I think it was all a test of just how far people could be pushed to accept these restrictions. Including checking in with your phone, constant surveillance... and of course getting the promoted jabs.
unless you worked in the hospital, in which case there was a huge discrepancy (hospital EMPTY), while the health dept and governor's site flashed daily deaths stats...what a scam! It was strange how my neighbors wanted to believe the internet over a nurse (guess they thought I was stupid).
Dee Dee we have three local hospitals in the same trust together.
Only one out of those three were a designated covid treatment hospital, the other two didnโt have a single covid ward between them.
Anyone in A+E or admitted in emergency were tested and transported straight out to the third hospital.
This was on the so called first wave, where the government was promoting the overwhelming of healthcare and told sick people to stay away to save it.
The government created death, misery and suffering pandemic as it never existed until they shut the country down and locked people away from seeing a gp.
Those two hospitals stood more or less empty apart from emergency operations and those that were too ill to be discharged. All those hours of treatments and routine operations that could have been done, were withheld without the public knowing a single thing about it.
They created a pandemic out of forcibly withholding medicines so in the end the hospitals did fill more than they would have.
Even the two empty hospitals had to open up covid wards, especially after a certain rollout, as the patients needing hospital treatment was purposely grown and pushed.
My friend who works for this trust told me after first lockdown how they stood these two had been kept covid free, she agreed that there wasnโt a single reason why they couldnโt have carried on treating and operating as normal, they created the crisis we see now.
Absolutely. The numbers never mattered but I had friends who cancelled trips to see family because "cases" were rising in those specific destinations. All of it was a total distraction completely divorced from reality.
Probably, dependent upon who you ask. This is a nuance probably not worth debating. SAYING you are following the science is not necessarily equivalent to actually following science. I am asserting that they (likely) believed it, and said it, despite being cataclysmically FOS. Same for the last 3 or so years.
When doctors, nurses, scientists, etc. that are very knowledgeable and respected in their field, negate their โlifetimeโ of study, there lies the problem. Most were not even OPEN to debate or disagreement. And people were injured and died because of their ego.
Indeed! On that point, I watched a fantastic segment from Sharyl Attkisson last night, where she interviewed a bunch of docs and nurses from a Houston hospital, who were, shall we say, "vaccine skeptical" and got fired or shut down because of it.
One of the things that ran through my head as I watched the segment from Sharyl, and your experience only reinforces it, is this. There is a great video, lampooning the oft-ridiculed idea that normal plebians like me could "do our own research." What your experience, and the mass of doctors and nurses who also got shut down, illustrates is that this dumpster fire was not predicated upon experts but narrative. You have insight, as a nurse. I have insight, as a biomedical engineer. Just because Dr. Fauci pulls some complete B.S. out of his arse--as he did so many times--is no reason to think we don't have legitimate questions, or that we should just "shut up and do as you are told." That might be the biggest learning for me, how much people subscribed to that paradigm.
My favorite part of the covid psy op was when the CDC changed the definitions of vaccine and vaccinated (Sept. 2021) because of all the breakthrough infections post clotshot.
You are absolutely right. The "facts" are irrelevant. The actions that our panic-stricken, absurdly ignorant, pathetically stupid next door neighbors took against us merit appropriate punishment. In some cases, appropriate means death.
Many of them have Anankastic Personality Disorder (APD) which Hitler is also believed to have had. APD is common in academics, which explains their stupidity. They were too dumb to realise that "COVID-19" is just the prodrome of SARS-CoV-2 disease and that the interventions they pushed for the prodrome would kill more people than the prodrome. SARS-CoV-2 is an oncogenic virus which incubates and destroys the immune system over a period of time, eventually leading inexorably to AIDS in those previously infected with it even asymptomatically who are still alive. The vaccinators and lockdowners didn't realise this because of their APD. APD are functionally rigid. They can't readily alter their perspective to account for new or rival evidence, such as that at the links below. AKD think they are always right and that they know everything. They also believe that they are more moral and ethical than others and that they have the right to impose their views and solutions on others. APD is the most common personality disorder of serial killers but those APD who pushed the vaccines and lockdowns believed it was the moral and ethical thing to do.
A Universal โAIDSโ SARS-CoV-2, the Spike Protein, and the Slow, Progressive Destruction of Infected Cells
This was rooted in opportunistic exaggeration and hysteria, much of which can be traced to the astonishingly moronic way that zero-covid zealots operated under a principle of โerring on the side of cautionโ to such a uniformly rigid degree that they massively distorted perception of covid's actual harm and made no attempt to self-correct when this became indisputably clear. The result was untold excess deaths that can only be attributed to the political response of the pandemic.
Pfizer knew before the first trial was done that the shots were causing excess mortality, which is WHY they falsified the data AND dropped participants from the study who had serious adverse reactions! Their behavior PROVED malfeasance and criminal intent. There is no way to whitewash this or for them claim ignorance. They KNEW. They ARE culpable!
For what it's worth, in fall of 2020, you could go to the FDA website in the USA and see all of the "potential" side effects of the mRNA vaxxes. ALL of the side effects that have appeared were listed. That page has, of course, been memory holed.
And if this was all about "safety," why were countries FORCED to accept these vaxxes?
Why were other treatment modalities actively discouraged?
Let's just say for argument's sake, that this was about safety. Why weren't the vaxxes pulled when people started dying IMMEDIATELY after vaxxination?
And how does the "they-were-simply-trying-their-best-to-save-lives" thesis, even taking its myopic malevolence into consideration, account for the active suppression of alternate health treatments from very early on, long before vaccines were rolled out? Notice this study from 2005. It clearly shows chloroquine stopped SARS. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869
We might distinguish two ways of knowing. The a posteriori method is trying the shots out on somebody to see if they die. The a priori method is understanding the biochemical mechanism, and how it will kill you.
I think a very large proportion was ass-covering. Fauci, Drosten et al. deliberately lied about the lab leak possibility to cover their asses, lest their research careers be ruined. The Chinese government locked down Wuhan to cover their asses so that the citizens wouldn't blame the government for letting a lab leak virus run amok. Every subsequent country locked down to cover its ass, because China did. The zealots in government and media still refuse to course correct because it's easier to double down and cover your ass than admit you were wrong.
Please all this bla bla bla bring nothing to the most important point: It was and still is a Declaration of war.Period. They are weaging an extermination program to kill the more they can.
Funny thing. I had a little conversation with Daniel Hadas on Twitter, perhaps last year, because he writes from a position of profound Christian faith and yet confessed great terror of the Plague and its potential consequences to his life. I observed to him that his spiritual faith was pretty weak. Why should a Christian fear death? It is merely the doorway to the salvation he believes in, and surely the moment of transition is in service to that eternal state of being.
*His* actual faith was in the good motives of the authorities to protect us from this unprecedented monstrosity as they marketed it. I can well understand why Hadas--who seems a person of good intentions--will need for his own conscience to cling to this belief. People of good intentions everywhere are struggling terribly with the horrors wrought upon us by our governments and all those who became its minions, wittingly or otherwise.
Love this comment. Humanity innately and correctly respects authority; for a Christian, authority comes from and in some way represents God.
I am not alone in being horrified by the shocking nihilism of the current โauthoritiesโ in the West.
Josef Pieper, a Catholic philosopher, argued that one of the worst things that could happen was the usurpation of authority by evil men. As a German of the war years, he knew what he was talking about.
Christianity is a Middle Eastern blood sacrifice cult that synthesized the beliefs of every cult that preceded it. It's a sect of Judaism marketed for a broader audience. In my view, of course.
Certainly it's fair. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs. I will note though that the story of what Jesus said he was changed considerably over the centuries until it was codified and dissenters were branded as heretics. There was quite an extermination-fest going on in the early days of consolidating Christian dogma. I will note, too, that there was quite the game of telephone going on in the writing down of the New Testament. When a word is mistranslated, and then goes through translations into several more languages, plenty gets changed.
Anyway--when those beliefs infringe on the rights of others in a civil secular society I have a lot of problems with them.
Yes, but even as an unbeliever I appreciate the moral base and social 'infrastructure' that a civilized religion can provide. When the definitions and core values of right and wrong become subjective and meaningless, chaos and anarchy are sure to follow. Society needs to believe in something in order to provide a common viewpoint of our place in the world.
Ahh, there's the rub. None are perfect, but I lean towards trusting in the longevity of the belief system and the successful society it produces. Therefor anti-CO2 mania, wokeness, forced 'equality', and other new belief systems are out. Judaism, varieties of Gaia worship (paganism sort of?), and some Eastern beliefs seem stable and reasonable. Oddly, the Caste system in India seems to have created one of the most stable societies; but lets not open that can of worms.
So rigid legalistic systems that create hierarchies of human value are good? Systems that create obedience via threats of eternal disaster are good? Are Buddhist societies healthier and more peaceful than Muslim ones?
PS: *Pagan* is a slur devised by adherents of scriptural religions. It's a meaningless term.
Haha I get we arenโt going to agree (see my reply below).
But that doesnโt mean we canโt disagree politely!
To me original sin is incredibly obvious. No system ever created has even come close to perfect. But there are certain eternal aspects to life and the universe which are suggestive.
Does that mean that religion is a panacea? No. But a well-formed individual conscience might be
All scriptures manage to touch on some universal truths via metaphor. The ancients were pretty sophisticated in their use of myths and symbolism. These are common themes throughout most cultures. The uncertainties--often the terrors--of people in agricultural societies absolutely dependent on the beneficence of nature are expressed in these themes. The myth of the killed and risen god is found everywhere.
Genesis is a powerful story which uses vivid imagery to portray humanity's self-taming.
But human language can only grasp so much of indescribable concepts and realities. When people insist on taking scriptural religions literally, all hell, shall we say, breaks loose.
If the Church leaned in on the inevitability of death while people like Fauci were purposely trying to scare the crap out of everyone, that would not have helped!
It would have been better for them to highlight the multitude of times the Bible commands people not to give in to fear.
Youโre right that Fauci and Co were doing everything they could to terrify people, with huge success.
I suppose what I meant was: death is inevitable, but thatโs ok, because God doesnโt intend this life to be the end. That is the heart of Christianity and it would have been nice to have heard even a little bit of thatโฆ
I know a Priest who said "do not take the vaccine" and did not allow masks in the church. He signed my religious exemption. Covid showed the true colors of people. I will never forget the mask Nazis who enjoyed screaming at people to "put on your mask" and "cover your nose". Really such an awful experience.
I have to admit I felt sorry for our local priests who actually did a pretty good job given horrendous circumstances. But heroism of the kind you mention here was in short supply.
Equally, however, they were very decent about not wearing masks etc
Almost for a year you were officially exempt from attending mass on Sundays. The most ridiculous policy I have ever heard. Then mask was mandatory almost for 2 years straight. Handshake is still not advised after more than 3 years. Communion still not given directly to the mouth after 3 years.
Your comment makes me think you might be interested in a substacker who addressed that very subject. https://douglasfarrow.substack.com/ most especially "We Are Not Innocent."
What about suppression of early treatment? Surely people should have been enthusiastic about this - it was saving lives. Of course the followers of lockdown and vaccination policy believed they helped, but the originators of the policy, who also suppressed early treatment, had agendas that were not about saving lives.
I think the near-total disinterest in treatment (if anything the opposite, i.e. decisions to overventilate in order to reduce infections among hospital staff) is one of various reasons that the motivation is better described as one of "virus eradication/suppression" rather improving health outcomes.
Early treatment suppresses the virus, giving the immune system time to ramp up and eradicate it. Early treatment is also for hospital staff so what's to fear. It was all about stoking fear and guilt, the guaranteed ways to make people compliant with anything. Even vitamin D as prophylactic was ridiculed. People were made to feel guilty for being in the sun and sterilizing air. Of course, more deaths, more fear.
It's hard to be curious and reasonable and take time when you're being scared, threatened by a virus monster as well as by your employer/friends/family.... When it feels like the ship might be sinking, how many will bite each other over the favored course of action? Who is marked as a leader, allegiance to whom might save you? If I ask myself to recall what my family had to say about early treatment, they would think it dangerous and misled to talk about early treatment when Fauci and Osterholm had labeled it dangerous and misleading. They attended very closely and carefully to these leader's words, and would hear what they were supposed to do. The funny thing is that I recall reading Osterholm after a family member sharing their reverent high regard for him. I found that he would state one thing, and then state another. Things like: it's not so bad. Be careful and diligent in following guidance lest you succumb to the threat. I realized that if I read it as my mother, I would would understand what he was saying and behave appropriately, adhering to guidance... But if I read it as myself, trying to lay out what he thinks and says, I would see these strange juxtapositions of conflicting messages which seemed ridiculous to me. If Osterholm had signaled, along with the other fawned upon experts, that early treatment saves lives, and thank goodness for heroes like Kory and McCullough, then my family would have said, Yes Yes... I think a value is given, like saving lives, and a kind of hypnotic focus is given to people to give proper reverence to that value. Ivรกn Illich wrote an essay about how Life has been made an idol. If you look at things through religious ways of understanding, it could yield another perspective on this.
The entire thesis of this article is summed up nicely by C S Lewis' observation that:
*Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.*
Add to this Bastiat's admonition not to focus on the seen while ignoring the unseen.
The world's Karens are fond of the argument, *if it saves one life.*
As gun rights advocates need to point out over and over, civilian disarmament always and immediately costs 50-100 lives for that "one life" you saved.
Bastiat's "unseen" are literally the consequences of policy decisions--in this case the mandates imposed without any concern for the consequences on all because it might save a life.
The "if it saves one life" admonition always struck me as, well, speaking scientifically, stupid as hell. People, unfortunately, like to simplify what should be complicated trade-offs for easy-to-repeat soundbites. If it saves one life compared to what?
Yes, the conclusions were clearly preconceived. The question then becomes: Who preconceived them? More importantly, what gave Drosten and his ilk the confidence that the authority of the "preconceivers" was strong enough that they could just push through those preconceived conclusions without hesitation? After all, lockdowns were clearly very destructive to what had until then been considered sacrosanct, namely the economy and "fiscal responsibility". Any rational person in their position would be wary of potentially being held accountable in retrospect for having wrought economic havoc, if for nothing else. They did not appear to be worried in that regard at all. Why was that?
"The state itself, however, was playing a rather different game, one which fell (depending on the country) somewhere on a scale from โvirus suppressionโ to โvirus eradicationโ โ lives be damned."
Isn't this basically saying that the machinery of state realigned itself behind achieving an ideological end in itself, regardless of the carnage caused?
ie as we have seen many times throughout history with Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pot etc, the difference being that perhaps we had (mistakenly) assumed it needed a single tyrannical personality to take charge and drive the madness, and that it couldn't happen with the checks and balances assumed to be inherent in the modern multi-party democratic state.
We need an autopsy of the response. What worked and what did not? Operation Warpspeed was a good concept but the vaccines are dangerous and did not work. Building all the field hospitals in NYC and the Navy ship was a great idea but never needed. Shutting down schools was a political tool for the teacher unions. The covid response was in the end a political tool. The COLLUSION of the dinosaur media was evidence that some was fishy.
It protected a dementia addled old man living in his basement while running for President of the United States. It also gave cover to all forms of election fraud.
Yes. I had pretty much this happen. My former hippy creative community was completely incensed with me not going along with lockdowns. I was told "just wait until your children die!"
Jul 26, 2023ยทedited Jul 26, 2023Liked by eugyppius
You're too kind. It was a bunch of tin plated dictators with delusions of Godhood, drunk on their own power with at least some of them, toadies of big pharma. See:
In a way, the trans ideology is the same with the false assumption that any child that questions their gender and isn't immediately affirmed will kill themselves. Again, painting affirmation as "Saving Lives".
Have we learned anything about pushing back against this false mantra?
It's not an assumption; it is an assertion. And the assertion to a degree fulfills itself. Think how many children learned self harm from the very helpful community who showed them what kids like them do.
Also, think about the old idea of an affirmation where you stand in front of the mirror, arrange your face, and say : "I am - - - - and today is going to be a - - - - day."
As I was reading this most intelligent and thoughtful essay, an insistent realisation kept pressing into consciousness: I have never met anyone who has owned up to crude power-lust, whether petty/individual or on a grand-scale, without seeking to camouflage it in the fine vestments of pious intent.
It would seem to me that, if we were genuinely embedded in a truly self-correcting system of governance, its assorted parties would assiduously seek to permit differing viewpoints to be aired and to trenchantly check any concentrations of the "power-over" brigade, whatever their professed self-justifications may be, so that a reasoned course of action rooted in thoroughly-examined (and therefore properly contested) evidence might prevail.
Instead we had a breathtakingly brutish censorship regime replete with police state reprisals against any and all who expressed scepticism toward unprecedented and draconian actions, even while infection fatality rate evidence was piling up that the Great Plague was nothing of the sort. Nasty, but hardly the Black Death or the Spanish Flu.
Self-professed benevolent intent is a weak exculpation for ruinous and deadly compulsory policies, even when the 'intenders' believe in their own ostentatiously displayed (and profoundly coercive) piety sincerely.
Maybe the clue as to what's really happening is this: if 'piety' is ostentatiously proclaimed AND savagely coercive, it isn't piety. It's just power-lust in drag.
Jul 26, 2023ยทedited Jul 26, 2023Liked by eugyppius
"And it is to remain blind to the fact that Saving Lives has come to mean hacking away at the limits of what can be done to men, women and children in the name of saving their lives and those of others."
This is so perfectly worded that there is little one can add as "saving lives" is the perfect excuse for all and any atrocities. You oppose doctors that want to prescribe puberty blockers to your "trans child"? Why, do you want him to be a case in a suicide statistic? Save his life, consent to puberty blockers! You do not want to freeze in winter as energy prices go up and up in the name of green energy? Why, don't you want to save the lives of future generations, you selfish climate denier?
And so on and so forth.
As you point out, Eugyppius, "Saving Lives" is just the righteous-sounding umbrella term of countless and varied individual motivations.
A mother abusing her child because of Munchausen by proxy is also, in some way, "saving the life" of the child. It's still abuse.
this very good analogy actually
It's a good analogy if you look at the whole engineering-virus-to-protect-against-the-virus part of it also--they make people sick to facilitate the next step, the treatment, which also makes many people sick.
Thank Clif High
And helicopter parents...
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth." -C.S. Lewis
"Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends... ...when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object." ~ Isabel Paterson, "The God of the Machine"
Yes and theyโll do it again in 2024 during US Elections- unless...
..unless theyโre exhausted which there are signs of...
What happens next isnโt 1989 as thereโs no FRG or Kohl to catch us, but 1789.
Too long a peace, too greedy our peoples, our government gave us all high and low everything we wanted and we ate ourselves sick. Our โdemocraciesโ perished of gluttony.
Never forget they just gave us what we demanded. We demanded socialist dolce vita but with Capitalist lifestyle- what is their sin but giving us what we voted for?
Post 1945 Democracy was - was in the end sheep sitting down with some Foxes - and populism was-was- the Sheep trying to eat the Foxes and failing. Nothing says Trump like Fox trying to front as The Peopleโs ๐บ Wolf.
The real Wolves gather in the Twilight.
Brilliant postโฆ where did all this morality come from or was it always there just hidden under the surface? I was unaware of it at least thank goodness! Was political correctness the beginning of it where one could say less and less over the years to now where one can say nothing at all? Why do these people feel so self righteous?
I donโt understand what happened or why, but that quote really expresses our times well. He wrote The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobeโฆ Narnia, must read that again.
Chris Rufoโs book The American Cultural Revolution is very good on the most recent aspect of this.
The Reformation began it in the West in its current form, but people have always sought Utopia
Thanks for the book referral I appreciate it. Yeah Utopia through socialism and it has failed every single time throughout history it has been tried but then we donโt learn from history do we because we have short memories. ๐
No problem, itโs a great book!
Some people donโt even seem to realise it has failed even when they were in charge of implementing itโฆ and seem hungry to try it all the harder the next timeโฆ
Came to post the same quote. It's been at the forefront of my mind these past 3 years.
C.S. Lewis is great!๐
Thanks for sharing. Excellent.โ๏ธ
In Vietnam, to save villages (and the people who lived in them), American troops first had to destroy them. But those troops were certainly saving lives.
To save the lives of the people of Iraq, the U.S. government had to first implement policies that killed a million Iraqi citizens. But we all understand these things HAD to be done to save lives (and spread a little more democracy).
To save everyone from an ILI bug, we had to let Pfizer kill a couple of million people.
On a smaller scale, wasn't the burning of the Branch Davidians at Waco in the 1990s supposed to have been about saving their children?
I just watched a documentary on that government-led mass homicide. The "blowback" from that event also led to the Oklahoma City bombing.
And donโt forget Ruby Ridge/Randy Weaver, among MANY!
I remember that too. I had the fortune to have a former (colonel?) as a co-worker in those years, a brilliant man. I recall his gray-faced reaction to the tanks being driven around the Branch Davidian compound some time after the initial shoot-out, when the Branch Davidians were all locked inside, and the government wasn't allowing communication with them. He knew immediately the reason for that manuever. It was to wipe out the evidence of who had fired first.
Salem Witch Trials saving the village people from the devil...
In the righteous determination to save people's eternal souls, authorities in various times and places were fully prepared to torture them to death, hoping they'd confess their errors before all bodily faculties were extinguished.
Absolutly in target. Well put.
And the call it collatoral... for the good of the group
MANY millions before this will be over.
"To save the lives of the people of Iraq, the U.S. government had to first implement policies that killed a million Iraqi citizens"
Can't believe you can type this LIE. If you had used, say, 100,000 I probably would not have admonished you, but, one million is pure evil propaganda. If you don't know the difference between epidemiological studies and actual data I recommend you find out. I would also note that even the epidemiological studies conflate the original Iraq war and the Iraqi State supported removal of ISIS from Iraq.
I've read the "million Iraqi deaths" statistics from several/numerous sources. One could get the exact figure by looking at mortality data in Iraq ... if it existed. It wasn't just "Iraqi troops killed in combat" with U.S. forces. Those "policies" and activities created civil wars, terrorism galore, starvation and disease, refugee crises, etc. A million is probably a conservative figure.
"I've read the "million Iraqi deaths" statistics from several/numerous sources. "
Give me the sources so I can check whether they are any better than the epidemiology studies that I have seen.
"It wasn't just "Iraqi troops killed in combat" with U.S. forces. Those "policies" and activities created civil wars, terrorism galore, starvation and disease, refugee crises, etc."
Ahh yes, terrorism. Funny how many jihadis blew up innocent civilians and y'all blame the US. No one was counting the Kurds, Christians and others being killed before we invaded. Some numbers on the Iran/Iraq war. I think you have fallen for the old everything was perfect before the US became involved BS.
A million people died in Iraq over that time period is probably not a lot more than NORMAL for that area. Has little to do with US military operations. With the Shia in charge Sunni/Shia violence is common.
One of Mao's advisors/cadres (Lin Biao) supposedly weaponized Munchausen by Proxy for the masses and used it, in part, to create the 1960's cultural revolution. I think there's a lot of people lacking a sense of belonging to something so they become professional activists. Where no cause exists, they create them.
Intent means nothing, which is why history is hard. Do the ends always justify the means?
In some way *believing herself to be saving.* Best not to skip that part.
[edited for punctuation]
Well said.
This is absolutely true. "The millions who signed on to lockdowns and demanded their governments force-vaccinate their peers were not just wrong in a direct, empirical sense โ that is, for believing that lockdowns and vaccines would improve health in any way. They were also much more profoundly wrong in a moral sense. Even if lockdowns and vaccines had the potential to stop the virus, nobody deserves house arrest or forced medical treatment for the crime of being a potential vector of infection."
It is also elusive, nay damned-near obscure, for all but the most astute epistemology. The real problem is not facts, but actions that are morally, irretrievably, wrong REGARDLESS of facts. At the risk of repeating myself yet again, this dumpster fire was not about statistics, facts, data, or any of that. Following the science is not a legitimate reason to silence dissent. Trusting the science is not a legitimate reason to force behavior upon otherwise "free" people. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, and, in some important ways, oversimplifying the issues, the Nazis thought they were following the science too! I fear this lesson is lost, amid all the amnesty and "just doing our best" whining and gnashing of teeth.
The data, statistics, the numbers were very effective in distracting people of the profound impact that the scamdemic policies were having on individuals, on society, and the fundamentally immoral explanations provided to isolate, or mask, or force vaccinate, or restrict people from plain existence. Insanity became the new moral.
I clearly remember seeing others obsessing over the covid infection ticker numbers as they stared at their phone screens multiple times a day looking for the updates of positive cases. It was almost like entertainment. It was like a video or sports game that looked authentic and legitimate and therefore not to be questioned. It was as familiar as watching a match on tv or playing a video game.
Good point.
"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brotherโs busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world."
~ Chuck Palahniuk
Yes, we are constantly being harassed with new things to worry and scare us with. Ukraine war scam, climate change, new pandemics like the recent monkeypox or RSV, "threat" of nuclear war, even inflation, as serious as it is, I take as another distraction away from the main plot of the road to serfdom they have planned for us.
alwayscurios I found it overly morbid how the U.K. government had daily meetings to update us on deaths and infection rates.
Even on the news theyโd be a tally behind the presenter of the growing numbers, I found it perverse trivialising peoples loss in such a manner.
Even with the rampant number counting and threat of death or serious illness did not deter their live updates.
I managed to get a few looks whenever I brought up how brave and selfless our politicians and health guidance guruโs were, risking life and limb from this highly dangerous contagious disease to bring us the infection and death count live.
In reality I pointed out theyโd be held up in a bunker somewhere if it had been dangerous, had it been as bad as projected, theyโd have shat their pants at the thought of mixing and catching it daily.
It provided for excellent theatre. The eugenicist technocrats are all about pushing a steady storyline, because they are pushing a story, a made up one so they can control the world. This is why all governments had to keep the narrative and the response the same and why censorship, bullying and shaming was so essential in talking people into their plotted fantasy. They understood very well that people's compassion and cooperative sense was ripe for manipulation. Truly evil.
alwayscurious well I called bullshit to it also most straight away, I didnโt really watch the news or follow the propaganda, what was obvious pretty quickly was the lack of people dying or being seriously ill until they turned the screws and shut the Nhs down.
I didnโt know a single person die until they implemented their plans, they knew exactly what they were doing and what the results would be.
I worked through this madness and no one was ill at work until the juice rollout, I was the only one not to take the dart, some were really ill when they had the coof and their health hasnโt been right after taking the darts, one has had shingles twice.
It was theatre, but also part of the propaganda. Here in Australia, with hardly any cases, we has the same thing: daily live updates, in solemn hushed tones, about "10 more people died, 2 in their 90s, 3 in their 80s, one man in his 60s in a geriatric ward, etc..."
No mention of the other 430 or so deaths (average daily death rate for Australia, from 2019 was 440).
Even we non-believers had to watch (or otherwise catch up on the daily update - I found the written summary was less traumatising). Because we needed to get some warning of what our government might do next, another lockdown, an extension of the current one, the current rules about leaving your home or wearing a mask.
It was designed to keep us all in a state of constant anxiety - and it was very effective. Fearful people were more likely to comply, less likely to protest.
As much as anything, I think it was all a test of just how far people could be pushed to accept these restrictions. Including checking in with your phone, constant surveillance... and of course getting the promoted jabs.
set the stage to justify the precious
this is "news"
Reporters have power. More information more often and very dramatic is great for ratings. News papers do the same.
I figured if the deaths were that bad, a few dead bodies may become apparent...
unless you worked in the hospital, in which case there was a huge discrepancy (hospital EMPTY), while the health dept and governor's site flashed daily deaths stats...what a scam! It was strange how my neighbors wanted to believe the internet over a nurse (guess they thought I was stupid).
TV tells a better story than a neighbour who actually knows whatโs going onโฆ sad to say, massive propaganda really works
Dee Dee we have three local hospitals in the same trust together.
Only one out of those three were a designated covid treatment hospital, the other two didnโt have a single covid ward between them.
Anyone in A+E or admitted in emergency were tested and transported straight out to the third hospital.
This was on the so called first wave, where the government was promoting the overwhelming of healthcare and told sick people to stay away to save it.
The government created death, misery and suffering pandemic as it never existed until they shut the country down and locked people away from seeing a gp.
Those two hospitals stood more or less empty apart from emergency operations and those that were too ill to be discharged. All those hours of treatments and routine operations that could have been done, were withheld without the public knowing a single thing about it.
They created a pandemic out of forcibly withholding medicines so in the end the hospitals did fill more than they would have.
Even the two empty hospitals had to open up covid wards, especially after a certain rollout, as the patients needing hospital treatment was purposely grown and pushed.
My friend who works for this trust told me after first lockdown how they stood these two had been kept covid free, she agreed that there wasnโt a single reason why they couldnโt have carried on treating and operating as normal, they created the crisis we see now.
Lizzy,
Thank you for sharing. Sounds like what I witnessed. Healthcare was exploited and it's just so awful what they did.
God Bless you!
Absolutely. The numbers never mattered but I had friends who cancelled trips to see family because "cases" were rising in those specific destinations. All of it was a total distraction completely divorced from reality.
But, โtheyโ didnโt follow science. They changed science and disregarded science. The Nazis knew exactly what they were/are doing.
Probably, dependent upon who you ask. This is a nuance probably not worth debating. SAYING you are following the science is not necessarily equivalent to actually following science. I am asserting that they (likely) believed it, and said it, despite being cataclysmically FOS. Same for the last 3 or so years.
When doctors, nurses, scientists, etc. that are very knowledgeable and respected in their field, negate their โlifetimeโ of study, there lies the problem. Most were not even OPEN to debate or disagreement. And people were injured and died because of their ego.
Indeed! On that point, I watched a fantastic segment from Sharyl Attkisson last night, where she interviewed a bunch of docs and nurses from a Houston hospital, who were, shall we say, "vaccine skeptical" and got fired or shut down because of it.
[Edit to share the link: https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/07/watch-hospital-mandates-2/]
My entire family shut me down three years ago.
I am an RN, went through a whole lot of science and bio.
These people are nuts, .... and I am "not an expert"
One of the things that ran through my head as I watched the segment from Sharyl, and your experience only reinforces it, is this. There is a great video, lampooning the oft-ridiculed idea that normal plebians like me could "do our own research." What your experience, and the mass of doctors and nurses who also got shut down, illustrates is that this dumpster fire was not predicated upon experts but narrative. You have insight, as a nurse. I have insight, as a biomedical engineer. Just because Dr. Fauci pulls some complete B.S. out of his arse--as he did so many times--is no reason to think we don't have legitimate questions, or that we should just "shut up and do as you are told." That might be the biggest learning for me, how much people subscribed to that paradigm.
RN as well, my family believed the media over my direct observations. Many took the jab despite my red flag concerns. How dreadful...
My favorite part of the covid psy op was when the CDC changed the definitions of vaccine and vaccinated (Sept. 2021) because of all the breakthrough infections post clotshot.
You are absolutely right. The "facts" are irrelevant. The actions that our panic-stricken, absurdly ignorant, pathetically stupid next door neighbors took against us merit appropriate punishment. In some cases, appropriate means death.
๐ฏ
Many of them have Anankastic Personality Disorder (APD) which Hitler is also believed to have had. APD is common in academics, which explains their stupidity. They were too dumb to realise that "COVID-19" is just the prodrome of SARS-CoV-2 disease and that the interventions they pushed for the prodrome would kill more people than the prodrome. SARS-CoV-2 is an oncogenic virus which incubates and destroys the immune system over a period of time, eventually leading inexorably to AIDS in those previously infected with it even asymptomatically who are still alive. The vaccinators and lockdowners didn't realise this because of their APD. APD are functionally rigid. They can't readily alter their perspective to account for new or rival evidence, such as that at the links below. AKD think they are always right and that they know everything. They also believe that they are more moral and ethical than others and that they have the right to impose their views and solutions on others. APD is the most common personality disorder of serial killers but those APD who pushed the vaccines and lockdowns believed it was the moral and ethical thing to do.
A Universal โAIDSโ SARS-CoV-2, the Spike Protein, and the Slow, Progressive Destruction of Infected Cells
https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/a-universal-aids?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Confirmation of My 2021 Hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 and the Spike Protein Accelerates Aging
https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/confirmation-of-my-2021-hypothesis?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
This was rooted in opportunistic exaggeration and hysteria, much of which can be traced to the astonishingly moronic way that zero-covid zealots operated under a principle of โerring on the side of cautionโ to such a uniformly rigid degree that they massively distorted perception of covid's actual harm and made no attempt to self-correct when this became indisputably clear. The result was untold excess deaths that can only be attributed to the political response of the pandemic.
Pfizer knew before the first trial was done that the shots were causing excess mortality, which is WHY they falsified the data AND dropped participants from the study who had serious adverse reactions! Their behavior PROVED malfeasance and criminal intent. There is no way to whitewash this or for them claim ignorance. They KNEW. They ARE culpable!
For what it's worth, in fall of 2020, you could go to the FDA website in the USA and see all of the "potential" side effects of the mRNA vaxxes. ALL of the side effects that have appeared were listed. That page has, of course, been memory holed.
And if this was all about "safety," why were countries FORCED to accept these vaxxes?
Why were other treatment modalities actively discouraged?
Let's just say for argument's sake, that this was about safety. Why weren't the vaxxes pulled when people started dying IMMEDIATELY after vaxxination?
Hint: because it never was about "safety."
if it was about safety, they would have stopped when the "vaccine" deaths and injuries flooded in...instead of saying, "not related"
And how does the "they-were-simply-trying-their-best-to-save-lives" thesis, even taking its myopic malevolence into consideration, account for the active suppression of alternate health treatments from very early on, long before vaccines were rolled out? Notice this study from 2005. It clearly shows chloroquine stopped SARS. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869
How could you know before the first trial that the shots were causing excess mortality?
There were a lot of issues with the design and conduct of the Pfizer vaccine trial but you can't tell anything before you do a trial!
We might distinguish two ways of knowing. The a posteriori method is trying the shots out on somebody to see if they die. The a priori method is understanding the biochemical mechanism, and how it will kill you.
For a posteriori, your point stands.
I think a very large proportion was ass-covering. Fauci, Drosten et al. deliberately lied about the lab leak possibility to cover their asses, lest their research careers be ruined. The Chinese government locked down Wuhan to cover their asses so that the citizens wouldn't blame the government for letting a lab leak virus run amok. Every subsequent country locked down to cover its ass, because China did. The zealots in government and media still refuse to course correct because it's easier to double down and cover your ass than admit you were wrong.
Please all this bla bla bla bring nothing to the most important point: It was and still is a Declaration of war.Period. They are weaging an extermination program to kill the more they can.
BINGO!
Then why not just elucidate it yourself?
My comment is the elucidation...
Okay then.
Funny thing. I had a little conversation with Daniel Hadas on Twitter, perhaps last year, because he writes from a position of profound Christian faith and yet confessed great terror of the Plague and its potential consequences to his life. I observed to him that his spiritual faith was pretty weak. Why should a Christian fear death? It is merely the doorway to the salvation he believes in, and surely the moment of transition is in service to that eternal state of being.
*His* actual faith was in the good motives of the authorities to protect us from this unprecedented monstrosity as they marketed it. I can well understand why Hadas--who seems a person of good intentions--will need for his own conscience to cling to this belief. People of good intentions everywhere are struggling terribly with the horrors wrought upon us by our governments and all those who became its minions, wittingly or otherwise.
Love this comment. Humanity innately and correctly respects authority; for a Christian, authority comes from and in some way represents God.
I am not alone in being horrified by the shocking nihilism of the current โauthoritiesโ in the West.
Josef Pieper, a Catholic philosopher, argued that one of the worst things that could happen was the usurpation of authority by evil men. As a German of the war years, he knew what he was talking about.
I think we do too.
I regard all formal religions as usurpers of natural authority by evil men.
We arenโt going to agree on this, but I canโt and wonโt deny abuse of religious truth by evil men.
For what it is worth, Christianity (uniquely?) allows for this in its understanding of the world
Time for my usual:
Christianity is a Middle Eastern blood sacrifice cult that synthesized the beliefs of every cult that preceded it. It's a sect of Judaism marketed for a broader audience. In my view, of course.
The key issue here is whether Jesus was what he said he was, or not.
You either accept it or you donโt.
Your view is a legitimate argument, but not one I accept.
Fair?
Certainly it's fair. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs. I will note though that the story of what Jesus said he was changed considerably over the centuries until it was codified and dissenters were branded as heretics. There was quite an extermination-fest going on in the early days of consolidating Christian dogma. I will note, too, that there was quite the game of telephone going on in the writing down of the New Testament. When a word is mistranslated, and then goes through translations into several more languages, plenty gets changed.
Anyway--when those beliefs infringe on the rights of others in a civil secular society I have a lot of problems with them.
I don't trust anyone but God.
He doesnโt trust in God...when itโs all bad. I donโt judge him, I speak from experience. Itโs the battle of wills: human ego vs God...let go!
"If a context rewards evil, good intentions are insufficient. If a context rewards exchange, good intentions are irrelevant."
Religion is a business.
Yes, but even as an unbeliever I appreciate the moral base and social 'infrastructure' that a civilized religion can provide. When the definitions and core values of right and wrong become subjective and meaningless, chaos and anarchy are sure to follow. Society needs to believe in something in order to provide a common viewpoint of our place in the world.
Whose beliefs should society choose?
Ahh, there's the rub. None are perfect, but I lean towards trusting in the longevity of the belief system and the successful society it produces. Therefor anti-CO2 mania, wokeness, forced 'equality', and other new belief systems are out. Judaism, varieties of Gaia worship (paganism sort of?), and some Eastern beliefs seem stable and reasonable. Oddly, the Caste system in India seems to have created one of the most stable societies; but lets not open that can of worms.
So rigid legalistic systems that create hierarchies of human value are good? Systems that create obedience via threats of eternal disaster are good? Are Buddhist societies healthier and more peaceful than Muslim ones?
PS: *Pagan* is a slur devised by adherents of scriptural religions. It's a meaningless term.
It surprises me that atheists can remain so confident even as society degenerates into a deeper and deeper ring of clown world.
Do you enjoy living in a world where Hollywood values have replaced those "religious businesses"?
โWithout God everything is permittedโ as Dostoyevsky says
Especially when we are talking about "saving lives"
Have I declared myself as adhering to any belief system?
[duplicate comment deleted]
Not always, but man is fallen so thatโs what you get
I disagree profoundly with your viewpoint.
Haha I get we arenโt going to agree (see my reply below).
But that doesnโt mean we canโt disagree politely!
To me original sin is incredibly obvious. No system ever created has even come close to perfect. But there are certain eternal aspects to life and the universe which are suggestive.
Does that mean that religion is a panacea? No. But a well-formed individual conscience might be
All scriptures manage to touch on some universal truths via metaphor. The ancients were pretty sophisticated in their use of myths and symbolism. These are common themes throughout most cultures. The uncertainties--often the terrors--of people in agricultural societies absolutely dependent on the beneficence of nature are expressed in these themes. The myth of the killed and risen god is found everywhere.
Genesis is a powerful story which uses vivid imagery to portray humanity's self-taming.
But human language can only grasp so much of indescribable concepts and realities. When people insist on taking scriptural religions literally, all hell, shall we say, breaks loose.
Your final sentence is perfectly correct.
I was disgusted by the refusal of the Church to talk about the impermanence of this life and the inevitability of death.
In reality - and I believe this relates in a mysterious way to all of the other crises - the Church is in chaos, and has been since 1958 at least.
โInteresting timesโ
If the Church leaned in on the inevitability of death while people like Fauci were purposely trying to scare the crap out of everyone, that would not have helped!
It would have been better for them to highlight the multitude of times the Bible commands people not to give in to fear.
Youโre right that Fauci and Co were doing everything they could to terrify people, with huge success.
I suppose what I meant was: death is inevitable, but thatโs ok, because God doesnโt intend this life to be the end. That is the heart of Christianity and it would have been nice to have heard even a little bit of thatโฆ
I know a Priest who said "do not take the vaccine" and did not allow masks in the church. He signed my religious exemption. Covid showed the true colors of people. I will never forget the mask Nazis who enjoyed screaming at people to "put on your mask" and "cover your nose". Really such an awful experience.
I have to admit I felt sorry for our local priests who actually did a pretty good job given horrendous circumstances. But heroism of the kind you mention here was in short supply.
Equally, however, they were very decent about not wearing masks etc
A horrible time
Most organized religions have been hijacked by the Wokesters and the fear of upsetting them.
Can't jeopardize their non profit status.
I find it despicable! This is just one reason I would never go back to the Catholic religion. I donโt need (man made) religion, ONLY GOD!
Almost for a year you were officially exempt from attending mass on Sundays. The most ridiculous policy I have ever heard. Then mask was mandatory almost for 2 years straight. Handshake is still not advised after more than 3 years. Communion still not given directly to the mouth after 3 years.
Here avid catholics are the biggest cowards.
Your comment makes me think you might be interested in a substacker who addressed that very subject. https://douglasfarrow.substack.com/ most especially "We Are Not Innocent."
What about suppression of early treatment? Surely people should have been enthusiastic about this - it was saving lives. Of course the followers of lockdown and vaccination policy believed they helped, but the originators of the policy, who also suppressed early treatment, had agendas that were not about saving lives.
I think the near-total disinterest in treatment (if anything the opposite, i.e. decisions to overventilate in order to reduce infections among hospital staff) is one of various reasons that the motivation is better described as one of "virus eradication/suppression" rather improving health outcomes.
Early treatment suppresses the virus, giving the immune system time to ramp up and eradicate it. Early treatment is also for hospital staff so what's to fear. It was all about stoking fear and guilt, the guaranteed ways to make people compliant with anything. Even vitamin D as prophylactic was ridiculed. People were made to feel guilty for being in the sun and sterilizing air. Of course, more deaths, more fear.
Good point - people with covid dying faster on ventilators can also look justified in the saving lives paradigm.
And let's not forget the main reason Fauci and Baric have been funding and supporting gain of function all these years, saving lives.
It's hard to be curious and reasonable and take time when you're being scared, threatened by a virus monster as well as by your employer/friends/family.... When it feels like the ship might be sinking, how many will bite each other over the favored course of action? Who is marked as a leader, allegiance to whom might save you? If I ask myself to recall what my family had to say about early treatment, they would think it dangerous and misled to talk about early treatment when Fauci and Osterholm had labeled it dangerous and misleading. They attended very closely and carefully to these leader's words, and would hear what they were supposed to do. The funny thing is that I recall reading Osterholm after a family member sharing their reverent high regard for him. I found that he would state one thing, and then state another. Things like: it's not so bad. Be careful and diligent in following guidance lest you succumb to the threat. I realized that if I read it as my mother, I would would understand what he was saying and behave appropriately, adhering to guidance... But if I read it as myself, trying to lay out what he thinks and says, I would see these strange juxtapositions of conflicting messages which seemed ridiculous to me. If Osterholm had signaled, along with the other fawned upon experts, that early treatment saves lives, and thank goodness for heroes like Kory and McCullough, then my family would have said, Yes Yes... I think a value is given, like saving lives, and a kind of hypnotic focus is given to people to give proper reverence to that value. Ivรกn Illich wrote an essay about how Life has been made an idol. If you look at things through religious ways of understanding, it could yield another perspective on this.
The entire thesis of this article is summed up nicely by C S Lewis' observation that:
*Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.*
Add to this Bastiat's admonition not to focus on the seen while ignoring the unseen.
The world's Karens are fond of the argument, *if it saves one life.*
As gun rights advocates need to point out over and over, civilian disarmament always and immediately costs 50-100 lives for that "one life" you saved.
And so it was with the pandemic maniacs.
Bastiat's "unseen" are literally the consequences of policy decisions--in this case the mandates imposed without any concern for the consequences on all because it might save a life.
The "if it saves one life" admonition always struck me as, well, speaking scientifically, stupid as hell. People, unfortunately, like to simplify what should be complicated trade-offs for easy-to-repeat soundbites. If it saves one life compared to what?
Yes, the conclusions were clearly preconceived. The question then becomes: Who preconceived them? More importantly, what gave Drosten and his ilk the confidence that the authority of the "preconceivers" was strong enough that they could just push through those preconceived conclusions without hesitation? After all, lockdowns were clearly very destructive to what had until then been considered sacrosanct, namely the economy and "fiscal responsibility". Any rational person in their position would be wary of potentially being held accountable in retrospect for having wrought economic havoc, if for nothing else. They did not appear to be worried in that regard at all. Why was that?
Interesting to consider Voegelinโs view that totalitarianism always starts by banning questions it doesnโt likeโฆ
Because the whole thing was orchestrated. There's just no way otherwise everything would happen synchronously.
"The state itself, however, was playing a rather different game, one which fell (depending on the country) somewhere on a scale from โvirus suppressionโ to โvirus eradicationโ โ lives be damned."
Isn't this basically saying that the machinery of state realigned itself behind achieving an ideological end in itself, regardless of the carnage caused?
ie as we have seen many times throughout history with Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pot etc, the difference being that perhaps we had (mistakenly) assumed it needed a single tyrannical personality to take charge and drive the madness, and that it couldn't happen with the checks and balances assumed to be inherent in the modern multi-party democratic state.
I think it was Frank Zappa who wrote the words: "they said it couldn't happen here" ๐ฅธ
Well put
We need an autopsy of the response. What worked and what did not? Operation Warpspeed was a good concept but the vaccines are dangerous and did not work. Building all the field hospitals in NYC and the Navy ship was a great idea but never needed. Shutting down schools was a political tool for the teacher unions. The covid response was in the end a political tool. The COLLUSION of the dinosaur media was evidence that some was fishy.
We will
Never get an autopsy yet it is needed
Not getting an analysis of the respsonse is another *clue.*
Why aren't the foot+ long blood clots being taken out of the vaxxed being analyzed?
Why aren't there autopsies of those who died immediately after vaxxination?
Why did they approve Remdesivir to treat COVID in those who have kidney issues when it is known to cause renal failure?
The response is always *crickets*
It protected a dementia addled old man living in his basement while running for President of the United States. It also gave cover to all forms of election fraud.
Well said my friend!! ๐
There was a cartoon that captured their ethos well
Guy in mask offers a mask saying "even if it saves just one life"
The other person replies no thanks for the mask
The masked guy replies, 'well I hope you die then!'
Yes. I had pretty much this happen. My former hippy creative community was completely incensed with me not going along with lockdowns. I was told "just wait until your children die!"
LOL!!
You're too kind. It was a bunch of tin plated dictators with delusions of Godhood, drunk on their own power with at least some of them, toadies of big pharma. See:
Fauci
Collins
Birx
Hancock
Dresden
Hotez, etc etc
In a way, the trans ideology is the same with the false assumption that any child that questions their gender and isn't immediately affirmed will kill themselves. Again, painting affirmation as "Saving Lives".
Have we learned anything about pushing back against this false mantra?
It's not an assumption; it is an assertion. And the assertion to a degree fulfills itself. Think how many children learned self harm from the very helpful community who showed them what kids like them do.
Also, think about the old idea of an affirmation where you stand in front of the mirror, arrange your face, and say : "I am - - - - and today is going to be a - - - - day."
Very true.
Thankfully, people are starting to learn that "saving lives" was really damaging to children and the lives of many working people.
Not only that, this green agenda and the push for CBDC is really not directly about saving lives "now"... That's gonna be harder to sell to people.
As I was reading this most intelligent and thoughtful essay, an insistent realisation kept pressing into consciousness: I have never met anyone who has owned up to crude power-lust, whether petty/individual or on a grand-scale, without seeking to camouflage it in the fine vestments of pious intent.
It would seem to me that, if we were genuinely embedded in a truly self-correcting system of governance, its assorted parties would assiduously seek to permit differing viewpoints to be aired and to trenchantly check any concentrations of the "power-over" brigade, whatever their professed self-justifications may be, so that a reasoned course of action rooted in thoroughly-examined (and therefore properly contested) evidence might prevail.
Instead we had a breathtakingly brutish censorship regime replete with police state reprisals against any and all who expressed scepticism toward unprecedented and draconian actions, even while infection fatality rate evidence was piling up that the Great Plague was nothing of the sort. Nasty, but hardly the Black Death or the Spanish Flu.
Self-professed benevolent intent is a weak exculpation for ruinous and deadly compulsory policies, even when the 'intenders' believe in their own ostentatiously displayed (and profoundly coercive) piety sincerely.
Maybe the clue as to what's really happening is this: if 'piety' is ostentatiously proclaimed AND savagely coercive, it isn't piety. It's just power-lust in drag.
"And it is to remain blind to the fact that Saving Lives has come to mean hacking away at the limits of what can be done to men, women and children in the name of saving their lives and those of others."
This is so perfectly worded that there is little one can add as "saving lives" is the perfect excuse for all and any atrocities. You oppose doctors that want to prescribe puberty blockers to your "trans child"? Why, do you want him to be a case in a suicide statistic? Save his life, consent to puberty blockers! You do not want to freeze in winter as energy prices go up and up in the name of green energy? Why, don't you want to save the lives of future generations, you selfish climate denier?
And so on and so forth.
As you point out, Eugyppius, "Saving Lives" is just the righteous-sounding umbrella term of countless and varied individual motivations.
Thank you for this well thought out analysis
The โproblemโ I see with the pandemic was the โfollowing ordersโ mentality
Especially among the medical community (Iโm a member of that)
Doctors, nurses, etc - basically forgot everything they knew- to โfollow ordersโ - not โdo the right thingโ
Doctors and nurses KNOW that โstanding 6 ft awayโ or โwearing a cloth ( or any other) maskโ does NOTHING to stop a โvirusโ
And yet they did it
In my opinion for 3 main reasons:
1. Protect their paychecks
2. Fear (it consumed them)
3. Status quo of their profession
All 3 are shameful
But the โfollowing orders (protocol)โ
Is the most terrifying aspect
Because we have seen that before...