The time has ended, according to our infinitely compassionate overlords, for using the carrot. It has been decided that “for the greater good,” a stick will be needed to make the insubordinate masses finally comply.
In lockstep, a wave of states, companies, and public institutions have decided that coercion, aka mandating proof of vaccination, is the only way left to “get shots in arms.”
I want to ask our officials, “why now?”
Each year hundreds of thousands die from obesity-driven illnesses like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Hundreds of thousands of us die from smoking too. According to the CDC, “Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year.” Given that we’ve seen roughly 600,000 die over an 18-month period, COVID and cigarette smoking kill roughly the same amount of people over a 12 month period.
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Shouldn’t the government, if its sole purpose were, in fact, “public safety” and to “save lives” as it claims now, outright and aggressively ban smoking? Deaths from heart disease, diabetes, and smoking kill far more than COVID-19.
So, now I ask you, my fellow citizens, “why now?”
If we as a “free people” accept such extreme 1984-esque controls over our lives, why are we only now accepting such an extreme policy? One that will save relatively few lives compared to other less extreme measures that would save far more.
The cold hard truth is that creating a segregated society over-vaccination status is far less effective for achieving the goal of saving lives than instead accepting some unwanted market controls over the use of corn syrup and the proliferation of alcohol and cigarettes. These vices alone kill far more than any variant of COVID-19 likely ever will and make the population more susceptible to transmitting and dying from future illnesses, including new flu strains.
According to a recent UK study with nearly 90,000 participants, 0 people died under 50 from the Delta variant. That’s right, 0%.
Only .001% of those over 50 who were vaccinated died. Given the extraordinarily small likelihood of the vaccinated dying from COIVD, why must the unvaccinated be forced to be vaccinated?
300,000 of our fellow Americans die from obesity-related illnesses every year. COVID-19 will cease to be as lethal as the populace builds antibodies artificially or naturally. In fact, obesity is largely the reason why strains of COVID-19 have been so lethal for our populace. A supermajority of mortality is among people who are obese or have type two diabetes, which in of itself is severely exacerbated by obesity.
I propose that we in society should fear something else far more than the ongoing spread of the disease, and that is the far more lethal prospect of our government having unlimited control over our lives.
I will remind you, historically, governments with unlimited power during never-ending “crises” have killed tens of millions of people, often within a few short years when the world population was half its current size. That would likely be one hundred million people today if the same totalitarian slaughter were repeated today.
The 600,000 poor souls who lost their lives over 18 months who tragically died from COVID-19 pale in comparison to the unchecked human slaughterhouses that unlimitedly centrally controlled and planned societies inevitably create.
If the government has the authority to determine whether you may eat, it also necessarily has the unbridled power to determine whether you live or die.
The average citizen can’t go and start a successful farm on a whim. Americans are inherently reliant on their tax dollar subsided grocers.
Some are even blatantly calling for their fellow man to die.
Many pundits domestically are now calling for denial of medical care for those who do not wish to be vaccinated who present with a positive PCR test. This segregation, if left unchecked, will be lethal for the unvaccinated caste.
Sadly, this wave of “new” controls over our lives and livelihoods are not dissimilar from the demands forced upon the often-complacent people of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Those societies too abided by an unprecedented and indefinite onslaught of new controls over their lives like unending curfews, lockdowns, the acceptance of the arrest of peaceful protestors (now called “anarchists” in Australia), and a never-ending cascade of revocations of every human liberty.
The Nazis, too, created a caste system where those with a yellow star could not access basic services.
Today, we mark our star athletes with yellow wristbands and increasingly our fellow citizens with digital passports. In the Soviet Union, the kulaks were slaughtered, segregated, and starved by the hundreds of thousands as “enemies of the people.” The capacity for the mob and government to kill is just as concerning as any virus.
In Nazi Germany, the Jews were also seen as a threat to “public health.” Today, our unvaccinated citizens are being portrayed as heartless sociopaths by the media, just like the Nazi press did the Jews in the 1930s. This propaganda is only the beginning of the dehumanization process of a substantial portion of our society. Creating visibly segregated people who are despised by society has always ended in death.
Something that is also eerily familiar is that our largest corporations act in lockstep with our government. Few remember that the Nazis too were aided and abetted by large corporations who acted as a de facto arm of the government. Economic fascism is not too dissimilar from today’s corporate oligarchy.
For those of you wondering what you would do if you were to live in Nazi Germany, your chance to find out is coming soon.
Will you, an American citizen and the progeny of freedom-loving immigrants, accept government indefinitely segregating a substantial minority of the populace that refuses to comply?
Will you tolerate your fellow man being denied the ability to work or eat?
I question how many who currently give lip service to these mandates have truly considered the immense consequences that these policies will doubtlessly have.
Even when all these coercive methods are used to force your fellow man into compliance, 10% or more will likely remain unvaccinated. What then? Will you have the government kill them or make them a perpetual class of “untouchables”?
How far are you as an American citizen willing to go to achieve vaccine compliance?
These Recent events remind me of Niemöller’s infamous quote
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Now, replace the names of the groups in question, and the result is always the same:
“First, they came for the unvaccinated, and I did not speak out—because I was vaccinated.
Then they came for their jobs, and I did not speak out—because I was still employed.
Then they came for the dissidents, and I did not speak out—because I was not a dissident.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The choice is yours.
*With deepest apologies, the original author’s name was lost somewhere between receipt and publication. If they would like attribution please email me again with the original op-ed and I will correct the byline.