Carefully Selected Quotes From The Article,
by Ye Editor
... "... If someone you loved died from COVID-19, that tragedy will affect your view of the pandemic.
If you or someone you love has been injured by a COVID-19 vaccine, that experience will influence you as well.
If your small business or job did not survive the pandemic, ditto.
Because of the pandemic’s deeply personal costs, it can be painful to engage in a candid discussion of the changes COVID-19 policies have wrought on our society.
... 1. The Dangerous Expansion of Government Power in the Name of Science
COVID-19 has been used as the rationale for an extraordinary expansion of government power in the name of science:
lengthy “lockdowns” of businesses and churches,
vaccination mandates,
government-imposed discrimination against people based on their medical choices,
government-encouraged censorship of dissenting scientific views, and more.
... even if you support each and every one of the policies adopted, you ought to be concerned by how they have been imposed.
Almost none of the policies were enacted by legislative bodies after an open public debate.
Almost all of the policies were enacted unilaterally by executive branch officials asserting emergency powers or by unelected public health officials immune from public accountability.
COVID has shown government officials how to do an end-run around the normal system of checks and balances.
They simply need to invoke “science” and declare an emergency — and then extend their emergency orders time and again.
Anyone who dares challenge the emergency orders will be stigmatized as “anti-science,” or they will be told they aren’t scientists so they have no right to be heard.
Regardless of your view of specific anti-COVID policies, policymaking during the pandemic has set a terrible precedent for the future.
The genie of unaccountable government power in the name of science has been let out of the bottle.
Will we be able to put it back in?
2. The Dramatic Rise of Censorship in the Name of Science
... We are told continuously now that “misinformation” or “disinformation” must be stopped.
... Those warning of “misinformation” seem to assume that existing elites are always right, and so they should be in charge of determining what is true or false.
But anyone conversant with the history of science or government knows that this claim can’t hold up to scrutiny.
Neither elite scientists nor government officials have a monopoly on the truth.
Truth often arises from dissenters.
That’s why we have free speech in the first place.
... the claim that speech is too dangerous to permit is always the go-to argument for totalitarians.
If they had their way, we wouldn’t have free speech about anything.
... the way to combat such misinformation is by adding speech, not suppressing it.
... instead of defending free speech, we are seeing increased demands for the censorship of disfavored speech in the name of science.
...The President and the Surgeon General are now actively pressuring journalists and tech companies to censor messages disfavored by the government.
Taxpayer-funded NPR has all but urged medical licensing boards to strip medical licenses from doctors who offer dissenting opinions about COVID and its treatments.
According to the Washington Post, the former head of the NIH, Francis Collins, believes we should “identify those who are purposefully spreading false information online and bring them to justice.”
The CEO of Pfizer has branded those circulating criticisms of his company’s vaccines as “criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives.”
... Lost in current debates is the fact that much so-called “misinformation” targeted for suppression actually represents legitimate differences of opinion held by scientists and policy experts.
Other pieces of so-called “misinformation” are in reality true facts that those in charge would rather not be forced to address.
For example, it is fact, not fiction, that the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has had (far) more adverse reaction reports filed for the COVID-19 vaccines than for any other vaccine since VAERS started collecting data in 1990.
... Yet if you spend much time discussing VAERS in social media or on YouTube, you are likely to be banned.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) is one the world’s oldest medical journals, published by the British Medical Association.
That didn’t stop Facebook from limiting Facebook users’ ability to share an article from the medical journal last fall because of a disputed “fact check.”
The offending article, which was peer-reviewed, raised questions about “poor clinical trial research practices at… a contract research company helping carry out the main Pfizer covid-19 vaccine trial.”
... Tech companies are now blocking citizen access to their elected officials’ statements and deliberations about science and public policy.
Public officials are being banned or suspended by Twitter and/or Facebook for voicing their views.
... hearings and expert panels convened by U.S. Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin have been repeatedly censored by YouTube because they featured scientists and experts who offer evidence-based critiques of current COVID policies.
... The real goal appears to be the elimination of dissenting scientific opinions and analysis, no matter how well substantiated.
3. Mass Dehumanization in the Name of Science
... The issue is how we treat sincere and decent people who make different medical choices than we would.
Following past abuses of medical science in Nazi Germany and America, there developed strong support for a person’s right to determine what medical treatments he or she receives.
This was regarded as a fundamental human right. In less than two years, the COVID pandemic has obliterated that cultural consensus.
... Fellow citizens who choose not to be vaccinated are being branded “narcissists,” “child abusers” and “parasites.”
They are accused of “killing off their fellow citizens.”
They are denounced as “dangerous” people “from poorer or less educated parts of society.”
... The Prime Minister of Canada has called them “misogynistic and racist.”
A New York newspaper derides them as low in IQ.
... The president of France claims the unvaccinated are not even citizens.
... The closest analogue I can find to anything like this goes back to the social Darwinist eugenics movement in the early 20th century,
where eugenists like Margaret Sanger succeeded in invoking science to sterilize people they similarly labeled “parasites,” “leeches,” “cancerous growths,” ...
Sadly, too many religious leaders have been silent about the current demonization, or worse, they have been complicit.
... This kind of rhetoric against others has cruel real-world consequences.
Unvaccinated people are losing their jobs and their livelihoods, often by government decree.
They are being denied unemployment benefits — benefits they paid for through their payroll taxes.
Doctors have announced that they will not serve unvaccinated people, and unvaccinated patients are being denied life-saving organ transplants.
... Judges have tried to deny child visitation rights to parents who are not vaccinated.
In many jurisdictions, healthy unvaccinated people are now banned from stores, theaters, and sporting events.
In Canada, one province even authorized grocery stores to ban the unvaccinated, only relenting after a massive backlash.
Just ponder for a moment the type of mindset someone must have to authorize the denial of access to food.
... The editorial board of the Salt Lake City Tribune opined recently that the government should “deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”
In Quebec, a television talk show featured children promoting more authoritarianism.
“What should we do with the people who don’t want the vaccine?” the host asks the children.
“We should call the police!” says a young boy.
According to a nationwide survey earlier this month in the United States, ... Nearly 60 percent “would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Almost 50 percent “think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.”
Nearly the same amount “favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.”
With Civilization in Crisis, Here Is What You Can Do
These repressive measures are justified in the name of “the science.”
But are they really based on science?
... Our civilization is in crisis right now — a crisis tied to an abusive view of science.
As Ronald Reagan said in his First Inaugural Address,
“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”
... When you hear a friend or colleague demonizing others for being unvaccinated, call them out on their dehumanization of others.
When you hear people advocating suppression of “misinformation” in the name of science, advocate for free speech — and share some true scientific information that is being suppressed.
When local government officials push increasingly repressive measures, let them know you strongly oppose those measures and why."
