The Question No Pro-Lockdown Person Will Answer
What is your position on the lockdowns? When should they end? Now before you respond, please to be aware that there is a 99% chance that your response is going to fall into the same conversational structure that I've had probably a hundred times already. The structure goes like this: Me: When should the lockdown end? Them: When it's safe. Me: What does safe mean? Them: When there's a low enough chance of catching the virus. Or when we have enough tests. Or when we've got it under control. Me: What is low enough? How many tests are enough? What does "under control" look like? Is there a list of criteria for defining these terms? Them: It's up to the scientists. When the scientists say so. Me: Which scientists? Them: Doctors, stupid! Me: Which doctors? Them: Epidemiologists, you idiot! Me: Which epidemiologists? Them: We're just going around in circles, and you sound like you're 5 years old. Me: No, we're not going in circles. You haven't answered my question yet. You haven't told me which people you want to make this extremely important policy decision. Which epidemiologists? And then at this point, they stop talking. Precisely at this point. Not before - and not after. Exactly at this point. Every single time. Invariably. Usually they block me outright. Often, they do so after hurling insults at me. NOBODY is willing to answer this question. I have not gotten a SINGLE answer to this question, despite asking DOZENS (now approaching HUNDREDS) of people. A few people did say that "the governors" should make the call. But the problem is, the governors are not epidemiologists. The governors have to get information FROM epidemiologists. Right? So we're right back at square one:
WHICH epidemiologists? Don't wave the question off. It's an extremely important question, because we're dealing with an enormous amount of power. This is the power, literally, to decide whether we have a society or not. To decide whether we can work, go to school, go hiking, swimming, exercising - whether we can even leave our homes at all, without fearing that police will descend on us. This is the power to determine whether the economy crashes, leading to the destitution and starvation of millions of people. We've given the governors of each state - and the presidents of countries - the power of dictators. "Emergency Powers", folks. The power to RULE BY DECREE. These are the powers granted to Chancellor Palpatine, and, a long time later, in a galaxy far away, Chancellor Hitler. This is how both men seized their infamous powers. They told their people there was "danger", and "only I can keep you SAFE", and "only if you give me absolute power."
This is what governors, mayors, and presidents across the world, are doing. Right now. And no one who supports these powers will tell me when they ought to expire. In past dictatorships, like those of Palpatine and Hitler, the Emergency Powers were promised as "temporary." But nobody knew (or cared) what "temporary" actually meant. Neither does anybody now. They all assure me it's "temporary", yet they won't tell me when it's supposed to end. All they say is "it will end when The Authorities say so." And when I ask, "Who are these Authorities?", they categorically refuse to answer. And block me, so that I can't even continue pressing the question. Does this scare anybody? Now, I imagine that if If I had a captive debate partner - someone who HAS TO continue to discuss the issue, and can't ignore me, and can't run away - (perhaps I've got them tied up) - and I can literally DRAG an answer out of them - I suppose they would start tossing out some random names of famous doctors - like Anthony Fauci - and agencies, like the CDC and the W.H.O. and perhaps a few others. And they'd say, "Those are the ones. When those doctors and/or agencies say it's time to end the lockdowns, then we'll end the lockdowns."
OK, but is there a formal process for this? What if they disagree with each other? What if the CDC says one thing, and the WHO says another? What if Dr. Fauci says one thing, but other prominent epidemiologists say something else? Which person/agency overrules the others? Should it be by vote? If so, which agencies get to vote on it? Should there be some sort of "Congress" or "Assembly" of epidemiologists? Of course, there will be zero answers to these questions. This is a completely arbitrary and ad-hoc governing system, based upon nothing. You can't govern this way. You can't govern by dictate, especially when nobody even agrees on who the dictator is. Who IS our dictator, anyway? Is it Fauci? Is it Tedros? Is it Bill Gates? Who actually gets to make this pronouncement?
Which un-elected bureaucrat gets to decide whether Human Society gets to exist again? And I suppose, if I kept my captive audience tied up for long enough, and they started getting hungry and scared, I could drag the final answer out of them. And that final answer would be very simple: The television. That's the ultimate answer. The television gets to decide.
There are a lot of epidemiologists in this world, and they all have differing opinions on this subject. But the key difference is: Not all of them get invited on TV. In fact, very FEW of them get invited on TV. And THAT is how we decide. THAT is the answer to the question of "Which epidemiologists."
Which epidemiologists?
The ones who get invited on TV. When the ones on TV tell us we can end the lockdown, that's when. But of course, TV is not a metaphysical property of the universe. It's not a fundamental force. It was not present from the Big Bang, nor the condensation of energy into atoms, nor the formation of our galaxy, star, or planet. TV is not an aspect of Nature.
TV is a device, built by humans. And TV studios are also devices, built by humans. And the question of "Who gets invited into TV studios to be filmed for TV" is not decided by God, Goddess, or any supernatural entity with an intrinsic loyalty to truth and objectivity. It's decided by people. The people who own the studios. And the people who own the broadcast networks. Those are the people who decide. The decision is not made in Heaven - it's made in corporate boardrooms.
And there are only SIX of them. We know that there are 6 corporations that control 99% of all media in America.
So if you believe (as everyone secretly seems to) that the lockdowns should end only when decreed by the specific sub-set of epidemiologists who have been selected by the owners of the 6 media monopolies, you're effectively saying that the owners of the 6 media monopolies are the entities who should ultimately decide when we come out of lockdown. This is an absolutely STAGGERING amount of power in the hands of the media monopolies. An amount that is orders of magnitude greater than any amount we've previously granted them. (And we have granted them quite a lot, over the years). I've been watching all of my liberal, progressive, lefty (whatever you want to call them at this point) friends criticize and decry the corporate media for years. We watched them lie to us about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq, and we just got treated to an orgy of egregious bias against Bernie Sanders (and other progressive down-ticket candidates) in the 2016 and 2020 Primaries. We all KNOW that these corporations are run by scoundrels who don't care one iota about our well-being, or about the truth.
Yet, in the past several weeks, I've witnessed these very same people succumb to what I can only describe as a mass-schizophrenic personality-split. Their egos have become divided, with one half knowing how corrupt the corporate media is, but only the OTHER half being permitted to talk to me. It's like they've completely forgotten EVERYTHING they know, as soon as a new scary bogeyman came along.
All the media needed to do was utter one word: DANGER. And as soon as they said it, everyone completely forgot every experience they've ever been through, and rallied in lock-step behind "Authority" (the "authority" of the owners of the TV networks, that is). This was, of course, by design. We've seen this movie before. It was called "9/11." And the exact same thing happened then: The media told us to be afraid, and we obeyed. And once we were afraid, we completely lost our minds. We lost the ability to even think rationally. We accepted every "solution" the government offered us, without question. We silenced anyone with a dissenting opinion.
We were led toward a series of terrible decisions (the Afghan invasion, the Patriot Act, the Iraq invasion - all promised as "temporary", by the way!) which were presented as ways to keep us "SAFE", but had absolutely NOTHING to do with safety. Their only purpose was to confiscate our rights and freedoms, expand the power of government to grotesque new levels, and launch a new wave of imperial murder across the Middle East.
Yet, if anyone pointed this out, they were accused of "not caring about the people who died in the towers." It didn't matter if we were pointing out why President Bush's "solutions" were counterproductive, and utterly the wrong way to deal with "terrorism", and would actually create MORE terrorism. No, that didn't matter. We were accused of "wanting more terrorism", and "not caring about the victims."
And now, in the COVID-19 situation, if we question the Official Authorities or their Official Solutions, we are being told that we "don't care about the people who are dying in the hospitals." The same insanity has repeated itself. We have been presented with a new "danger", and the only "solutions" being offered from the TV involve a previously INCONCEIVABLE expansion of government power. We're being told that we have to remain in our homes, under pain of punishment. We're being told that the government should track our whereabouts, via our phones, to "contact-trace." We're being forced to wear coffee-filters over our faces whenever we appear in public, and to breathe in our own carbon dioxide with each breath. We're watching the preliminary formation of Medical Police forces.
We're being told to prepare for those Medical Police to enter our homes and forcefully remove those suspected of being sick, to drag them off to internment.
We're being told to prepare for mandatory vaccines, which will be required for the issuance of "Immunity Passports", which will, in turn, be required to "re-enter society." We're being told that we'll need PAPERS to leave our houses. PAPERS.
And the most shocking thing of all is the fact that it's the LEFT who are the most ardent supporters of all this. They've fallen COMPLETELY for it. They're cheering for every brazen display of brute force by egomaniacal governors and mayors who have declared themselves dictators. ("Temporary" ones. Don't worry.) Some are even calling for "summary executions" of anti-vaxxers, and aerial drone strikes (like the kind in Afghanistan) against anti-lockdown protesters.
They're calling protesters "terrorists."
I remember being called a "terrorist sympathizer" for marching against the Iraq war. The Left has become the authoritarian Right. Let me ask you one more question, folks. Rewind to 2016, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were fighting for the Whitehouse. Back then, we were told that Trump was an existential threat to our Republic, because he would... quote... "Become A Dictator." Unquote.
He would "suspend the Constitution." He would "rule by decree." He would "establish martial law." Remember that? Now imagine getting in a time machine, and traveling back to 2016, and telling your 2016 self about what was going to happen in 2020. Indeed, there would be martial law. Indeed, there would be dictatorship. But it wouldn't be Trump doing it. It would be the 50 governors doing it. Especially he BLUE ones. And the (BLUE) mayors of Americas big (BLUE) cities doing it. And Trump, for his part, would be *resisting* it. And the Lefties would BEG Trump to declare martial law. And Trump would say no. And then they'd DEMAND that he declare martial law. And he'd still say no. And they'd shame him and hate him for it. For REFUSING to declare martial law. And his Attorney General would affirm support for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - and would actually threaten *legal action* against the governors and mayors who violate citizens' Constitutional rights. Imagine if you could tell your 2016 self that Trump, and his administration, would be the sole island of Liberty in a sea of authoritarianism, and all of his OPPONENTS would be the authoritarians. How upside-down is this? What would your 2016 self say? Oh, and by the way... Which epidemiologists?