Note (11MAY2020): The noose tightens. The assassins affrighted but determined. The victims oblivious but cowering.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” – John Heywood (1497-1580)
tyranny n.: oppressive power exerted by government. -Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” -Lord Acton (1834-1902)
Tyranny comes in several forms, most prominently economic and political. For some time, our politicians in the District of Corruption have been tightening the economic noose around our collective necks.
The tightening accelerated after “9/11” in the name of national security although ninety percent of the cases pursued were unrelated to national security but related to income-tax. One example was repression of foreign banking accounts. In a shameless display of extraterritoriality, the government demanded detailed reports from foreign banks about all American customers even though many such banks had no presence in these United States. The threat against them was our government blocking the transfer of funds in U.S. dollars from and to those banks via the Society for Interbank Financial Telecommunication (“SWIFT”) surreptitiously controlled by these United States. Poof! Foreign banks, even U.S. banks with branches abroad, closed the accounts of “U.S. persons”. Dollars came home to be under the supervision of the American bureaucracy. Having no foreign accounts themselves, most Americans took no notice. They should have. Loss of liberty for one portends loss of liberty for all.
“Put not your trust in princes,
Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” -Psalms 146:3
Now with the onset of a plague comes a tightening of the political noose. Thus far, it has been a puny plague by historical standards although that characteristic may change with vital mutations. It, nevertheless, has been sufficient to act as a catalyst for the most egregious power-grab in our peacetime history; for example, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi operationally has usurped almost total power in that chamber for herself, sidelining all other Representatives, thereby, depriving their constituents of representation.
Meanwhile, deprivation of citizens’ individual liberties explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution has become rampant via political decrees arbitrary, capricious, and whimsical. The claim is protection of “the vulnerable”.
Who are “the vulnerable”? The enfeebled old, the chronically ill, and the constitutionally weak. In their name, governments at all levels are forfeiting the financial futures of the young, the healthy, and the strong. It would be as though the Captain of the ill-fated Titanic had placed the old into lifeboats and left the children to drown. We are not living through a video where, after pressing “Pause”, everything resumes intact after pressing “Play”. Actual behavior has actual consequences.
When the threat of the Wuhan-virus initially became apparent, even given the limited information available at the time, we ourselves posted several warnings that the nation faced two threats — the lesser from the virus, the greater from government. So it has come to pass. Were the dire warnings from so-called experts, the two most prominent being career-governmental bureaucrats, to have been valid, strict measures, indeed, might have been warranted. Their warnings proved invalid and their recommendations misguided.
As the governmental tyrants impose their wills, they continually spew false information and empty promises. The latest? The claim about remdesivir, an anti-viral drug partially effective, at best, against one of the five, known strains of Ebola-virus. The extent to which it is effective against SARS-CoV-19, the Wuhan-virus, is problematic. The politicians’ goal is not medical, however. It is political; namely, to counter the emotional demands of the populace for the government to do something. Accordingly, the government is obliging them by doing some things — wrong things.
With regard to the effectiveness of remdesivir, the initial report deemed the results disappointing. Two later studies claimed some effectiveness to the extent of decreasing the length of severe illness. Maybe! There were no control groups with which to compare the results. There is no evidence that it reduces mortality. Whatever the case, clearly this drug, laboriously administered intravenously, will not alter the ultimate course of the plague.
What about vaccines in the infliction of this tyranny? Admittedly, vaccines are marvelous when safe and effective. Those that are have improved public health immeasurably. As for a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, the claims are that one or more will be available soon. Again, maybe!
The virus for SARS, a cousin of the Wuhan virus, struck in 2003. Seventeen years later, still no vaccine; in fact, no vaccine for any coronavirus.
Vaccines are difficult to develop even with modern techniques. Magnitude and duration of immunity are vital variables. Vaccines against influenza issued annually, for example, are progressively less effective as a function of the adult recipient’s age; for those who need them the most, they do the least.
Furthermore, without adequate testing, vaccines can do huge harm. It happened in 1976 with the vaccine against influenza, which caused a dreadful, neurological side-effect — Guillain-Barré Syndrome. What is adequate testing to guarantee safety? Unknown.
In that regard, more recent is the revelation of the impending medical disaster from the vaccine against measles. As reported in The Journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, its effectiveness is short-lived; additional doses become progressively less effective, leaving the recipient vulnerable to infection. Measles in childhood is forgiving; in adults, unforgiving. The world now is facing a potential plague of measles in adults as a consequence of the politicians’ demanding the administering of a dangerous vaccine against it.
Yes, introduction of a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 likely would slow the tightening of the political noose. Given the challenges as cited, however, such an introduction is unlikely for many months at the soonest if then.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -incorrectly attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1787)
We American citizens should be learning from the economic and political tyrannies inflicted. They are evil. We should oppose them as strenuously as required.
Even though some politicians are removing current restrictions in a phased manner, they threaten, should new cases mount as they likely will, to reïnflict the restrictions. To what end? Unstated! The obvious consequence will be a collapse of the nation economically, politically, and socially. Perhaps for some, to have such mayhem is their goal.
The frightening obverse would be for these same tyrants to force everyone to submit to a hastily developed, inadequately tested vaccine. Unlike the typical movie about an epidemic, the harm could be incalculable. This is no movie!
A recent novel, Retribution Fever (2018), describes economic collapse and global plague. Aftermath? Tyranny from The Left. The novel, however, also describes is an alternative, better way than that offered by The Left — a scientific way, a way that resurrects the vision of our Founding Fathers. It presents a map for doing so — in unusual and specific detail not in the usual, vague generalities.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” -John Heywood (1497-1580)
Science can remedy politics. Shall we allow it to do so? The alternative is to persist in plodding the Path Perdition as we blindly are doing.
As citizens of a fragmenting, declining nation on fire, we Americans are standing on the bank of the River Styx, about to allow our politicians to lead us across its black waters into the netherworld from which no great nations return ever. If we Americans cross, we will return never.