Beautifully said. The medicalization of social issues is such a dangerous Trojan horse. This was, ironically, well laid out by Foucault (In Discipline and Punishment I believe). Its a bait and switch since we all must support "public health," and absurd concept in itself, and then all you have to do is find some negative "health outcomes" from any social configuration and voila, it's a public health issue!! And from there we can flood in public spending, write laws, and make "emergencies" to disregard any rights you thought you had. And if we find "disparate outcomes" in race, gender, age, etc., then we have a racist, etc health emergency.
Leviathan government establishing a stake in the health of the individual opens the door to all manner of egalitarian madness. The idea of some public intellectual bureaucrat like Fauci simply having Rand Paul declared mentally unwell for questioning his rhetoric, is honey on the lips of many of our “countrymen.”
Excellent piece Thomas. We’ve just had a Federal election here in Australia. The city I live in, Melbourne, had the world’s longest Covid lockdown, the worst brutality and vaccine mandates enforced by trade unions which make it pretty much impossible to work unvaxxed (I’m unvaxxed). Guess what political parties people voted for last Saturday? The parties that support lockdowns, police brutality and medical tyranny…The added ingredient was the rise of independents who support net zero and are backed by the Climate200 group. We even had ‘fortification’ of the election…which is being ignored by the msm of course. The elites may be wobbling, but I think they have never been more dangerous…climate change abuse will be the next level of abuse dished out here…
The big takeaway from the COVID hysteria is that the "big C" Constitution is utterly powerless as a guarantor of rights. After all, where in the document does it say that private businesses cannot enforce the biomedical security state? Private actors can do whatever they want, donchaknow? Furthermore, where does it say that we can't pass public health laws? How is a COVID passport any different than drunk driving laws?
I am not asking these questions sarcastically. Go ahead and craft a ConLaw argument as to why private businesses should not be able to enforce mask mandates or vaxx mandates. I'll wait. While you stumble over "penumbras of the Bill of Rights" or quaint concepts like "substantive due process" and "equal treatment," keep in mind that rule by judicial fiat is only an option when the judicial/elite class actually agrees with you. Furthermore, as the above article indicates, our entire legal system is predicated on the ideal of harm reduction, not antiquated and RACIST concepts such as individual liberty, etc.
There was a recent post by Richard Hanania that admits as much, wherein he crafts an argument against mask mandates using--wait for it--Civil Rights laws. The argument is not worth summarizing; you can probably guess the contours without reading his post (note: I like Hanania). The problem is, if you are a white COVID dissident, the Civil Rights regime is there to fuck you, not to allow you to circumvent whatever diktats you find oppressive.
It may seem silly, especially to Constitution worshippers, to suggest that we would need Amendments to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, but that is what it would take: explicit text in the Constitution itself such as "The State shall not predicate full participation in society upon compliance with public health measures," and "The State shall not engage in public private relationships to circumvent the 1st or 4th Amendment or the biomedical security prohibitions". The unseriousness of this proposal leads me to believe that a reactionary dictatorship is a more plausible solution to achieve these same ends. Neither scenario strikes me as particularly likely. I foresee instead a continuation of the SAFETY FIRST! regime until a sufficiently horrible exogenous shock displaces it, which will likely suck enough for everyone that the ends will certainly NOT justify the means.
Beautifully said. The medicalization of social issues is such a dangerous Trojan horse. This was, ironically, well laid out by Foucault (In Discipline and Punishment I believe). Its a bait and switch since we all must support "public health," and absurd concept in itself, and then all you have to do is find some negative "health outcomes" from any social configuration and voila, it's a public health issue!! And from there we can flood in public spending, write laws, and make "emergencies" to disregard any rights you thought you had. And if we find "disparate outcomes" in race, gender, age, etc., then we have a racist, etc health emergency.
Spot on. I wonder how much of this Musk understands.
Leviathan government establishing a stake in the health of the individual opens the door to all manner of egalitarian madness. The idea of some public intellectual bureaucrat like Fauci simply having Rand Paul declared mentally unwell for questioning his rhetoric, is honey on the lips of many of our “countrymen.”
Excellent piece Thomas. We’ve just had a Federal election here in Australia. The city I live in, Melbourne, had the world’s longest Covid lockdown, the worst brutality and vaccine mandates enforced by trade unions which make it pretty much impossible to work unvaxxed (I’m unvaxxed). Guess what political parties people voted for last Saturday? The parties that support lockdowns, police brutality and medical tyranny…The added ingredient was the rise of independents who support net zero and are backed by the Climate200 group. We even had ‘fortification’ of the election…which is being ignored by the msm of course. The elites may be wobbling, but I think they have never been more dangerous…climate change abuse will be the next level of abuse dished out here…
Who/whom
The big takeaway from the COVID hysteria is that the "big C" Constitution is utterly powerless as a guarantor of rights. After all, where in the document does it say that private businesses cannot enforce the biomedical security state? Private actors can do whatever they want, donchaknow? Furthermore, where does it say that we can't pass public health laws? How is a COVID passport any different than drunk driving laws?
I am not asking these questions sarcastically. Go ahead and craft a ConLaw argument as to why private businesses should not be able to enforce mask mandates or vaxx mandates. I'll wait. While you stumble over "penumbras of the Bill of Rights" or quaint concepts like "substantive due process" and "equal treatment," keep in mind that rule by judicial fiat is only an option when the judicial/elite class actually agrees with you. Furthermore, as the above article indicates, our entire legal system is predicated on the ideal of harm reduction, not antiquated and RACIST concepts such as individual liberty, etc.
There was a recent post by Richard Hanania that admits as much, wherein he crafts an argument against mask mandates using--wait for it--Civil Rights laws. The argument is not worth summarizing; you can probably guess the contours without reading his post (note: I like Hanania). The problem is, if you are a white COVID dissident, the Civil Rights regime is there to fuck you, not to allow you to circumvent whatever diktats you find oppressive.
It may seem silly, especially to Constitution worshippers, to suggest that we would need Amendments to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, but that is what it would take: explicit text in the Constitution itself such as "The State shall not predicate full participation in society upon compliance with public health measures," and "The State shall not engage in public private relationships to circumvent the 1st or 4th Amendment or the biomedical security prohibitions". The unseriousness of this proposal leads me to believe that a reactionary dictatorship is a more plausible solution to achieve these same ends. Neither scenario strikes me as particularly likely. I foresee instead a continuation of the SAFETY FIRST! regime until a sufficiently horrible exogenous shock displaces it, which will likely suck enough for everyone that the ends will certainly NOT justify the means.